Black Soldiers Are The True Patriots

Not specifically about the Civil War, but it must be read.

From the Seattle Medium: Black Soldiers Are The True Patriots

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – It was about time. More than 60 years after 20,000 African-American men donned United States Marine Corps uniforms and trained at the legendary Montford Point Marine Corps facility in Jacksonville, N.C., the United States government celebrated them for their service with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor.

“It’s a long time coming,” said retired Sgt. Ruben McNair, 86, during an interview with ABC News in Washington, D.C. after the House passed a resolution last year honoring the Montford Point Marines. “Something you look forward to, wonder if you are going to make it to live long enough to see it.”

More than 400 of the surviving marines and their families showed up in Washington recently for the ceremony. Some walked with canes others rolled in wheel chairs, all of them marching out of a shadowed history of the armed services and a time when Black men were still considered second-class citizens, denied the opportunity to serve as commissioned officers, and unceremoniously discouraged from re-enlisting.

The young men that flowed through the segregated Montford Point camp just outside of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, renamed Camp Gilbert H. Johnson in 1974, from 1942-1949 endured mosquito-ridden barracks, shoddy latrines that harbored swamp snakes and unsanitary mess hall conditions. Health care on the base was even worst, consisting of an all-purpose vitamin and brown syrup, mixed with mineral oil and castor oil.

Staph infections and salmonella plagued the Montford Point Marines for years. They suffered indignities at the hands of superior officers who often saw training Negroes to fight as a waste of time at best and dangerous at worst. Yet, historians say that those first Black marines of the 20th century knew that they suffered and sacrificed for more than proving their mettle in combat in foreign conflicts. They also saw the value in gaining skills that would make them more effective leaders in their communities.

“[The Montford Point Marines] still understood the importance of defeating fascism abroad and by doing this thing they would be better prepared to deal with racism at home,” said Hari Jones assistant director and curator of the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum. Jones said that their fight wasn’t just about one war. It was also about civil rights and making a better way of life for Blacks in America.

Although Jones, a former marine himself, cherishes the recent ceremony in Washington honoring the Montford Point veterans, he’s saddened that the United States Marine Corps fails to tell the whole story.

“With the Marine Corps, the most disappointing thing is whenever they talk about the first African-American marines they leave out the African-Americans that served in the Continental Marine Corps and that disappoints me,” Jones said.

But telling that story is more complicated.

Blacks participated in every single armed conflict dating back to their service in the Continental Marine Corps during the Revolutionary War. John Martin, the first known Black Marine, served on the USS Reprisal from April 1776 to October 1777, engaging in hard scrabble ship-to-ship fighting with the British fleet until the brig sank and his entire Marine platoon perished.

Although more than a dozen Blacks were identified in their service, historians estimate that many more took up arms, the final toll lost to records that often didn’t include race. The Continental Marine Corps disbanded in 1783. In 1798 when the U.S. government re-established the United States Marine Corps, it barred Blacks and Native Americans from enlisting.

“Telling the story of how African Americans were later forced out of the Marine Corps and let back in is just not a story that they have chosen to tell and that’s disappointing because we know that they were there,” Jones said.

Not only were African Americans there, they showed their valor in significant numbers at every opportunity, fighting and dying for the ideals of a young nation.

After suffering heavy losses during the first year of the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army lifted the ban on Black soldiers with help from Congress. Black sailors accounted for 15-20 percent of all enlisted men in the United States Navy.

During the American Civil War, when African Americans accounted for 1 percent of the northern population, they made up 10 percent of the Union Army and 15 percent of the Navy. Black soldiers earned 25 Medals of Honor for their indispensable service and bravery during the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that, “Without the military help of the Black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.”

Fifty years later, as the United States prepared to go to war with Germany for the first time, the U.S. government would again turn away from the descendants of those “freedmen” that helped to preserve the Union. It didn’t take long for the U.S. military to realize that their mission was doomed to fail if they excluded African-Americans from their war efforts abroad.

Even as young, patriotic African-Americans crowded into U.S. military recruitment centers to bolster those war efforts, their eagerness and patriotism was often met with disdain.

General John “Black Jack” Pershing, often considered a mentor to World War II generals such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, George C. Marshall and George S. Patton, displayed this contempt for Black soldiers in a secret communiqué to French military in August 1918:

“We must not eat with them, must not shake hands with them, seek to talk to them or to meet with them outside the requirements of military service. We must not commend too highly these troops, especially in front of white Americans…”

American generals with roots in the South, including LTG Robert Bullard, commander of the American Second Army, were so adamant in their resistance to arming Black soldiers and employing them in combat on the frontlines that they sabotaged all-Black units such as the 92d Division with inadequate training, reduced their successes to rumor while holding their failures on the battlefield under a microscope.

Jones said that the efforts of some high-ranking U.S. military officers to disparage Black soldiers lasted for decades in a concerted effort to limit the combat training they received for fear of giving Blacks the tools and the know-how to fend off violent racist attacks at home.

“If I teach you how to use a weapon, if I teach you how to plan a defense, it’s going to be very difficult for the Klan to do what they’re doing,” Jones said.

According to records compiled by what was then known as Tuskegee Institute, 161 Blacks were lynched in 1892. In 1909, the year the NAACP was established largely to outlaw lynching and to agitate for racial equality, 69 Blacks were lynched.

Black soldiers leaving and returning home were not exempted from that venom; some were spat on as they boarded ships to Europe. Dozens of Black war veterans were lynched, some while wearing their military uniform.

Still, Blacks continued to enlist in droves donning that same uniform bloodied by foreign and domestic strife, to fight for the ideals of a country that failed to fully recognize their sacrifices.

It took two executive orders, Executive Order 8802 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 and Executive Order 9981 signed by Harry S. Truman in 1948, and the Korean War before the armed services fully integrated.

Jones said that Montford Point Marines and those who served in wars before them and after are the true American patriots who fought and died to hold the United States to the highest goals of the Declaration of Independence and the goals of the Constitution.

“The African-American patriots, despite being discriminated against, despite the spirit that would degrade them, they would rise superior to it,” Jones said. “They would become true patriots working for the ideal of the American dream when it wasn’t even real.”

JHS 100 years: Jamestowners in the Civil War

From  Jamestown Press:  JHS 100 years: Jamestowners in the Civil War

The conflict that took place in the United States between 1861 and 1865 is known by many names: the American Civil War; the War Between the States; the War of Northern Aggression, as some in the seceding states still call it; and the War for the Suppression of Rebellion and the Preservation of Constitutional Liberty, as it is called in the certificates of appreciation issued to returning Rhode Island servicemen. By whatever name, it was the bloodiest war in the history of the country. According to some calculations, almost 2 percent of the people living in the country died as a direct or indirect result of military actions.

The roster of Jamestown men in the Union army issued by the Rhode Island secretary of state in 2002 lists 15 names – about 4 percent of the island’s 400 residents – although more men actually served, many of them enrolling in other towns so that their place of residence was not recorded.
Capt. Isaac Barker Howland served in the 11th Rhode Island Infantry in the Civil War. Although Howland was born in Jamestown, he signed up from East Greenwich. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE JAMESTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY They served in several different regiments. Two men died in uniform and one received a medical discharge.

Two Jamestown men served in the 2nd Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers, organized in June 1861 in response to the first call for troops to serve three years or for the duration of the war. The regiment fired the opening volley at the first Battle of Bull Run, was in line at the final scenes of Appomattox, and fought in most major engagements of the Army of the Potomac.

Jamestowners William A. Arnold and Thomas Wilson Dorr Lewis enrolled in this dedicated fighting unit. Arnold died of an unknown illness in an Army facility a year after enlisting. Lewis served his three-year term and reenlisted. He was promoted to corporal, then sergeant, then first sergeant after being slightly wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. When the regiment was disbanded July 13, 1865, having lost nine officers and 111 men in action, plus two officers and 74 men dead of diseases, Lewis was still there.
After the war, Lewis lived in Providence near his mother and siblings.

When the 4th Regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers was created in August 1861 – again with a three-year term of enlistment or until the end of the war – two Jamestowners answered the call: Daniel Webster Weeden and John W. Williams.

While we have been unable to uncover much information about them, Weeden and Williams may have been close friends. Both enlisted on the same day in Newport. Each re-enlisted when his three-year stint was up. Both were wounded in action in Petersburg, Va., on July 30, 1864, and both were mustered out the same day at the end of the war.

The only thing that distinguishes one service record from the other is that Weeden was promoted to corporal after his re-enlistment. He later lived in Newport.

As the war continued, the number of committed volunteers decreased as the need for soldiers rose. In the fall of 1862, enlistment in two Rhode Island regiments with only nine-month terms of service was aggressively promoted. Several things came together to make the promotion successful. Gen. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign had been a disaster, increasing both fears and loyalty. A signing bounty was offered as a way to avoid the need for a draft. The short term of service attracted those who wanted to avoid the longer service that might be required if – or when – a draft was instituted.
The 11th Rhode Island Infantry commenced recruiting early in September and left for the front on Oct. 6, with one Jamestown recruit, Isaac Barker Howland, who, although born in Jamestown, signed up from East Greenwich.

The 12th started recruiting in late September. Five young Jamestown men volunteered: William H.H. Brown, John Tew Carr, Alfred G. Hull, Henry Morris Hull, and Martin V.B. Knowles. They were mustered in on Oct. 13 and left for the front only eight days later on Oct. 21.

Not all of the 12th boarded the train on Oct. 21. It had been generally understood that the volunteers were to receive their signing bounty before leaving Rhode Island, and the enlistees of the 11th had received theirs. However, a number of them had taken the money and disappeared. The state decided to postpone the payment of the bounty due to the 12th until after the men arrived at the front. Some enlistees took exception to the change: they were quickly rounded up and rejoined the regiment in Washington, D.C.
All the Jamestown recruits served their nine months without incident, although two of them – John Carr and Henry Hull – spent more time in the hospital than in the field.

Allen Gardiner was a sergeant in the 1st Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery from March 1862 until May 1864 when he resigned to accept an appointment in the United States Colored Troops. The USCT were regiments of the U.S. Army that consisted of African Americans but were commanded primarily by white officers.

Gustavus Adolphus Clark enlisted in the Rhode Island militia for three months only five days after the attack on Fort Sumter, and after his service returned to Jamestown where he lived until his death in 1916. Whitman Dawley and Charles H. Grinnell both joined the 1st Regiment Rhode Island Cavalry in December 1861 and were honorably discharged after completing their service. Charles W. Gardiner died of typhoid fever in August 1863 after one year in the 7th Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers.

Jamestowner Charles E. King enlisted as an ensign in the Navy in 1864 when he was only 16. Daniel Watson, who later became an important real-estate developer in Jamestown, served as hospital steward on several vessels in the fleet that blockaded the southern ports. It is unknown how many other men from Jamestown served at sea.
This is the 12th in a series of articles chronicling the history of Jamestown in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Jamestown Historical Society

 

American Civil War Veterans shake hands, 1913

From Retronaut: American Civil War Veterans shake hands, 1913


“The 1913 Gettysburg reunion of 53,407 American Civil War veterans was for the Battle of Gettysburg’s 50th anniversary. President Woodrow Wilson’s July 4 reunion address summarized the spirit: “We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valour.”“
- Wikipedia

 

Book review: Shaara returns to the Civil War with 'A Blaze of Glory'

From Deseret News:  Book review: Shaara returns to the Civil War with 'A Blaze of Glory'

"A BLAZE OF GLORY: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh," by Jeff Shaara, Ballantine Books, $28, 464 pages (f)

Jeff Shaara is perhaps best known for his novels “Gods and Generals” (1996) and “The Last Full Measure” (1998), which were the bookends to his father Michael Shaara's 1974 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel of the Battle of Gettysburg, “The Killer Angels.”

Shaara went on to write novels set in the Mexican-American War, the American Revolution, World War I and recently a quadrilogy of novels set in the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. Shaara returns to his Civil War roots with his latest novel, “A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh.”

“A Blaze of Glory” begins in early 1862 as the Confederate States of America has experienced a series of defeats in the western theater. Forts Henry and Donelson have just fallen to the Union army under the command of Ulysses S. Grant, and Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston is desperately trying to secure the interior of the Confederacy.

He decides to attack the federal position at Pittsburgh Landing near the Old Shiloh Church in southern Tennessee in what is intended to be a large-scale spoiling attack. Such an assault, if successful, would also force the Union to fall back and abandon much of Tennessee to the Confederacy. The attack initially goes as planned with the Union army taken completely by surprise, but by the second morning Grant's forces are reinforced and begin to rally.

Shaara is a brilliant historical novelist whose ability to transport the reader to the battlefield is unmatched. One can taste the gunpowder and blood in the air and, just like his characters, can be overwhelmed by the fear and horrors of war. Shaara pulls no punches, never romanticizing the conflict, and manages to create a wonderful, horrifying, human narrative of the battle. He is particularly skilled in his portraits of historical figures like Grant, Johnston and William T. Sherman.

Shaara describes the desperate first morning of the Confederate attack from the viewpoint of a Union soldier:

“The screams were close and manic, rebel troops lunging straight into the blue line, while to one side, another battle line rose up from the ravine there, a surge of bayonets pouring hard into Allen's left flank. The orders came in hot shouts, but to the men in blue who had tried to stand tall, to hold their ground, the orders meant nothing at all. The weight that came over them crushed and dissolved the blue line …

“A Blaze of Glory” is a fine addition to Civil War literature and may be Shaara's best work since “The Last Full Measure.” Shaara has announced that “A Blaze of Glory” is the beginning of a new trilogy of novels that detail the fighting in the western theater, a cause for celebration given this book's achievement.

A minor disappointment to Utah readers, however, is that Shaara only mentions the Utah War in passing. Johnston had led the expedition to the Salt Lake Valley in 1857, only five years before the events in the novel. One would have hoped such an important episode in the general's career would have been given more room in these pages, if only as a memory. Perhaps one day Shaara will author a novel set during that historic conflict.

"A Blaze of Gory" contains realistic battlefield violence, but no foul language or other adult themes.

Cody K. Carlson has a master's degree in history from the University of Utah and currently teaches at Salt Lake Community College. He is also the co-developer of the History Challenge iPhone/iPad apps. EMAIL: ckcarlson76@gmail.com

 

Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War, by Megan Kate Nelson

From Strategy Press: Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War, by Megan Kate Nelson

Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2012. Pp. xvii, 332. Illus., notes, biblio., index. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 0820342513.

While the destruction wrought by armed conflict is always mentioned in accounts of wars, it is not usually the primary focus of attention.  This is not the case with Ruin Nation, a volume in the University of Georgia Press series “Uncivil Wars”, which takes a look at the cultural and social effects of the destruction engendered by the Civil War on contemporary economic, cultural, and social institutions and norms, as well as on the physical environment, and, of course, on the people. 

Primarily a cultural, environmental, and literary historian, Dr. Nelson (Harvard) is also the author of Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp.  In Ruin Nation she uses letters, diaries, and images created by the people of the times to provide insights not only into their individual understanding of what was happening to them and their world, but also to examine how their experiences, suffering, and interpretations of these have been transmitted to us, often in highly sanitized or politicized fashion.  Although, as is often the case when non-specialists deal with military history, there are occasional errors in terminology, this work takes an important look at the effects of war.

An interesting read for those interested in the effects of the war on civilians and well as soldiers, and its longer term influence on society.

Coasties Clean Up Civil War Era Cemetery

From Cape May Country Herald:  Coasties Clean Up Civil War Era Cemetery
ERMA — Coast Guard volunteers are cleaning up an overgrown cemetery that was once the site of the Union Bethel Church and the first Black settlement in the south county.

Union Bethel Cemetery is the final resting place of Cape May and Lower Township's first African American families and Black Civil War soldiers. Located off Tabernacle Road, it has been covered by high grass and scared by fallen trees and limbs.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Daniel S. Kobs lives next door to the cemetery. A sign in his yard directs the curious to the Civil War era graveyard.

Kobs said a neighbor told him how nice the property had been maintained in the past. He said he was aware Coast Guard members had volunteered to clean up the cemetery some years ago.
“They transferred out and it kind of got forgotten,” said Kobs.

He is a crewmember on the Coast Guard Cutter Dependable. Kobs said he mentioned the cemetery to fellow crewmembers and they agreed take on maintaining the property as a project.

Three years ago, Boy Scout Troop 87 based at Tabernacle United Methodist Church spruced up the cemetery.
Online research indicated the cemetery dates back to 1834, said Kobs.

They are family plots from the Turner family, which was the head of a family tree of many African American families in the Cape May area. Members of the Vance, Humphries and Hastings families are also buried there under tall trees.

“The grass was 2 feet high, three trees were down, you could probably only see about 15 gravesites and there are so many back there,” he said.

Kobs said his volunteers wanted to bring the cemetery up to “decent condition” and decorate it a bit. He said the soldiers and sailors buried in Union Bethel Cemetery were part of their inspiration to restore the property.
Kobs will be stationed in Cape May for two years and is planning to bring volunteers to the cemetery every few weeks to cut down weeds. The goal is sell firewood to fund the purchase of equipment to maintain the property, he said.

Six Coastie volunteers scheduled their first workday two weeks ago on a very hot Friday morning. Lower Township assisted with supplies for the clean up.

The crewmembers returned to the cemetery Fri. July 13. Kobs said one more Friday workday should put the property in order. The volunteers have about 50 hours of labor invested in cleaning up the historic cemetery.
Kobs said the volunteers need a riding lawnmower to keep the cemetery maintained now that the heavy work has been completed. Anyone wishing to donate a riding mower may contact Eileen at the Lower Township Manager’s Office at (609) 886-2005 ext. 132.

 

Civil War Exhibit Opens Next Weekend

From ABC13:  Civil War Exhibit Opens Next Weekend

Lynchburg, VA - The Lynchburg Museum is commemorating the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War with a new exhibit.

It's called the American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia.

The exhibit shows more than 200 rare objects and interactive programs to tell the stories of people who experienced the Civil War in Virginia.

The vast majority of the experience is focused on women, men, children, slaves, and soldiers.
It opens July 21 and will be here through November.