Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era

In Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era, Jonathan Noyalas examines the complexities of life for African Americans in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. Although the Valley was a site of fierce conflicts during the Civil War and its military activity has been extensively studied, scholars have largely ignored the black experience in the region until now. Correcting previous assumptions that slavery was not important to the Valley, and that enslaved people were treated better there than in other parts of the South, Jonathan Noyalas demonstrates the strong hold of slavery in the region. He explains that during the war, enslaved and free African Americans navigated a borderland that changed hands frequently—where it was possible to be in Union territory one day, Confederate territory the next, and no-man’s land another. He shows that the region’s enslaved population resisted slavery and supported the Union war effort by serving as scouts, spies, and laborers, or by fleeing to enlist in regiments of the United States Colored Troops. Noyalas draws on untapped primary resources, including thousands of records from the Freedmen’s Bureau and contemporary newspapers, to continue the story and reveal the challenges African Americans faced from former Confederates after the war. He traces their actions, which were shaped uniquely by the volatility of the struggle in this region, to ensure that the war’s emancipationist legacy would survive.

“This Causes Great Excitement”

This chapter examines the experiences of African Americans in the Shenandoah Valley from the beginning of 1864 through the Civil War’s end in the spring of 1865. In addition to utilizing a recruiting mission of the 19th United States Colored Troops (USCTs) in early April 1864 to discuss the challenges USCTs confronted, including the decision to enlist and the contributions they made to the Union war effort, this chapter also highlights the continued contributions of the Valley’s African Americans to the Union war effort via non-combatant roles, especially espionage. Of particular note are the efforts of Thomas Laws, an enslaved man from Clarke County, Virginia, who played a significant role in intelligence gathering for Union general Philip Sheridan during the 1864 Shenandoah Campaign. Finally, this chapter concludes with an examination of the simultaneous joy and uncertainty which gripped African Americans when they learned of Union victory in the spring of 1865. Although Union military success meant slavery’s annihilation, this chapter illustrates that African Americans realized they would confront an entirely new set of challenges in the postwar period.

Collective Memory and Cultural Trauma in Female-Authored African American Life Narratives

Este estudo examina a relação entre memória coletiva e escravidão como um trauma cultural em textos autobiográficos afro-americanos de autoria feminina no início do desenvolvimento dessa tradição na literatura afro-americana. O corpus literário enfoca, respectivamente, a narrativa de Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), e o livro de memórias da Guerra Civil de Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. (1902). Ambos textos trazem memórias subterrâneas (POLLAK, 1989) de mulheres afro-americanas do período antebellum e do período da Guerra Civil Americana que desafiam as memórias nacionais e a história americana.

Facing Combat

This chapter follows Eliza Bogan’s journey, and those of many thousands more, as they moved through the Mississippi River valley during the tumultuous years of 1863 and 1864. It begins with Bogan’s flight to the refugee camp in Helena, Arkansas, where her third husband, Silas Small, had gone to enlist in a regiment of the United States Colored Troops. But the upheaval of combat violence, especially during the 1863 Vicksburg Campaign, pushed Bogan and thousands of other refugees out of Helena and into other parts of the Mississippi River valley. The chapter then describes Bogan’s decision to join her husband’s regiment as a laundress and argues that positions like these opened up room for women in the Union army’s combat apparatus. This, along with the Union’s decision to resettle women and children on leased plantations in the region, as workers but also as occupiers of those plantations, reveals how deeply embedded all formerly enslaved people were in formal combat -- and in the Union army’s determined effort to defeat their former owners.

Keeping Faith

This chapter follows Burdett, and many other enslaved people from Kentucky, into Camp Nelson, a Union supply depot that became a recruiting post for the United States Colored Troops. It emphasizes the constraints faced by those entering the camp in 1863 and 1864, especially due to its location in the Union slaveholding state of Kentucky, which was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation. Union officials proved more determined to limit the progress of emancipation in this state than in any other exempted region, leading to impressments of men and expulsions of women and children. But Gabriel Burdett still found a free space in which to begin preaching, and over time, with the assistance of missionaries like John Fee, he worked to establish a new school and an independent church at Camp Nelson. By 1865 the camp had become a place to seize and experience the religious freedom that enslaved people like Burdett had long imagined.

Campaign of Giants--The Battle for Petersburg

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee squared off for more than nine months in their struggle for Petersburg, the key to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Featuring some of the war's most notorious battles, the campaign played out against a backdrop of political drama and crucial fighting elsewhere, with massive costs for soldiers and civilians alike. After failing to bull his way into Petersburg, Grant concentrated on isolating the city from its communications with the rest of the surviving Confederacy, stretching Lee's defenses to the breaking point. When Lee's desperate breakout attempt failed in March 1865, Grant launched his final offensives that forced the Confederates to abandon the city on April 2, 1865. A week later, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House. Here A. Wilson Greene opens his sweeping new three-volume history of the Petersburg Campaign, taking readers from Grant's crossing of the James in mid-June 1864 to the fateful Battle of the Crater on July 30. Full of fresh insights drawn from military, political, and social history, A Campaign of Giants is destined to be the definitive account of the campaign. With new perspectives on operational and tactical choices by commanders, the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, and the significant role of the United States Colored Troops in the fighting, this book offers essential reading for all those interested in the history of the Civil War.

My Best Achievement

This chapter provides a detailed account of military events on June 15, 1864 east of Petersburg. Elements of the Army of the James skirmished with Confederate forces in the morning at Baylor’s Farm, slowly approaching Petersburg’s main defenses. The ranking Union officer, General William F. Smith, conducted a deliberate reconnaissance before launching his attack at about 7:00 p.m. Major assaults, including attacks by United States Colored Troops, succeeded in capturing several miles of the Southern works before nightfall. Confusion and a tardy start toward Petersburg delayed the arrival of the Army of the Potomac’s Second Corps. Its commander, General Winfield S. Hancock, and General Smith opted not to press their advantage that night, providing the Confederates a reprieve that might have saved Petersburg from capture.

O RECRUTAMENTO DE NEGROS NAS TROPAS DA UNIÃO DURANTE A GUERRA CIVIL AMERICANA

<p>Este artigo discute os dilemas do alistamento de Afro-Americanos, culminando no difícil, complicado e bem-sucedido arranjo que levou à criação dos United States Colored Troops (USCTs), as tropas negras que lutaram pelo exército da União durante a Guerra Civil (1861-1865). Após um breve histórico da participação dos negros nas guerras travadas pelos Estados Unidos no período anterior à secessão, investigarei as condições sob as quais a administração republicana decidiu pelo recrutamento de Afro-Americanos. O presente artigo examinará as controvérsias políticas que marcaram o recrutamento e a organização específica dessas unidades de combate. Finalmente, demonstrarei como o recrutamento dos Afro-Americanos, especialmente no Sul, acelerou o processo de abolição e concessão de direitos, beneficiando livres, libertos e escravos. </p>