num_pages: 392
description:       George E. Stephens, the most        important African-American war correspondent of his era, served in the        famed black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, subject of the film Glory.        His letters from the front, published in the New York Weekly Anglo-African,        brilliantly detail two one against the Confederacy and one against        the brutal, debilitating racism within his own Union Army. Together with        Donald Yacovone's biographical introduction detailing Stephens's life        and times, they provide a singular perspective on the greatest crisis        in the history of the United States.      Stephens chronicled the African-American        quest for freedom in reports from southern Maryland and eastern Virginia        in 1861 and 1862 that detailed, among other issues of the day, the Army        of the Potomac's initial encounter with slavery, the heroism of fugitive        slaves, and the brutality both Southerners and Union troops inflicted        on them.      From the inception of the        Fifty-fourth early in 1863 Stephens was the unit's voice, telling of its        struggle against slavery and its quest to win the pay it had been promised.        His description of the July 18, 1863, assault on Battery Wagner near Charleston,        South Carolina, and his writings on the unit's eighteen-month campaign        to be paid as much as white troops are gripping accounts of continued        heroism in the face of persistent insult.      The Weekly Anglo-African        was the preeminent African-American newspaper of its time. Stephens's        correspondence, intimate and authoritative, takes in an expansive array        of issues and anticipates nearly all modern assessments of the black role        in the Civil War. His commentary on the Lincoln administration's wartime        policy and his conviction that the issues of race and slavery were central        to nineteenth-century American life mark him as a major American social        critic. 
language: English
title: A Voice of Thunder: A Black Soldier's Civi War
titlecomplete: A Voice of Thunder: A Black Soldier's Civi War
ratings_count: 6
publisher: University of Illinois Press