Black, Blue & Gray: African Americans In The Civil War
Grade 7 Up?Haskins again brings U.S. history to life. This tightly organized book is packed with facts and meticulously footnoted, yet it reads like a novel, thanks to the author's stylistic skills. He dismisses and disproves outmoded historical interpretations that denied black participation in the North's final victory. The facts show that African Americans were anything but passive beneficiaries of a "white man's war." More than 178,000 black soldiers served in Union military units, and casualties were high. The author sets his topic within the larger historical context by tracing the history of slavery and its relation to U.S. politics and economics from the Colonial period to the attack on Fort Sumter. He includes stirring stories of the Underground Railroad and the growth of the abolitionist movement. Dramatic examples punctuate the narrative throughout, among them the moment Frederick Douglass and 6000 followers first heard that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed and the courageous charge upon Fort Wagner by the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (fictionalized in the popular film Glory). While he concentrates on Union forces, the author does not neglect the seemingly incongruous contributions of black Americans to the Confederate armies, sections that may provide surprises for some readers. Period photographs and reproductions and primary-source quotations are used to good effect, and students will benefit from the notes, bibliography, and time line.?Starr E. Smith, Marymount University Library, Arlington, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.