As If It Were Glory: Robert Beecham's Civil War from the Iron Brigade to the Black Regiments
Beecham pulls no punches in this lively memoir of his service as a soldier in the famed Iron Brigade and as an officer of African-American troops. Unlike most Civil War memoirs, this one does not romanticize the war nor does it make any concessions to the Confederacy, which Beecham in 1902 considered to have been as wrong and baneful as he had four decades earlier when he gave four years of his life fighting for Union and freedom. (James M. McPherson, author of The Battle Cry of Freedom)An exceptional memoir by an unusually idealistic and sophisticated Iron Brigade soldier who fought from Bull Run to Gettysburg and who finished the war as an officer in a Black regiment. Beecham understood the war in terms of freedom and rejected the racist and counterfactual postwar myth of the Lost Cause. Highly recommended. (Alan T. Nolan, author ofThe Iron Brigade: A Military History)Robert Beecham's outstanding memoir is marked by insight and humor. He never forgot that he was marching to history's drum whether with the Iron Brigade at Gettysburg or on the drill field with his black regiment. This is a front-rank look at the American Civil War. (Lance J. Herdegen, author of The Men Stood Like Iron: How the Iron Brigade Won Its Name)This bold and refreshing memoir tears away at the growing shroud of myths during the postwar era of reconciliation. . . . For Beecham, like Abraham Lincoln before him, African-Americans made as good soldiers as any, and in Beecham's eyes, sometimes better. (Joseph T. Glatthaar, author ofForged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers)