African American Faces of the Civil War: An Album
In the course of collecting photographs for Faces of the Civil War (2004) and Faces of the Confederacy (2008), Coddington constantly ran across images of black soldiers who fought for their freedom in the Civil War. In this book, he presents 77 images and the stories behind them. The subjects are mostly Union soldiers, with their poses ranging from formal to casual as they faced their chance to prove themselves at a time when confusion reigned regarding their status as citizens. With each portrait, Coddington offers a brief profile, including regimental history and campaigns and battles as well as family history and lives after the war. Among the subjects are Martin Delaney, an “ardent black nationalist” who wrote a novel that countered the docile images of slaves in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Robert Smalls, who commandeered an armed Confederate vessel and surrendered it to the Union in Charleston, South Carolina; and Allen Walkup, later Allen King, who served as a stand-in for Mark Twain’s cousin. An engaging look at a neglected part of the history of the American Civil War. --Vanessa Bush