Freedom by the sword
Subtitle: the U.S. colored troops, 1862-1867
By: by William A. Dobak
Publisher: Skyhorse Pub.
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 553
ISBN-13: 9781616088392
Subjects: African American Participation; United States; African American soldiers; United States. Army; African American troops; History
Description: The Civil War changed the United States in many ways -- economic, political, and social. Of these changes, none was more important than Emancipation. Besides freeing nearly four million slaves, it brought agricultural wage labor to a reluctant South and gave a vote to black adult males in the former slave states. It also offered former slaves new opportunities in education, property ownership -- and military service. From late1862 to the spring of 1865, as the Civil War raged on, the federal government accepted more than 180,000 black men as soldiers, something it had never done before on such a scale. Known collectively as the United States Colored Troops and organized in segregated regiments led by white officers, some of these soldiers guarded army posts along major rivers; others fought Confederate raiders to protect Union supply trains, and still others took part in major operations like the Siege of Petersburg and the Battle of Nashville. After the war, many of the black regiments took up posts in the former Confederacy to enforce federal Reconstruction policy. Freedom by the Sword tells the story of these soldiers' recruitment, organization, and service. Thanks to its broad focus on every theater of the war and its concentration on what black soldiers actually contributed to Union victory, this volume stands alone among histories of the U.S. Colored Troops.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Mustering in-federal policy on emancipation and recruitment; title: The South Atlantic Coast, 1861-1863; title: The South Atlantic Coast, 1863-1865; title: Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1862-1863; title: Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1863-1865; title: The Mississippi River and its tributaries, 1861-1863; title: Along the Mississippi River, 1863-1865; title: Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Kansas, 1863-1865; title: Middle Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, 1863-1865; title: North Carolina and Virginia, 1861-1864; title: Virginia, May-October 1864; title: Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia, 1864-1865; title: South Texas, 1864-1867; title: Reconstruction, 1865-1867.