James G. Mendez. A Great Sacrifice

In this deeply researched and revealing book, James G. Mendez seeks to recover the experience of northern black soldiers and their families during the Civil War era in order to discover the ways they engaged the governments of their day both to recognize and respect their service and sacrifice during the war and to count the costs northern blacks paid out in impoverished families, wartime casualties, and unfulfilled promises. To do so, Mendez mines the rich and rewarding but heretofore underused letters northern family members wrote to the government and to the military to track their men’s fortunes and fate in war and to make their case for support while their men were away. Through such letters, he marks the progression of northern blacks’ participation in the war, especially from the first formation of northern black regiments in 1862 through their demobilizations in 1866 and 1867, and he charts the growing concerns and constraints of family members suffering the loss of their men’s income and support, the vulnerabilities of the home front, where racism often ruled, the uncertainties of knowing where their men were and their condition in the army, and the debilitation or death of loved ones. But, as Mendez concludes, even as the costs of war rose, neither northern black enlistment nor black home-front support for the war flagged. To be sure, the indignities of black soldiers being paid less than white soldiers (and sometimes not at all), increased casualty rates (as black soldiers were entrusted with increasing combat responsibilities late in the war), and other problems led blacks to trust the government less, even as they stepped up appeals for support from it. But, by Mendez’s reckoning, most northern black soldiers and their families continued to believe in the Union cause because it meant emancipation and the promise of a better day.

Archaeology · Front (military) · Genealogy · Geography · Military service · Political science · Racism · Sacrifice · Spanish Civil War · White (mutation) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies