Becoming American Under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship During the Civil War Era [Hardcover]

Christian G. Samito (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2009

In Becoming American under Fire, Christian G. Samito provides a rich account of how African American and Irish American soldiers influenced the modern vision of national citizenship that developed during the Civil War era. By bearing arms for the Union, African Americans and Irish Americans exhibited their loyalty to the United States and their capacity to act as citizens; they strengthened their American identity in the process. Members of both groups also helped to redefine the legal meaning and political practices of American citizenship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For African American soldiers, proving manhood in combat was only one aspect to their quest for acceptance as citizens. As Samito reveals, by participating in courts-martial and protesting against unequal treatment, African Americans gained access to legal and political processes from which they had previously been excluded. The experience of African Americans in the military helped shape a postwar political movement that successfully called for rights and protections regardless of race. For Irish Americans, soldiering in the Civil War was part of a larger affirmation of republican government and it forged a bond between their American citizenship and their Irish nationalism. The wartime experiences of Irish Americans helped bring about recognition of their full citizenship through naturalization and also caused the United States to pressure Britain to abandon its centuries-old policy of refusing to recognize the naturalization of British subjects abroad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . As Samito makes clear, the experiences of African Americans and Irish Americans differed substantially--and at times both groups even found themselves violently opposed--but they had in common that they aspired to full citizenship and inclusion in the American polity. Both communities were key participants in the fight to expand the definition of citizenship that became enshrined in constitutional amendments and legislation that changed the nation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Civil War ushered in the first constitutional definition of U.S. citizenship. In a thorough and systematic study of this development, Christian G. Samito shows how African American and Irish American soldiers helped earn equal citizenship for their people by fighting for the Union. Becoming American under Fire is essential reading for an understanding of this important transformation in the American polity." --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

From the Back Cover

"The Civil War ushered in the first constitutional definition of U.S. citizenship. In a thorough and systematic study of this development, Christian G. Samito shows how African American and Irish American soldiers helped earn equal citizenship for their people by fighting for the Union. Becoming American under Fire is essential reading for an understanding of this important transformation in the American polity."--James M. McPherson, George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History, Emeritus, Princeton University, author of Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."Christian G. Samito's Becoming American under Fire is an important book that clarifies the debt that all Americans today owe to the ex-slaves and Irish immigrants who lived in the United States after the Civil War. Although at the time African Americans were unable to achieve real equality, and also Irish Americans were unsuccessful in liberating Ireland from British rule, in the process of struggling to achieve their goals both groups played major roles--sometimes even in cooperation with each other--in expanding the meanings and protections of citizenship for all Americans."--Kerby A. Miller, Curators Professor of History, University of Missouri, author of Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Christian G. Samito's thoughtful examination reveals how African Americans' and Irish Americans' ideas and actions in wartime contributed to a notion of citizenship grounded in loyalty and consent, not race or place of birth. We have long known that the Civil War 'nationalized' American citizenship. Thanks to Samito, we now know much more about precisely how that happened and what it meant."--Chandra Manning, Georgetown University, author of <I>What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War</I> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "In this important book, Christian G. Samito explains how ex-slaves and Irish immigrants helped to create a new definition of American citizenship. Their experiences in military service, determination to vote, and fervent loyalty to the federal government changed Americans' hazy antebellum concept of citizenship as loyalty to a state into a clear set of rights and duties in a newly powerful nation. This dramatic change defined America in the late nineteenth century, and its repercussions echo today."--Heather Cox Richardson, University of Massachusetts Amherst, author of West from Appomattox: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Historians are increasingly recognizing the importance of citizenship as a concept, and Christian G. Samito wisely takes a bottom-up approach, recognizing the agency of those displaced groups agitating for inclusion. Becoming American under Fire is a very good book on an important and timely topic."--Christopher Waldrep, Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of History, San Francisco State University, author of Roots of Disorder and The Many Faces of Judge Lynch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "<I>Becoming American under Fire</I> makes an important contribution to the history of American citizenship. Christian G. Samito demonstrates that the Civil War military service of Irish and African Americans led them to make demands for full inclusion and it created a moral indebtedness on the part of the native-born white population that made opposing those demands difficult. No other book illuminates this subject as well as this one does. No one else has related the progress of this development so well to the experience of the Civil War."--Lawrence F. Kohl, University of Alabama, author of The Politics of Individualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "In Becoming American under Fire, Christian G. Samito brings his legal and historical training effectively to bear on the complex struggles of Irish American and African American soldiers as they sought to craft and claim meaningful citizenship in the Civil War-era United States. Rich with detail, deeply researched, and carefully argued, this is an important contribution to the literature of the period."--Elizabeth D. Leonard, author of Men of Color to Arms: Black Soldiers, Indian Wars, and the Quest for Equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Christian G. Samito's new book offers a signal contribution to a crucial but understudied aspect of the Civil War--its effect on citizenship. By focusing on the aspirations of Irish and African Americans, Samito shows how the contingencies of war gave opportunities for people at all levels to revise this fundamental attribute. His narrative reveals how a new, more robust national citizenship eclipsed older versions built narrowly around state identity and racial attributes. Samito's story rightly emphasizes the dynamic nature of how Americans have defined and understood citizenship and, in the process, adds a crucial historical dimension to contemporary debates over identity, citizenship, and politics."--Aaron Sheehan-Dean, University of North Florida, author of Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 305 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (November 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801448468
• ISBN-13: 978-0801448461
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,452,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Samito book well researched and amply footnoted as to sources, December 7, 2009

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Michael Ruddy "mpruddy" (Union City, TN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Becoming American Under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship During the Civil War Era (Hardcover)

I just finished this excellent book on the process of naturalization and the definition of citizenship in America which occurred as a result of the Civil War. The author, Christian Samito, who had previously authored a fine regimental history of the Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, explores Irish-American and African-American struggles to obtain equal rights under their new American citizenship. It details how Irish-American politics, especially the Fenian nationalist activity that resulted in arrests of American citizens in Ireland and England after the civil war, created a serious problem for British and American relations [which were strained anyway by the Alabama reparations issue]. Since the American Revolution the impressment of American sailors on the high seas had been a contentious result of Britain's claim that if you were born in Great Britain you could not renounce your British citizenship and become the citizen of another country. The reality was that many German, Scandinavian, Irish and other national immigrants, upon arrival in the U.S. did just that; many fought in the Civil War -- in most cases receiving citizenship for enlisting. The process by which Britain was forced into a reciprocity agreement that validated the U.S. position that an individual could renounce British citizenship and become a legal citizen of America and vice versa makes for fascinating reading. The investigation also covers African-Americans who fought or were freed during the civil war and who then found themselves in a the position of being "citizens" with no vote and limited rights compared to whites. The book shows how the African-American community began to test the legality of laws that promulgated two versions of citizenship in America, a process which some say continues today. Irish Americans, who could vote, also found discrimination and strove to acquire equal rights which their citizenship implied. How these two groups' struggles played out, at times in unison, at times juxtaposed, and the impact the struggles had on the evolving definition of the meaning of American citizenship, makes Samito's well written, researched and footnoted book a must-read for anyone interested in this subject. Mike Ruddy