Black Confederates [Paperback]

Charles Kelly Barrow (Editor), J. H. Segars (Editor), R. B. Rosenburg (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2001

Contains correspondence, military records, and reminiscences from brave men who served what they considered their country.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"One of the lost chapters of Civil War history has been the passive and even active support that many Southern blacks, free and slave, gave to the Confederacy. [Black Confederates] illuminates the overlooked facet of this seemingly contradictory behavior by a group of African-Americans who appear to have thought of themselves as Southerners first and blacks second." --William C. Davis, author of "A Government of Their Own": The Making of the Confederacy Neither Confederate history nor black studies can afford to ignore the efforts of black Americans on the side of the Confederacy, as this seemingly contradictory behavior reveals and underscores the terrible complexity of the War Between the States. This volume contains correspondence, military records, narrative reminiscences, newspaper accounts, and more from these brave men who served what they considered their country.

About the Author

Charles Kelly Barrow is a native Georgian, born in Atlanta and raised in DeKalb County and the Tucker area. With J. H. Segars and R. B. Rosenburg, he compiled and edited the anthology Black Confederates , also a Pelican title. In 1979, he joined the Sons of Confederate Veterans and currently serves as second vice-president of the Pike County Historical Society and as the historian-in-chief of the SCV (the youngest ever appointed). He graduated from Shorter College in 1988 with a B.S. in social science. Now a social studies teacher at Flint River Academy, he is working on his masterís degree at Piedmont College. He resides in Zebulon, Georgia.

J. H."Hank" Segars, a native of Eatonton, Georgia, is managing editor of Southern Lion Books, an independent publisher of regional books, and a consultant to first-time authors. Segars earned an A.B. from West Georgia College and an M.Ed. from the University of Georgia. He is the author and editor of a number of books about the American South, including Andersonville: The Southern Perspective and Black Confederates , both published by Pelican. Segars is the founding president of the Northeast Georgia Civil War Round Table and now lives near rural Madison, Georgia, with his wife.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Pelican Publishing (October 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565549376
• ISBN-13: 978-1565549371
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #809,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helps to tell the WHOLE story . . ., July 22, 2002

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Black Confederates (Paperback)

Probably, the discovery that more than a few African Americans served on the Confederate side in the Civil War -- and not just as servants, either -- will strike some readers as contradictory, or even unnatural. Certainly, most historians have ignored the subject. But history is history: One must deal with past reality, not subordinate the facts to modern political positions. In researching the subject, Barrow called on the readership of _Confederate Veteran,_ the official publication of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, to submit information on black Southern loyalists. The results were large and diverse, based on official reports, pension applications, family correspondence, newspaper articles, and published memoirs, and from that came this anthology of historical documents and accounts, originally published under the title _Forgotten Confederates._ In fact, the most conservative estimate is that some 50,000 African Americans served on the Confederate side, compared to 600,000 to 1,000,000 white Confederates (depending on who did the counting). Few of them were "properly enlisted," of course (the Confederate Congress did not authorize such enlistments until the War was in its last days), but those who worked as servants, bodyguards, nurses, cooks, scouts, barbers, teamsters, musicians, and construction workers frequently joined the fight, whether sanctioned or not. The irony, of course, is that black Confederates served within white units, while black Union troops were carefully segregated from white troops. At least twenty-five percent of the Confederate Ordnance Department was black, and several black militia units were raised in Louisiana and Alabama. There were black Confederate sharpshooters in the Seven Days campaign in 1862, and more than 1,000 black sailors served in the Confederate Navy. And a surprising number of black faces appear in photographs of post-War Confederate reunions, many of which are reproduced in this volume. This is an engrossing collection of material and the twenty-one-page bibliography of sources for further study will be most useful to local historians.

29 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenges commonly held precepts, February 7, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Confederates (Paperback)

Collaboratively compiled and edited by Charles Kelly Barrow, J. H. Segars, and R. B. Rosenburg, Black Confederates is a scholarly analysis of historical evidence of those black Americans who served the Confederacy during the Civil War. Correspondence, military records, preserved narratives and newspaper accounts present as clear a picture as possible of some seemingly self-contradictory people. Why did they fight, and in some cases, lose their lives for the South in a conflict fought to perpetuate the institution of slavery? This question is carefully scrutinized in a historical work that challenges commonly held precepts and brings to light an oft-overlooked side of America's deadliest war. Black Confederates is a welcome and fascinating addition to Black Studies and Civil War Studies reading lists and reference collections.

21 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A student of the great mind who wrote this great book., February 13, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Black Confederates (Paperback)

This book is a wonderful claberation of doucments overlooked by history.The author is a great mind and I recomend this book highly for its agnolagement of our forgoten heroes.This book brings halt to all "myths".