The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle [Paperback]

Margaret S. Creighton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0465014577 | ISBN-13: 978-0465014576 | Publication Date: July 4, 2006

In the summer of 1863, as Union and Confederate armies converged on southern Pennsylvania, the town of Gettysburg found itself thrust onto the center stage of war. The three days of fighting that ensued decisively turned the tide of the Civil War. In The Colors of Courage, Margaret Creighton narrates the tale of this crucial battle from the viewpoint of three unsung groups--women, immigrants, and African Americans--and reveals how wide the conflict's dimensions were. A historian with a superb flair for storytelling, Creighton draws on memoirs, letters, diaries, and newspapers to bring to life the individuals at the heart of her narrative. The Colors of Courage is a stunningly fluid work of original history-one that redefines the Civil War's most remarkable battle.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The Battle of Gettysburg figures as the central point of the Civil War, when the Confederate forces attacked that town in Pennsylvania. Some 170,000 soldiers were involved in the three-day battle, thought to be both the bloodiest battle and the turning point of the war. Creighton, a history professor, offers a view broader of this crucial battle than the typical view that features only prominent white men. She includes the contributions of immigrants, women, and African Americans. Creighton focuses on Union soldiers of German descent who were antislavery, providing a moral perspective that contrasts sharply with Irish-led draft riots. For African Americans living in Pennsylvania, this battle was about the shifting Mason-Dixon line, where freedmen were at risk for being placed into slavery. Women were primarily involved in the recovery period after the battle. Creighton does not seek to replace the historic narrative but rather to expand it to include the diversity of the American character. In so doing, she enriches the history and our knowledge of the deeply ingrained diversity of our nation. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Margaret S. Creighton is Professor of History at Bates College. The author of Rites and Passages: The Experience of American Whaling, and co-editor of Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920. She lives in Yarmouth, Maine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (July 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465014577
• ISBN-13: 978-0465014576
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #409,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into History, January 24, 2005

By 

James Hiller (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle (Hardcover)

History is written by the victors, or so the saying goes. Quite often, it is the disenfranchised that bears the brunt of histories rath, no more so than the groups outlined in Margaret S. Creighton's magnificent work, "The Colors of Courage".

So many books out there have painstakingly dissected the grand battle of Gettysburg, some tomes hundreds of pages long about just one day in the town. However, the stories contained here are rare and untold, and finally have seen the light of literature. And a finely crafted book it is.

Creighton, obviously relying on the sketchiest of details, has recreated the lives and passions of three groups of people affected in Gettysburg: immigrant soldiers, women, and African Americans. Creighton's style doesn't weigh heavily on the endless parade of names often associated with historical texts, but centers on a few people who represented each group. Their stories are compelling and intrguing. Even in the tale of nin year old Sadie Bushman, where research may not reveal much, Creighton provides an historical overtone to how childhood and especially girlhood, was revered in America in the 1800's. The effect is wonderful, and moves the story along.

Horrifying is the treatment of African Americans in the border town of Pennsylvania. Creighton tells the tales of a dual "Underground Railroad", one that returned slaves to the south as well as the more well-known one that saved them. I'm embarrassed to admit not having even known this was the case; thank goodness Creighton's book corrects the error.

I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to further develop their understanding of the terrible battle of Gettysburg. These groups now shall not be forgotten, thanks to the work of historian and author Margaret Creighton.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unsung Heros of Gettysburg, October 6, 2005

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle (Hardcover)

So much has been written about the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 -- July 3, 1863), that it is difficult to find something new to say or a new and interesting way to say it. Margaret Creighton's book, "The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History" (2005) succeeds on both counts. Margaret Creighton is Professor of History at Bard College, Maine. Her study of the Battle of Gettysburg focuses on the people and groups that frequently do not receive their full due: the Union XIth Corps, composed in large part of German immigrants, slightingly referred to as "Dutch", and its leaders, the German immigrants in the Borough of Gettysburg, the women of Gettysburg, and the African-American community in Gettysburg and its environs. Professor Creighton also discusses the "Louisiana Tigers" a much-feared unit of the Confederate Army. Each of these groups, Professor Creighton shows the reader, had something at stake in the Battle of Gettysburg over and above the military maneuvers and strategies, and each contributed something important to the result of the battle and to its significance.

The book begins with some stage-setting of where each group stood just before the Battle. Thus the Union XI Corps was smarting from the defeat of the Union Army at Chancellorsville, and it was viewed as the scapegoat because it was the victim of Stonewall Jackson's surprise attack on the far Union flank.

Professor Creighton gives a good picture of pre-war Gettysburg, something most other histories treat too lightly. Women of Gettysburg were of varying economic and social status and had to bear much of the brunt of the invasion because many of the men were in military service or had left the town in anticipation of the invasion.

Approximately eight percent of Gettysburg's population was African-American. Most of the African-American population was poor and stuggling, but some individuals had managed to acquire land and property and to attain positions of influence and respect within their community. With the Confederate invasion, most of the African-American population that was able to do so left town. And with good reason. The Southern Army seized African-Americans as "contraband," including those who had never spent a day in Southern slavery, and sent them South to a life of slavery. Professor Creighton describes this well as the "reverse Underground Railroad."

In Professor Creighton's account, we see how the XI Corps and its leaders tried to redeem themselves at Gettysburg. She shows how women conducted themselves heroically during the battle by offering a mixture of cooperation with and resistance to the invading troops. After the Battle, many women in the town made tireless and demanding efforts in caring for the wounded and the dying.

There is a great deal of attention paid to Gettysburg's African-American community and how it was changed by the Battle. I found the discussion of the African-American residents of Gettysburg the most fascinating part of the book and the part which has been least explored in other studies.

The book is brought to life by its treatment of individuals as well as groups. Thus we meet a variety of people in the XI Corps, from its Commander, General Otis Howard, through the German immigrant Generals Schurz and Schimmelfennig on Howard's staff, through the enlisted corporal Adam Muenzenberger who is taken prisoner on July 1 and dies in a prison camp. We see a great deal of Georgia Wade McClellan and her more famous sister, Jennie Wade, and learn more about them than is usual in battle studies. We also hear a great deal about Elizabeth Thorn, who in 2002 at last received a monument in her honor. Mrs. Thorn, pregnant and the keeper of the Evergreen Cemetery provided great and hazardous service before, during, and after the Battle of Gettysburg. Again Professor Creighton makes nuances and details of her story come alive that often get little attention.

The African-Americans described in Professor Creighton's study include Abraham Brian, whose home remains on the Gettysburg Battlefield on Cemetery Ridge at the center of the Confederate attack, the flamboyant Mag Palm, Owen Robinson, a successful businessman, and Basil Biggs, who did a great deal of work burying fallen soldiers after the Battle. Professor Creighton also uses a great deal of oral histories based upon her interviews with Catherine Carter and Margaret Nutter, descendants of African-Americans in Gettysburg at the time of the Battle. These sources are unusual and have much to teach about the Battle.

Professor Creighton tells her story in a clear, dignified way which, for the most part, is free of polemic. She reminds the reader that Gettysburg was fought for human freedom and that the goals of the battle and the Civil War, particularly the promise of freedom and dignity to African-Americans, sometimes were forgotten in the spirit of reconciliation that came to pervade American life following Reconstruction. Professor Creighton tells an important story, or a series of important stories, and she tells them well. Her book was a pleasure to read and taught me a great deal about the facts and the meaning of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Robin Friedman

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Look at an Historic Battle, January 18, 2005

By 

j.s.borthwick "mystery writer" (coast of Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle (Hardcover)

Margaret Creighton fills in those gaps that most historians, in their tight focus on the battle and soldiers themselves, have left out of the picture. She shows the disregarded and suspect German-American 11th Corps accused of cowardice trying to atone for previous military failure, the African-Americans fearful of being captured and returned to slavery, the women left to deal with the terror of the battle and loss of husbands and children, the loss of their farms and animal, and the town itself in shambles after the battle left to cope with the sick and wounded.
She goes past the battle itself to the twentieth century to show how the issue of emancipation became less important that the reconciliation of the south and the north. A splendid work written with insight and care.