A Voice of Thunder: A BLACK SOLDIER'S CIVIL WAR (Blacks in the New World) [Paperback]

George Stephens (Editor), Donald Yacovone (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Blacks in the New World | Publication Date: November 1, 1998

George E. Stephens, the most important African-American war correspondent of his era, served in the famed black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, subject of the film Glory. His letters from the front, published in the New York Weekly Anglo-African, brilliantly detail two wars: one against the Confederacy and one against the brutal, debilitating racism within his own Union Army.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Stephens was a black reporter for the black newspaper Weekly Anglo-African when the Civil War broke out. He joined the 54th Massachusetts, the first black Union regiment. Promoted to sergeant, he stormed Battery Wagner with his regiment. Surviving the Union defeat, Stephens served with the 54th through the end of the war. He corresponded regularly with his newspaper, detailing life in the Union army for a black soldier. Proud to fight to end slavery, he protested the federal policy of paying black soldiers less than whites and described white soldiers' terrible treatment of blacks. Stephens provided a rare literate black point of view of the war, and Yacovone (coeditor, Witness for Freedom, Univ. of North Carolina, 1993) gives very detailed background to his life as revealed in each of his letters. Arranged by topic, the letters illustrate his views on emancipation, military life, and the role of blacks in postwar America. This thoroughly researched book belongs in research libraries and public libraries with Civil War collections.?Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252067908
• ISBN-13: 978-0252067907
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,308,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glorious and Tragic Struggles for Equality, August 9, 2000

By 

joan a. shelton - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Voice of Thunder: A BLACK SOLDIER'S CIVIL WAR (Blacks in the New World) (Paperback)

Most books and reports on Civil War events come from white writers and voice white viewpoints. This one speaks with a black voice, as George E. Stephens wrote as correspondent for the (New York) "Weekly Anglo-African," from the events of John Brown's rebellion (Nov. 1859) through September, 1864. Along the way he shifted from member of the press to acting patriot-soldier, recruiting and then enlisting in the Massachusetts 54th, that leader among black regiments depicted in the movie "Glory." Donald Yacovone provides not only notes for the letters but also information on Stephens' family background. After the 54th disbanded Yacovone follows Stephens' ongoing struggles to educate freed slaves in Virginia; the story of many black patriots' efforts to move their people upward by finally granting them some education is not widely told or appreciated. These chapters fill a need today. So the life taken as a whole is both glorious and tragic: it's distressing to follow Stephens' hopes, from fresh optimism through disillusionment to despair, time and time again from the events of Fort Wagner to the last anguished efforts of his life. At its end he had to sue the government he'd served all his life to obtain the commission denied to him because of his race (though illegally), and provide for his wife with a higher pension. He never lived to receive it, dying in 1888 before the promotion came through. In this Stephens is typical of black men of his time, and it's deeply saddening.This is not a happy, but it is a useful, book, and a corrective for many cheap heroics about how well we treated our black veterans. We need to ponder its message today.