Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865 (review)

Abstract

book reviews223 "soft fighting and heavy victories," as Lee put it. This was to be achieved through the grand turning movement, threatening the enemy's communications and forcing him out of his chosen positions to fight unprepared and at a disadvantage. Harsh says that strategically Lee did this in the Peninsula and Second Manassas campaigns but that faulty tactical execution led to unaffordable Rebel losses. Harsh's provocative argument challenges recent criticism of Lee's aggressiveness . The book will inevitably raise questions. If a defense of Lee's actions rests on showing that his was the way to break Northern morale, why does the book spend almost no time on the psychological balance of the opponents? Indeed, Harsh suggests that the union answer to defeat on the Peninsula was to increase their armies by 50 percent, surely not the response Lee wanted. Works assessing the psychological aspect of the war, however, are not in the bibliography . Again, in supporting Lee and Davis in their belief that the war must be fought on the Northern border to shield Richmond, rather than making a defensive stand in the heart of the South, Harsh says that a large percentage of Rebel manufacturing was concentrated in the Rebel capital and had to be saved. But couldn't the machinery have been transported South, as the Russians shipped away their industrial plant in face of Hitler's 1941 invasion? Finally, in saying that the South came closest to winning in the summer of 1862, is Harsh forgetting the war in the West, which saw the Rebels turned back from Cincinnati and driven from Kentucky at Perryville? Wasn't this of equal import to Second Manassas as a morale factor in the war? These are the kinds of questions this stimulating book will generate. Michael C. C. Adams Northern Kentucky University Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865. By Noah Andre Trudeau. (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1998. Pp. 576. $29.95.) Noel Andre Trudeau's Like Men of War is a chronicle of combat. The book treats every major engagement in which black troops took part as well as many of the smaller actions. Trudeau sets the scene for each engagement by describing its geographical location and topography, its place within larger strategic frameworks, the major actors (the field commanders and the units under their command), and the outcome. Sixty detailed maps complement the discussion. Like his earlier works, this one also relies heavily upon participants' observations .To the standard after-action reports, he adds insightful commentaries from black men in the ranks, from their company officers, and, not infrequently, from their Confederate foes. Diaries, letters, newspaper reports, and material in federal pension case files provide this first-person vantage point. Trudeau makes clear that black soldiers were willing, even eager, to engage the enemy in pursuit of freedom for the slaves and full citizenship rights for all black people in America. He also provides ample evidence ofthe men's passion 224CIVIL WAR HISTORY to demonstrate what Frederick Douglass (among countless others) termed "the Negro's manhood" (7). Yet, even as the record of heroic action grew longer, each unit carried a "cross" into its first engagement: "the need to prove themselves in combat before the eyes of the white man" (331). The question "Would they fight?" dogged black soldiers from the beginning to the end of the contest. Most eyewitnesses proved capable of changing their views after observing black men in action. Following the battle of Nashville in December 1864, Adj. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas hoped to slay the dragon once and for all by proclaiming , "The question is settled; negro soldiers will fight" (349). But William T. Sherman remained unconvinced. Although Trudeau finds it "difficult to identify a major engagement in which black soldiers played a crucial role" (467), their solid performance overall clearly contributed to the Union's victory. What is more, that record helped tip the balance in favor of extending citizenship to African Americans during the postwar period. By focusing so closely on combat, Trudeau's account highlights the deadly consequences that often awaited captured black soldiers and their officers. In the aftermath of the battle...