Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts David E. Goldberg Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts. Ed. Richard M. Reid. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-55849-739-9, 288 pp., cloth, $39.95. In recent years there has been a steady outpouring of works detailing the wartime experiences of surgeons responsible for treating the wounds of those injured in battle during the Civil War. However, Burt G. Wilder's Civil War diary is one of the first published accounts of a white surgeon in a black regiment. Edited by Richard M. Reid, Wilder's diary merits attention not only because of his unique position in the 55th Massachusetts but also because it draws us into the intellectual and social world of a white scientist devoted to the cause of social justice and racial equality for African Americans. Unlike many Union soldiers, whose attitudes toward African Americans were transformed as a result of their experiences in battle, Burt Wilder's diary consistently reveals a Civil War surgeon who devoted much of his professional life to publicly refuting the scientific racism of the period's leading thinkers. Burt Wilder's wartime recollections also remind us that the 54th Massachusetts was not the only black regiment to behave heroically in battle or suffer racial discrimination at the hands of white officers. The 55th Massachusetts was the first black regiment to fight in the siege of Charleston and saw combat on James Island, Honey Hill, and Orangeburg, South Carolina. In addition, Wilder's diary confirms aspects of the Civil War black experience told in other more recent accounts. Like many northern black regiments, African Americans in the 55th Massachusetts encountered discriminatory compensation policies that affected the group's morale and also led to verbal and physical altercations with white officers. At the same time, other entries show that while many African American soldiers received second-class medical attention during the Civil War, Wilder's presence allowed him to provide first-rate care to black soldiers and also enabled him to reprimand white officers who sought to send wounded black soldiers back into battle before their injuries had properly healed. The most interesting aspects of Wilder's diary, however, concern not his wartime writings, but his postwar project to counter the racist narratives of scientists, historians, and politicians during the era of national reconciliation. In 1909, Wilder spoke at the National Negro Conference to refute the assertion of Louis Agassiz, Samuel George Morton, and others that African Americans possessed physiologically inferior traits to white people. Praised by W. E. B. Du Bois and other black activists, Wilder decided to compile and publish his wartime writings. In the spring of 1910, he traveled throughout the postwar South to revisit, recount, [End Page 285] and cross-reference the experiences and thoughts recorded in his wartime diary. Although he was never able to personally publish his diary, his wartime diaries and postwar career serve to introduce us to another white progressive whose public career as an advocate of racial justice helped complicate the publication of white racial narratives made popular throughout the early Jim Crow period. David E. Goldberg West Virginia University Copyright © 2012 The Kent State University Press