Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction by Gordon C. Rhea

Abstract

In this book, Rhea chronicles the life and career of a Civil War soldier and South Carolina politician whom he considers to be a “giant” in the Black freedom struggle (153). Born into a free Black family and raised in Pennsylvania and New York, Swails enlisted in the famous 54th Massachusetts in 1863, serving in numerous engagements and ultimately rising through the ranks to First Lieutenant, despite prohibitions on Black men receiving officers’ commissions in the United States Army. After the war, Swails settled in Kingstree, South Carolina, where he raised a family, practiced law, and served actively in Republican politics. He held many elected offices during Reconstruction, including mayor of Kingstree and state senator (also serving as speaker pro tempore of the South Carolina state senate).Rhea devotes a substantial portion of the biography to piecing together Swails’ service in the 54th Massachusetts, when, as Rhea argues, Swails served honorably while fighting against individual and systemic discrimination against Black soldiers. Swails participated in his unit’s fight for equal pay and, subsequently, advocated and won the right to receive the commission of a Second Lieutenant as a line officer. By focusing on Swails’ experiences in the 54th Massachusetts, Rhea laudably attempts to shift focus away from Robert Gould Shaw to a Black soldier. Unfortunately, because Swails’ military service did not leave much of a paper trail, Rhea relies heavily on Luis Emilio’s regimental memoir as well as Shaw’s papers.1 Swails, therefore, often disappears from the narrative for several pages; in fact, his own words are not recounted until the third chapter.Once Rhea reaches the Reconstruction era, the lack of documents dissipates, and Swails’ work with the Freedmen’s Bureau and his career as a Republican politician come alive. In the years following the war, Rhea contends that Swails worked tirelessly to secure Black freedom—first attempting to facilitate fair labor contracts between Black farmers and white landowners and later serving myriad roles in local and state politics. Attempting to capitalize on his northern birth, Swails courted Black and white voters from among both Republicans and Democrats. By the mid-1870s, he wielded significant political and patronage power in his own Williamsburg County and beyond. Republicans were forced to contend with Swails’ influence. Democratic Redeemers ultimately charged Swails with corruption, chasing him out of South Carolina and threatening to kill him if he ever returned. In these chapters about Reconstruction, Rhea is at his best, centering Swails in order to offer a concise and clear picture of the interplay between politics and vigilantism in South Carolina.Throughout the biography, Rhea provides an engaging narrative that general readers will appreciate. Yet at times, Rhea makes his important arguments only by intimation, in a manner that scholars may find frustrating. Rhea suggests that Swails’ military service paved the way for his postwar career and his long fight against discrimination; the professional experience that he gained as a commissioned officer prepared him for both militia and political leadership. Rhea could have hammered this point home more forcefully. He also implies (in the same vein as other historians) that Swails earned his citizenship on the battlefield; academic readers may well lament that he did not make this connection more explicitly. Furthermore, although Rhea’s citation style enables smooth reading, it can blur the distinction between reconstructed narrative and direct evidence. Scholars, again, may find this by-product of the framework inconvenient. The decision to make the book accessible to a wider audience, however, makes sense. Rhea brings to life a lesser-known participant in the Black experience of Reconstruction, encouraging his readership to consider carefully the role that Black veterans played in shaping postwar politics.