The most contentious event in our nation's history, the Civil War deeply divided families, friends, and communities. Both sides fought to define the conflict on their own terms -- Lincoln and his supporters struggled to preserve the Union and end slavery, while the Confederacy waged a battle for the primacy of local liberty or "states' rights." But the war had its own peculiar effects on the four border slave states that remained loyal to the Union. Internal disputes and shifting allegiances injected uncertainty, apprehension, and violence into the everyday lives of their citizens. No state better exemplified the vital role of a border state than Maryland -- where the passage of time has not dampened debates over issues such as the alleged right of secession and executive power versus civil liberties in wartime. In Maryland Voices of the Civil War, Charles W. Mitchell draws upon hundreds of letters, diaries, and period newspapers to portray the passions of a wide variety of people -- merchants, slaves, soldiers, politicians, freedmen, women, clergy, civic leaders, and children -- caught in the emotional vise of war. Mitchell reinforces the provocative notion that Maryland's Southern sympathies -- while genuine -- never seriously threatened to bring about a Confederate Maryland. Maryland Voices of the Civil War illuminates the human complexities of the Civil War era and the political realignment that enabled Marylanders to abolish slavery in their state before the end of the war.
CONTENTS: Introduction, Jean H. Baker and Charles W. Mitchell “Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland,” Richard Bell “Charity Folks and the Ghosts of Slavery in Pre–Civil War Maryland,” Jessica Millward “Confronting Dred Scott: Seeing Citizenship from Baltimore,” Martha S. Jones “‘Maryland Is This Day . . . True to the American Union’: The Election of 1860 and a Winter of Discontent,” Charles W. Mitchell “Baltimore’s Secessionist Moment: Conservatism and Political Networks in the Pratt Street Riot and Its Aftermath,” Frank Towers “Abraham Lincoln, Civil Liberties, and Maryland,” Frank J. Williams “The Fighting Sons of ‘My Maryland’: The Recruitment of Union Regiments in Baltimore, 1861–1865,” Timothy J. Orr “‘What I Witnessed Would Only Make You Sick’: Union Soldiers Confront the Dead at Antietam,” Brian Matthew Jordan “Confederate Invasions of Maryland,” Thomas G. Clemens “Achieving Emancipation in Maryland,” Jonathan W. White “Maryland’s Women at War,” Robert W. Schoeberlein “The Failed Promise of Reconstruction,” Sharita Jacobs Thompson “‘F––k the Confederacy’: The Strange Career of Civil War Memory in Maryland after 1865,” Robert J. Cook
Rare images from a border state caught between the Union and the Confederacy, secession and loyalty, slavery and freedom. Maryland’s role in the Civil War continues to attract wide interest, study, and collection at the war's 150th anniversary. One reason is a vast photographic record of the people, places, and events surrounding the war, a legacy that breathes life into the sepia-toned past. Maryland's Civil War Photographs presents the largest collection of original Maryland-related Civil War photographs ever published. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of institutions and a small group of collectors, the compelling stories of Marylanders’ patriotism, bravery, sacrifice, tragedy, and triumph have been preserved for future generations. What we present here is a collection of the most significant outdoor views, interiors (which had to be made with only natural light), and studio portraits combined to place them in the historical context of their creation.
Always in need of more men, the Union Army began enlisting African Americans about half way through the 1861-65 Civil War. Most were runaway slaves, but there were also a number of free black men, some who had been drafted, and some who had been paid to substitute for someone else, a controversial practice allowed during the war. The new African American units were designated the U. S.Colored Troops, consisting of 120 Infantry Regiments, 12 Heavy Artillery Regiments, 10 Heavy Artillery Batteries, and 7 Cavalry Regiments. This book profiles the 1,151 soldiers in one of the infantry regiments, Maryland's 19th Regiment. The information is taken from the soldiers' military service and pension records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Training of the 19th Regiment took place during the winter of 1863-64 at Camp Stanton near the port town of Benedict, Maryland on the Patuxent River, followed by two months in Baltimore in the Spring of 1864. In mid-April, the regiment marched to Washington, crossed the Potomac River into Virginia, and joined up with General Grant's Army of the Potomac. As Grant's army fought its way south towards Richmond and Petersburg during May and June 1864, the 19th Regiment saw action at the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Topolotomy Creek, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and Old Church. Arriving at Petersburg, the 19th Regiment joined other Union troops in the trenches outside that besieged city. During the siege of Petersburg, the regiment saw action at the battles of Weldon Railroad, Poplar Grove Church, Bermuda Hundred, Chapin's Farm, and Hatcher's Run. The regiment's largest battle was as part of the Union Army's July 30, 1864 assault against Confederate forces outside Petersburg, Virginia. Many of its men were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. The assault was recorded in military records at the time as the Battle of Cemetery Hill or the Battle of the Mine, but in later years was popularized as the Battle of the Crater. The fall of Petersburg came eight months later. On April 1st, General Grant sent the 19th and other regiments from Petersburg to attack Richmond. Sensing defeat, General Lee pulled his Confederate troops from Petersburg and Richmond the next day, retreating westward towards Appomattox. Early in the morning of April 3rd, the 19th Regiment's soldiers were among the first to enter Richmond. Captain James H. Rickard, commanding Company G, wrote in his company report that day: Advanced on the enemy's works at 6 AM. Found they had evacuated Richmond. On April 9th, General Lee surrendered his army to General Grant about 50 miles west of Richmond at Appomattox Courthouse. All remaining Confederate Army units still in the field surrendered over the course of the next two weeks, and the great Civil War was over. But military service was not over for the men of the 19th Regiment. Their term of enlistment was three years. Unlike most white regiments that had been formed earlier in the war, the men of the 19th Regiment had served barely half their three-year enlistment when the war ended. Instead of disbanding the regiment as the men had hoped, the regiment was sent to Texas as an occupation force to preserve order in the formerly Confederate state, and to protect the rights of the former slaves in that state. The regiment served in Texas from June 24, 1865 to January 15, 1867. It then sailed back to Baltimore, arriving on February 7, 1867. The men disembarked, received their final pay and discharge papers, and went home. Free at last. The entire number of men serving in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War was 186,097. By the time the war was over, 68,178 of these brave men were lost from all causes.
A renowned collector of Civil War photographs and a prodigious researcher, Ronald S. Coddington combines compelling archival images with biographical stories that reveal the human side of the war. This third volume in his series on Civil War soldiers contains previously unpublished photographs of African American Civil War participants—many of whom fought to secure their freedom. During the Civil War, 200,000 African American men enlisted in the Union army or navy. Some of them were free men and some escaped from slavery; others were released by sympathetic owners to serve the war effort. African American Faces of the Civil War tells the story of the Civil War through the images of men of color who served in roles that ranged from servants and laborers to enlisted men and junior officers. Coddington discovers these portraits— cartes de visite, ambrotypes, and tintypes—in museums, archives, and private collections. He has pieced together each individual’s life and fate based upon personal documents, military records, and pension files. These stories tell of ordinary men who became fighters, of the prejudice they faced, and of the challenges they endured. African American Faces of the Civil War makes an important contribution to a comparatively understudied aspect of the war and provides a fascinating look into lives that helped shape America.
In 1998, the author learned about a new monument in Washington, D.C., created to honor the black soldiers and sailors who had served in the Civil War. What she was about to learn; however, was that her great grandfather's name would not be among those remembered there. Why not? Because he had not served in one of the segregated units whose members' names are engraved on the memorial wall. Instead, Crowder Pacien/Patience had served in a white regiment. An identifiably "Col'd" man, he had been a private in the 103rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. After having been told that there had been no black soldiers serving in white regiments, the author made a hypothesis that if there had been one such black soldier in a white regiment, as she knew, then there might have been others. This series traces the author's journey to such proof. The hundreds of names listed here should be proof enough for the "nay-sayers" to conclude that black men indeed did serve in white regiments. Chapters in Volume II include: Difficulties with Finding Facts, C-Span Book TV Presentation, Mixed Race Regiments, Honoring Civil War Ancestors, Recruitment of Black Soldiers, General Orders No. 323 and the Undercooks, Three Undercooks Garrisoned at Plymouth, N.C., A Trip to the Carlisle Barracks, Finding the Gravesites of Black Soldiers, A Gravesite Lost in North Carolina, One Descendant's Determination, and Conclusion. Chapters are followed by lists: Additional Black Soldiers Alphabetized, Additional Black Soldiers by States, and Final Resting Places. Numerous photographs and illustrations, End Notes, Sources, and an index to full-names, subjects and places add to the value of this work. Historians and Civil War "buffs" alike will find new information revealed in this series, even though so many years have passed since the last shot of the war was fired.
With rare archival illustrations, including over 150 prints and photographs, many in full color, the authors provide dramatic vignettes that capture the agony of this slave-holding state divided between North and South.
- Now Available in Paperback - First study of the Antietam campaign from civilians' perspectives - Many never-before-published accounts of the Battle of Antietam The battle at Antietam Creek, the bloodiest day of the American Civil War, left more than 23,000 men dead, wounded, or missing. Facing the aftermath were the men, women, and children living in the village of Sharpsburg and on surrounding farms. In Too Afraid to Cry, Kathleen Ernst recounts the dramatic experiences of these Maryland citizens--stories that have never been told--and also examines the complex political web holding together Unionists and Secessionists, many of whom lived under the same roofs in this divided countryside.
