Consequently, the Navy Department exhibited no hesitation in recruiting them for service from the very outset of hostilities with the Confederacy. Black sailors became a common fixture aboard American naval vessels long before the Civil War. Navy could not afford to observe racial taboos in filling its ranks. In fact, Ramold goes so far as to claim that the Union Navy "conducted a unique experiment in social equality" (182).īecause trained seamen were a rare commodity in antebellum America, the U.S. In doing so, he challenges standard assumptions about the treatment that Afro-Americans received under Federal auspices by demonstrating that black sailors suffered far less from discrimination than their brothers in the Union Army. ![]() Ramold, an assistant professor at Virginia State University, breaks considerable new ground with his first book, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy. ![]() The black people who composed 16 percent of the Union Navy have received comparatively little attention-until now. These works, like most others on black service in the Civil War, focus on the African Americans who served in the Union Army. and The Black Civil War Soldiers of Illinois: The Story of the Twenty-ninth U.S. Glatthaar's Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers and solid unit histories, including The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience during the Civil War by James G. These titles include broad overviews, such as Joseph T. Cloth $32.00.)ĭuring the past thirteen years, Civil War studies have been enriched by a steady stream of monographs on the black military experience between 18. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002. Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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