Book review
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Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia.
By Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. A Nation Divided: New Studies
in Civil War History. James I. Robertson, Jr., Series Editor. Charlottesville
and London: University Press of Virginia, 1995. xv, 447 pp. $67.50.
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Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees attempts the ambitious -- and worthwhile -- task
of reclaiming the stories of Virginia's
African Americans during the Civil War
era. The result offers glimpses into not
only the familiar tale of resistance but
also the provocative story of free blacks
and slaves who helped the Confederate
war effort. The research supporting this
effort is wide and deep. Unfortunately,
weaknesses in the presentation prevent
this book from fulfilling its potential.
Ervin L. Jordan, Jr., acknowledges his
debt to such notables in African-American history as Carter Q. Woodson to
show black people as "participants in,
not objects of, history" (p. xii). Using
Virginia for this research contains additional merit because the state has received more attention on military
engagements than the home front. Although
recent works have begun to address the
neglect, the field remains open -- especially for learning about African-American involvement in the war.
The author has adopted a welcome
approach by analyzing front and home
front to demonstrate the effect of war on
Afro-Virginians and vice versa. In the
process, Jordan deals with an incredibly
diverse range of African-American experiences. Readers encounter -- among others -- laborers, skilled workers, field
hands, free blacks, African-American
slaveholders, hired slaves, a woman pioneer in benevolence, preachers, runaways, body servants, and soldiers for
both the Union and Confederacy.
Jordan packages this mammoth undertaking into two parts. The first, "Uncertain Trumpet," details the nitty-gritty of
African-American life down to the diet of
plantation slaves. For students of slavery
and plantation society, this portion contains few surprises, although some of the
vignettes are interesting and worth future
citation. This section provides its greatest
service in collecting material from secondary works and archives into one spot
for a perspective on African-American
life within the Old Dominion.
Part 2 contains the more provocative
elements. Titled "Give Us a Flag," the
section suggests that African Americans
had a more complex agenda than escaping masters and fighting for the Union.
Although many fled the South, most
Afro-Virginians remained in their native
state. Some, of course, did so from coercion, but others did not. Skilled black
laborers and hired slaves benefited because the Confederacy needed their
craftsmanship for war-related production. Free blacks - some of them shopkeepers - at times displayed Confederate
sentiments to preserve their place in communities and their white clientele. Some
body servants sympathized enough with
masters or feared Yankees enough to
pick up muskets against the Union. Other
free blacks and slaves assembled late in
the war to help fight for the Confederacy
when the decision was made to arm
slaves. To his credit, Jordan sees more
ambiguity behind these gestures of support than the old Lost Cause mythology
about happy slaves who loved their
masters.
The overall analysis, however, could
use strengthening. Although the author
allows for a variety of motivations behind
African Americans' fighting for the Confederacy, the conclusions do not always
place material into perspective. One
would suppose that black Confederates
were the exception and not the rule, yet
this surmise is not well enough delineated, Additionally, the section on using
slaves in the southern army leaves the
reader uncertain whether the men chose
military service or were "volunteered"
by masters.
Two factors contribute to the analytical
problems: a failure to root arguments in
secondary literature and the structure of
the narrative itself. Concerning the
former, Jordan has consulted an impressive array of books (although seemingly
overlooking Lynda Joyce Morgan's
Emancipation in Virginia's Tobacco Belt,
1850-1870) but does not situate his work
well within them. He consults secondary
materials primarily for their evidence
without indicating if he accepts or rejects
the approaches within. The reader ultimately must guess views on the nature of
southern society, self-emancipation, and
other historiographical standards.
As problematic is the execution of the
narrative. An archivist at the Alderman
Library at the University of Virginia,
Jordan wanted to enhance understanding
of the black experience by combing for all
possible primary materials. He succeeds
admirably in meeting this goal but presents the information in a way that sometimes reads like a report of wonderful
findings that do not always flow together
well. The beginning and end of chapters
attempt to lay out a structure, but the
material in between often seems like an
episodic report of choice anecdotes -- as if
a caring family member directed us
through albums of beloved snapshots.
This criticism is not meant to dismiss
the book: the research alone makes this
work a useful resource. Anyone attempting a study of Afro-Virginians during the
Civil War of necessity should begin with
the archival map that Black Confederates
provides. Jordan also brings a dedication
to his effort that is commendable and
raises possibilities of Confederate loyalties among African Americans that most
studies have ignored. One cannot help
but wish that a more exacting presentation had been achieved.
William Alan Blair, University of North Carolina
at Greensboro
Reviewed in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, v.103 no.4 (October 1990)
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