The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship

The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis 256 pages

Part of the NYU Series on Social & Cultural Analysis

This is one of those books that I knew I wanted to read just by seeing the cover. I admit that I was a little afraid at what graphic images it might contain, but I steeled myself and opened the cover.  Seeing as the subtitle I assumed it would filled with photos. There are a lot, around seventy I believe, but I somehow expected more. There are the standards that show up in any discussion of slavery, the South, the Civil War, and many other avenues (especially the one showing the crisscrossed scars on the back of “Whipped Peter”).

What I wasn’t prepared for was the large number of photographs of Black soldiers in uniform. At the time of the Civil War, “photography culture blossomed―marking the Civil War as the first conflict to be extensively documented through photographs.”  I couldn’t help but wonder how these men paid for their images to be reproduced. If it’s in this book, I missed it.

Another thing that I wasn’t prepared for was the way the book is put together. The text is mostly letters from the soldiers. Author “Willis not only dives into the lives of black Union soldiers, but also includes stories of other African Americans involved with the struggle―from left-behind family members to female spies. Willis thus compiles a captivating memoir of photographs and words and examines them together to address themes of love and longing; responsibility and fear; commitment and patriotism; and―most predominantly―African American resilience.” I did have trouble with the dialect, but that made it all the more real…it didn’t feel like a white woman was writing it.

Willis does an outstanding job in putting new faces to this age-old history. Therefore, The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.