Blue Jackets & Contrabands:
Published as part of a Civil War military history/African American series of studies, this book by Barbara Brooks Tomblin provides a well-written and thoroughly researched survey of the relationship between the U.S. Navy and blacks during the war. Unlike the Army and Marines, the Navy had recruited blacks for many years, although limited in 1839 to a maximum of five percent of enlisted men. By the end of the Civil War, 18,000 African Americans had served with the Navy, about 20 percent of total enlistments. In addition, according to Tomblin, “…without the labor of thousands of black military laborers and hundreds of laundresses, cooks, nurses, guides, and purveyors of fresh produce and meat, the Union Navy would have been hard-pressed to prosecute the war as successfully as it did.” Chapters cover the Union policy towards contrabands, the establishment of camps for escaped slaves, informants and black sailors. Contrabands by the thousands made their way to naval ships and Union-held sectors along the Atlantic coast and presented a major logistical problem to house and feed them. But both the Army and Navy gradually realized the advantages of using these ex-slaves and depriving the Confederacy of their services. Although the book is basically limited to the South Atlantic region, the situation was similar in the Mississippi Valley, where the Navy eagerly recruited blacks for service. One of the interesting aspects of the Civil War was the frequency of the anonymous so-called “intelligent contraband” showing up at a critical time to advise and guide Union forces. As one author remarked, it was strange how many of the individuals were taken straight to the commander and the advice taken. Who they were and their effects on the war’s outcome is now lost to history. Reviewer: Patrick E. Purcell, a graduate of Northeastern University, is a retired railroad manager. He is a former president of the Old Baldy Civil War Round Table in Philadelphia and was on the Board of Governors of the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia.
|
Illustrated, index, bibliography, 373 pp., 2009. University Press of Kentucky, 633 South Limestone St., Lexington, KY 40508-4008, $39.95 plus shipping.