Army Life in a Black Regiment

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister, was a fervent member of new England's abolitionist movement, an active participant in the Underground Railroad, and part of a group that supplied material aid to John Brown before his ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry.

In 1862 Higginson was commissioned as a colonel in the Union Army and assigned to train emancipated slaves to become soldiers. He did so on the Sea Islands off the coast of the Carolinas. This is not about big battles or famous events but everyday life in difficult circumstances. It is not an account of war, but of humanity at its very best. The author was a writer before he ever thought of muskets and artillery. A frequent contributor to Atlantic Monthly, Higginson's style occasionally sounds dated and prejudiced, but what he did in leading the first black regiment far exceeds anything he wrote. His amusement at childlike naïveté is balanced by his awe of certain black non-commissioned officers. This is his story.

Many people wanted the experiment to fail, instead the men showed they were fast learners, hard workers, good soldiers and dedicated to their comrades. As usual they are treated poorly by the Government being paid less than the white soldier – despite the promises made. Higginson spends many pages with comparisons of the black and white troops, and engages in descriptions of his soldiers that seem to be directed at a circa 1860s New Englander who had never before seen any negroes.

"There were more than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any of my young [white] captains had incurred in all their lives."

Army Life in a Black Regiment ranges from detailed reports on daily life to a vivid description of the author's near escape from cannon fire, to sketches that conjure up the beauty and mystery of the Sea Islands. His regiment, the 1st South Carolina, made up of "contrabands" from the sea isles and low country of South Carolina, was relegated mostly to garrison and picketing duties near Beaufort and Hilton Head. The action they saw with Higgonson in command was limited to a few up river raids in South Carolina and Florida, and the occupation of Jacksonville for a short time.

Unlike the Massachusetts 54th which was made up primarily of freedman the 1st South Carolina, or "Fus Souf" as it was called was made up of fugitive and abandoned slaves. Thus, one should have assumed that it would have been harder to train and discipline uneducated and much-abused slaves. Not so. The discipline and military training Higginson describes compares very favorably with various Union regiments, including the famous Irish Brigade. While Higginson's use of `negro' dialect in the telling of his story may not be to the liking of some of today's `politically correct' readers, it is nevertheless a story worth reading.

- Much of the imagery and characterization in the movie GLORY seems to have been lifted from this book: it is, after all, a first-hand narrative of war by an idealist sorely tested by politics and physical hardship. Higginson's writing of the book is in part his attempt to deal with what today we would call Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder, and it is no wonder that the tone sometimes reminds the reader of Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River."

- The best chapter in my opinion was about his own personal decision to swim to the Confederate lines at night, naked, to scout out their positions. The chapter is entitled "A Night in the Water." It is gripping stuff.

- While the slaves in the South, for a host of reasons, did not insurrect with the intensity or frequency of say Haiti, the other West Indian islands, or Brazil, when the time came to show discipline, courage and honor under arms, blacks would prove not inferior to whites. And Higginson's book is prima facie evidence for that position.

- This is a wonderful account by a white officer of his experience with Black troops. As you read Higginson's diary it is clear how his preconceptions are erased as he comes to know these men.

- The most interesting parts of the memoir are Higginsons account of the 1863 Jacksonville expedition, and Higginsons evolving views and experiences of his troops. The narrative is composed partly of the authors wartime diary, and partly of his post-war recollections. The diary part of the narrative charts the evolution of Higginsons view of his men as he gets to know them better and his range of experiences with them broadens. As the narrative continues, he writes less and less of the differences he sees in his men and more about how they're not really different from (and in his opinion, in some ways superior to) white troops.

The editors at Time-Life chose this book as one of the volumes of the Collector's Library of the Civil War. It is available in a leather-bound edition with gilded gold edges and also in paperback and digital formats. An audio edition of this book is also included as one of the volumes on the DVD of our Collector's Library set.