 | Corporal Wilson Weir was one of more than 180,000 African-American soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Letters from some of the soldiers describing their war experiences are on view in the library exhibition. |
An exhibition paying tribute to the African Americans who fought on the side of the North during the War Between the States is on view through February at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Titled "'No Man Can Hinder Me': Black Troops in the Union Armies During the American Civil War," the exhibit includes photos, documents and other materials tracing the challenges faced by African-American soldiers before, during and after the conflict.
The exhibit takes its title from a spiritual sung by black soldiers. It is accompanied by a free, illustrated booklet featuring an essay by Bethuel Hunter, librarian-in-residence at the Beinecke Library.
When war broke out over the issue of states' rights, African Americans were barred from enlisting in the federal troops, despite the fact that they had fought in the nation's previous conflicts, notes Hunter.
"From the beginning, abolitionists, black and white, along with radical Midwestern free soilers insisted on black enlistment and the abolition of slavery as cornerstones of federal policy," he writes. "Officially and unofficially, however, northerners were repeatedly assured that the war was in no way associated with black issues or concerns."
The Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863 "made emancipation a centerpiece of federal war policy, and it provided for the acceptance of black soldiers and sailors in the Union armies and navy," says Hunter. Ultimately, approximately 186,000 black soldiers and 29,500 black sailors served in the federal armed forces during the Civil War.
The black soldiers continued to face a wall of resistance and oppression, notes Hunter, who in his essay describes the prejudice blacks faced within the Union ranks, discriminatory pay scales and assignments, and the deadly toll taken by harsh working conditions and disease. "Escaped slaves who joined the armed forces eager to confront their former masters on different terms quickly discovered that they had exchanged one white-dominated hierarchy for another and that this one too assumed and enforced their inferior status," writes Hunter.
"Despite, or perhaps more properly, because of the virtually unassailable challenges at every side," he notes, "many of the black men who enlisted in the Union armies were highly motivated. They may have worn the same uniform and marched under the same flag as white northern soldiers, but the black troops fought a completely different war. The liberation they sought encompassed far more than freedom from chattel slavery. ...
"The fact that nationhood itself was threatened by a difference in opinion over whether African Americans could be claimed as property or acknowledged, however rhetorically, as human beings, showed just how precarious their position was. These men fought because they had to. The risks were high, too high really, but so too were the potential rewards," he adds.
Among the items on view in "No Man Can Hinder Me" is the pen that Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation as well as an autographed letter dated Nov. 12, 1863 by black abolitionist Frederick Douglass to an unidentified friend, relating that his son Charles had departed for the front. Two of Douglass's three sons -- Charles Redmond and Lewis Henry -- served in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment; both survived the war.
Formal portraits of black Civil War soldiers are also on display. Many of these photographs are from an album assembled by First Lieutenant Theodore F. Wright for his mother, Sara. They show the enlisted men and line officers of Companies F and D of the 180th United States Colored Infantry, organized at Louisville, Kentucky, in the summer of 1864. The experience of other soldiers is documented in handwritten muster rolls and death certificates written on forms that were also used to record the deceased's effects.
The names of the 35 African-American soldiers from New Haven who lost their lives during the war are listed in a pamphlet that was published in 1899 by the New Haven Register.
In addition, two Yale graduates figure in the exhibition. Letters by Lewis Ledyard Weld (Class of 1854) to his mother in August 1864 describe the heroism of black troops under his command at the battle of Deep Bottom in Virginia. Charles G.G. Merrill (Class of 1861, M.D. 1863), a surgeon in the 22nd United States Colored Troops, wrote letters to his family describing both military action and the deplorable conditions suffered by the black troops. After the war, when the 22nd was posted to the Texas frontier, Merrill wrote to his father: "the idea of putting ten thousand men in such a country without using any provision -- or making any provision is more than preposterous -- it is damnable."
The items on display in "No Man Can Hinder Me" were drawn from several collections in the Yale Library system. These include the Beinecke's Randolph Linsly Simpson Collection, a gathering of about 2,500 photographic items documenting African-American life in the 19th and 20th centuries; and the Lewis Ledyard Weld Family Papers, the Loomis-Wilder Family Papers and the Charles G.G. Merrill Papers, all from the Department of Manuscripts and Archives at Sterling Memorial Library.
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is located at 121 Wall St. It is open for exhibition viewing 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday; and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. For further information, call (203) 432-2977 or visit the website at www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/.
T H I S
Exhibit explores experiences of
black soldiers in the Civil War
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