Recognition Denied: A History of the Black Soldier in the America's Civil War

by Kenneth E. Brown, Lee Duncan (Illustrator), Radiant Communications (Editor)

Black soldier's played a significant role in America's Civil War. "Recognition Denied - The History of the Black Soldier in America's Civil War," pays tribute to all of those brave soldiers and at last provides the recognition they deserve. In addition to Black's service during the Civil War, one of the major themes of this work is to show some of the foremost achievements of the Black Race benefiting mankind. "Recognition Denied" briefly shows Black achievements such as the first use of trigonometry and writing. This is followed by a detailed, well researched history of the Black military contribution to the Union during America's Civil War. Detail is supported by current on site evaluation of former battle fields with period and current photographs of these battle fields; battle schematics and graphs; geographic maps of major battles listed by State in chronologic order using official government source documentation, and geographic information software to pinpoint these locations; and Black Regiment Battle History. "Recognition Denied" evaluates the contributions of key individuals in support of the Black soldier. Some of those key individuals include the Black teenager Susie King Taylor who served as a seamstress, nurse and educator to those Black soldiers, who had a zeal for education, and who never missed an opportunity to learn to read and write during periods when the fighting had died down; Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson the first commander of a Black Civil War slave regiment. whose talents "Turned Slaves into Soldiers." Higginson's regiment captured the city of Jacksonville, Florida and experienced other important successes; and finally to the wrongly maligned General Benjamin Butler, whose talents propelled the Black soldier to victorious heights, which led to the capture of New Market Heights - a battle which witnessed the awarding of the nation's highest honor to fourteen solders. The awarding of these fourteen Congressional Medals, in one day's battle, was an achievement never equaled in all of American history - before or after. Significant supporters included Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison whose elegance and forcefulness stirred a movement thus propelling it into a war that would end slavery; Frederick Douglass, a disciple of Garrison whose persistence led to the status of the Black man being changed from citizen to soldier; and John Brown who would unwittingly use other abolitionists to carry his life and death struggle from the North to the South. The companion to the book is a CD that contains all of the books contents with the ability to hyper link throughout the pages of the book; audio narration; and the ability to link to current major Black Civil War web-sites as well as to a genealogical site that the user can begin a search to finding if they have a genealogic link to one or more of the 200,000 Black soldiers who served. The purpose of this work is to give those brave soldiers at last the recognition they deserve, and to give the race the benefits of the knowledge of their history therefore instilling pride. And in conclusion "Recognition Denied" shows how the banding of all races in America can come together and solve some of the major problems in the country.

225 pages, Paperback

Published January 19, 2007