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

Deborah Willis

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

Half title art: Alexander Herritage Newton (left) as a quartermaster sergeant with the Twenty-Ninth Connecticut Infantry, ca. 1865. Standing next to him is Daniel S. Lathrop (18461924), who served at the same rank in the regiment. (Photographers: James Horace Wells and David C. Collins of New Haven, Connecticut; carte de visit; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

Frontis: Sergeant Henry F. Steward, 1863. (Hand-colored ambrotype; from the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment photographs, Massachusetts Historical Society, photo 2.162)

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Willis, Deborah, 1948 author.

Title: The Black Civil War Soldier : A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship / Deborah Willis.

Description: New York : New York University Press, [2021] | Series: NYU series in social and cultural analysis | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020015037 (print) | LCCN 2020015038 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479809004 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479826261 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479827145 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Participation, African American. | United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Participation, African AmericanPictorial works. | African American soldiersBiography. | African American soldiersPortraits.

Classification: LCC E540.N3 W715 2021 (print) | LCC E540.N3 (ebook) | DDC 973.7/415dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015037

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015038

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Memory, personal and public, as viewed through the experience of photography, shaped the history of the black Civil War soldier. This book synthesizes that historyboth difficult and desired. We seek out memorials about slavery and the Civil War in the North and the South. We are engrossed in public debates about the relevance of monuments from Stone Mountain to Grants Tomb. We visit historic sites such as Gettysburg, the African American Civil War Museum, and the Cyclorama in Atlanta, searching for new stories, and many people attend Civil War reenactments and Juneteenth celebrations. A number of films over the past few yearsfrom 12 Years a Slave and Belle to Lincoln, Django Unchained, and Harriethave sought to tell an accurate story about slavery and freedom. Now that a large number of records are finally being digitized and becoming accessible, I believe it is important to reveal both the heroic and the horrific moments.

There is something about looking at images that forces me to question the narratives of the past. I have long been puzzled by the imagery of black peoples, and I have tried to make sense of the story that has been told. For decades, we have been taught to look at photographs as objects, but now, thanks to new scholarship, we are encouraged to consider the idea of postmemory and listening when we view photographs. Images represent visual responses to what we may have been told about a period and prompt such questions as, How was black male identity formed by images of soldiers in uniform? In addition to reading images closely, I wanted this book to include the invisible voicesarising from slave narratives and contemporary lettersof the people who are not typically researched. It was important for me to incorporate new voices and images in order to grapple with a history that is often exclusionary. Photographs and words function as a testimony that reflects peoples bravery, pride, and determination and reminds us of the toll of war.

Photography first appeared in the United States in the 1840s, a time when images were more accessible than ever before. The photograph became the mechanical visual evidence that slavery existed, as did its resistance. Indeed, I believe the story of that resistance can be found in the photographs of black Civil War soldiers. That was the impetus for this book, which examines the publics memory of the Civil War and how the presence and lack of images of black soldiers influence our modern perceptions of the war in the archive. It weaves a narrative about the early years of American photography, focusing on iconic moments of the war and the role black Americans played in shaping the visual narrative of freedom. As the curator Okwui Enwezor asserts, There is something to be said for historical returns, the way past events play on our memories, as we pay homage to historical and iconic images. What amazes me is the overlapping of historical narrativesfrom popular culture to literary textsthat make visible the racialized and gendered readings often depicted as truths.

Unexpected and informative sources for my research include pension records and various periodicals whose focus was general interest, civil war, abolitionism, and religion. For example, a file in the pension records documents the story of Susan Brewster, wife of Henry, whose applications to receive her husbands pension were repeatedly denied. While giving a lecture at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh, I met the historian Millington Bergeson-Lockwood, who told me about his own research while using the pension records and introduced the complicated story of the Brewsters to me. In 1905, at the age of fifty-seven, Susan sent her only photograph of her husband along with her petition, requesting its return. Sadly, the photograph is still filed at the US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Pensions, having never been returned. Henry Brewster was a blacksmith and a tailor; in the photograph, he holds a ruler and wears a long coat. Susans story is long and complicated; she tried many times to prove her marriage to Henry and his service in the war. The following is her initial affidavit.

Original Petition for Pension

State of New York

Columbia County

Susan Brewster having been duly sworn deposes and says that she is the widow of Henry M. Brewster late private in Co. E 55 Mass. Vol. Infantry, that he enlisted under the name of Henry M. Forrest as a private at Newberryport Mass Feb 14, 1865. He was born in Lee, Mass. about 1835. His fathers name was Fredrich Brewster. Henry M. Brewster was a colored man at the time he enlisted he was a blacksmith. After he left the army he did laboring work as long as he was able. My full name is Susan Brewster. My maiden name was Susan Whitford. I was married to the soldier at Pittsfield Mass. Dec 6, 1867 by the Rev. Mr Miller. we lived together from the time of our marriage to his death at Sommers, Ct. Lee, Mass, Hartford, conn. We had one daughter born at Hartford conn. April 18th 1883. He had lost the sight of his left eye & ?? of his right eye. He was troubled with his kidneys from the time he left the army to his death, which was from acute Brights disease. He was discharged for disability at US Hospital Beaufort, S.C. July 10, 1865. He died April 19th 1899. Subscribed and