Thunder at the Gates; The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America
New York: Basic Books, 2016. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. [12], 429, [7] pages. Frontis illustration. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Index. Douglas R. Egerton is Professor of History at LeMoyne College. His books include Thunder At the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America, The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era (2014), Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War (2010) and Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (2009). An intimate, authoritative history of the first black soldiers to fight in the Union Army during the Civil War. Soon after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, abolitionists began to call for the creation of black regiments. At first, the South and most of the North responded with outrage-southerners promised to execute any black soldiers captured in battle. Meanwhile, Massachusetts, long the center of abolitionist fervor, launched one of the greatest experiments in American history. In Thunder at the Gates, Douglas Egerton chronicles the formation and battlefield triumphs of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry and the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry-regiments led by whites but composed of black men born free or into slavery. He argues that the most important battles of all were won on the field of public opinion, for in fighting with distinction the regiments realized the idea of full and equal citizenship for blacks. A stirring evocation of this transformative episode, Thunder at the Gates offers a riveting new perspective on the Civil War and its legacy. More