Fighting for Citizenship
Black Northerners and the Debate over Military Service in the Civil War
By Brian Taylor
248 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, notes, bibl., index
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-5977-0
Published: September 2020 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-5976-3
Published: September 2020 -
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4696-5978-7
Published: August 2020
Civil War America
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These debates over African Americans’ enlistment expose a formative moment in the development of American citizenship: black Northerners’ key demand was that military service earn full American citizenship, a term that had no precise definition prior to the Fourteenth Amendment. In articulating this demand, Taylor argues, black Northerners participated in the remaking of American citizenship itself—unquestionably one of the war’s most important results.
About the Author
Brian Taylor is a public historian and scholar of the Civil War era who has taught at Georgetown University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
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Reviews
“Highly recommended. . . . this will be a major resource for those studying African Americans during the Civil War and the African American military experience generally.” –Choice
“The fluidity of Taylor’s writing and the importance of the subject matter make this book useful to a wide range of scholars seeking a fresh analysis of the African American experience during the Civil War.” –Journal of Southern History
""To understand why nearly 33,000 free Black men from Northern states signed up to fight for the Union is the subject of Brian Taylor's probing and informative monograph."-Civil War Times
“By uncovering and assessing internal debates within Northern black communities about military service, Fighting for Citizenship will make an important addition to the burgeoning historical literature on African Americans during the Civil War.”--John David Smith, author of Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops
“Taylor has found something of extraordinary importance: Americans had really no idea of what national citizenship meant, but African Americans in their struggles for it defined American citizenship. This is a new, significant contribution to the historiography of the Civil War era and African American history.”--Barbara A. Gannon, author of Americans Remember Their Civil War