man’s inhumanity to man that stretches back into the courtyard of Missouri’s State Penitentiary. An outsider reading this local history must not only doubt the basic humanity of those who held slaves but also find shocking “the community’s intense anger toward anyone accused of slave stealing” (p. 140).
This book, however, has its weaknesses. Legal records reveal human stories, but they also reduce the historical record to surviving documentation that invariably reflects the majesty of the law and the insignificance of its subjects. Furthermore, it is not at all clear that Missouri was the runaway capital. The passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was in response to frequent runaways from Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky--all bordering slave as well as free states. Finally, the failure of this book to situate itself within the broader historical literature on topics like the myth of the happy slave, slave runaways advertisements, and international border disputes over slavery gives this book a provincial and almost dated feel to it. This is a pity because it mounts a persuasive brief for slavery in Missouri as being guilty as charged.
According to one reliable source, some 8,344 black soldiers served in the Union army from Missouri. Peter Grumer, a former slave who had been manumitted, served in the 67th United States Colored Infantry (USCI). Slave-born Milton Denny enlisted in the 65th USCI at Benton barracks, St. Louis, Missouri, in January 1864. James Henry served in the 60th USCI (Regosin and Shaffer, pp. 42, 51, 87) The sources for these black enlistees are the U.S. Pension Bureau Files organized under Record Group 15 in the National Archives. In 1862, the U.S. Congress assigned the U.S. Pension Bureau to administer pensions to soldiers and sailors disabled by their wartime service. In 1890, Congress broadened its pension mandate to cover any disabilities acquired by former service personnel. It is the experiences of ex-slave soldiers as revealed through these pension files that is the central focus of Elizabeth A. Regosin and Donald R. Shaffer, professional historians at St. Lawrence University and Upper Iowa University respectively, who have written previously on the post-emancipation black experience.
The central objective of Voices of Emancipation is to expose readers to a sample of the Civil War pension files of ex-slaves in order to learn more about their individual and personal experiences during slavery, wartime, and the postwar era. Working backward, I would divide the book into four discrete sections. First, the index lists claimants by name. This should help genealogists as well as scholars researching individual black soldiers. Second, the appendix reproduces nine complete sample documents, all of which are depositions from special examinations. Veteran Frank Nunn, who fought for the 86th USCI, as well as widow Mary Jane Taylor whose husband Samuel Taylor fought in the 45th USCI, were among those interviewed. These depositions inquired into the validity of a claimant’s application; they are valuable because the voices are unedited.
The third section of the book, and its heart, consists of four chapters on the usage of the pension files for understanding slavery, the military experience of soldiers, postwar patterns, and marriage and the family respectively. Thus, chapter 2 draws on the pension files to reveal the similarities of military discipline experienced by all Civil War soldiers as well as the differences for black soldiers regarding recruitment, family members joining their enlistees, limited combat roles, prisoners of war, and postwar service. Denny, from Missouri, recalled the tedium of army routine: “We had dress parade in the morning, reverse arms at a funeral, and fired a salute in the grave” (p. 52). Cuffee Simmons reported that the 128th USCI had “skirmishes,” but we “were in no battles”; while Fort Pillow survivor Allen James testified that he “was not treated like the other prisoners” (pp. 65, 70). Chapter 3 uses the pension files to highlight postwar economic patterns of labor, propert