Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard graduate, aboliishinist and Unitarian took a challange that most in his position would have shied away from. He organized the first South Carolina Regiment made up of Black slaves. This is his story told by him of the trials and endurance of his people as they struggled to learn all that a soldier needed to know. They were more than up for the task. As you read Higginson's diary it is clear how his preconceptions are erased as he comes to know these men. This is a wonderful account by a white officer of his experience with Black troops. A volume not to be...

This Civil War memoir is a must read for anyone interested in the trials and tribulations that black soldiers faced fighting in the war. From the preface: "These pages record some of the adventures of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late civil war. It was, indeed, the first colored regiment of any kind so mustered, except a portion of the troops raised by Major-General Butler at New Orleans. These scarcely belonged to the same class, however, being recruited from the free colored population of that city, a...