Reviews
"This book reads with all the intensity and relentlessness of a hurricane: It is a horrifying reality, and yet far too interesting, compelling and edifying to ignore." -- The Free Lance-Star, The Civil War is viewed by many as the first "good war," complete with the cherished ideal of two armies fighting for lofty principles while strenuously observing all aspects of "civilized warfare." Author George Burkhardt''''s aptly titled new work should help to dispel such notions. His primary thesis makes the case that Confederate atrocities against black Union soldiers during the war''''s final two and a half years were not isolated, random incidents, but were part of a de facto Confederate policy that offered no quarter to surrendering or wounded black soldiers. According to the author, Lincoln''''s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of blacks into the Union army provided the twin catalysts for the Confederates to believe such practices were necessary and even justified their use of "black flag" tactics. To the Southerner, the Negro was barely subhuman, certainly no more than transportable chattel. These two acts threatened the social order, class structure, and cultural fabric of the South, not to mention the very manhood of the Southern male. The sight of former slaves, now clothed in Union blue and fighting their masters as battlefield equals, sparked a rage in the Confederate psyche. Of course, the official Confederate reaction was always one of disappointment if such acts did in fact occur and it was always stressed that the Richmond government did not sanction or approve of such actions. Surrendering enemy soldiers, be they white or black, should always be given quarter while those wounded and left behind on the battlefield would be given the proper medical treatment. Yet the Confederate government would never acknowledge that its soldiers had committed war crimes and no gray-clad officer was ever so charged and convicted. Subsequent retaliations by black soldiers only further enraged the Confederates, whose outrages started to include the execution of some captured white soldiers who were deemed as cavalry raiders, foragers or house-burners. By 1865, it even included some captured in traditional battle, prompting a growing game of retaliatory tit-for-tat between both sides'''' commanding officers. One important question raised by Burkhardt is why the Lincoln administration apparently tolerated such atrocities against its black soldiers. The author answers by asserting that had federal authorities carried out similar reprisals against Rebel soldiers, the Confederates would have responded in kind against the Union''''s white privates and officers. With a dampened finger raised into the political wind, Lincoln knew the North''''s white populace would never have stood for white soldiers being coldly murdered for the benefit of the black man, what with racial prejudice in the North almost the equal of that in the South. Thus, the North did nothing; inaction, in effect, becoming the de facto policy of the national government. The answer reinforces Lincoln''''s belief that the war was primarily about Union preservation and not justice for the Negro. Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath begins with the author setting the stage for the reader as to how black troops came to be in the Union army. Following a chapter that describes the Southern reaction, he then takes the reader on a 15-chapter odyssey describing the famous and not-so- famous engagements that saw significant Rebel atrocities perpetrated against black soldiers, as well as the North and South reactions both in the field and on the home front. The book also contains numerous period illustrations, photographs and five maps that blend in well with the text. In his earlier career, the author was a news reporter, editor and newspaper publisher. Those skills served him well in the 20 years he spent researching and writing about Civil War atrocities. Any student of the Civil War who still believes the conflict was all about glory, honor or the romanticized Confederate notion of "moonlight and magnolias" will need to consult this intriguing book., "This book reads with all the intensity and relentlessness of a hurricane: It is a horrifying reality, and yet far too interesting, compelling and edifying to ignore." -The Free Lance-Star, "This book needed to be written. The atrocities that Burkhardt writes about happened, and happened with some frequency, but until now references to individual accounts in memoirs, letters, and official documents were scattered across the huge landscape of Civil War history."-- James G. Hollandsworth, Jr. , author of The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War, This book reads with all the intensity and relentlessness of a hurricane: It is a horrifying reality, and yet far too interesting, compelling and edifying to ignore." — The Free Lance-Star, "Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrathskillfully shows how memories of black massacres were buried as part of the reconciliation movement between North and South. Burkhardt offers a gripping narrative filled with graphic first-hand accounts that convey the brutality suffered by black soldiers at the hands of the Confederates and their own white comrades. He compels the reader to think deeply about how Americans have remembered or forgotten the grisly aspects of the Civil War."-Peter S. Carmichael, author ofThe Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion , Journalist Burkhardt believes the role of black troops in the US Civil War has "faded from memory." It is therefore his goal to reclaim the agency of the black soldiers who served in the Union army and in the process explain the causes of Confederate rage against black soldiers. Confederate rage stemmed from a host of things, but the most dominant issue was fear of equality, which might then have led to the capacity for revenge. Beginning with the Emancipation Proclamation, Burkhardt argues, Confederates feared their society was being destroyed. That fear led to outbursts of anxiety, which manifested itself in violence against those bent on destroying their lifestyle. As the war progressed, atrocities against black soldiers grew to a point where they became commonplace. Unfortunately, Burkhardt does not, nor does he claim to, address the underlying racism found in the South. What made the Confederates so fearful? The book does not fully answer that question. The reader is forced to accept that there are deeper causes not mentioned. The remainder of Burkhardt's work details each instance of Confederate violence against black soldiers and the Union's response, or lack thereof. Summing Up: Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries., Journalist Burkhardt believes the role of black troops in the US Civil War has "faded from memory." It is therefore his goal to reclaim the agency of the black soldiers who served in the Union army and in the process explain the causes of Confederate rage against black soldiers. Confederate rage stemmed from a host of things, but the most dominant issue was fear of equality, which might then have led to the capacity for revenge. Beginning with the Emancipation Proclamation, Burkhardt argues, Confederates feared their society was being destroyed. That fear led to outbursts of anxiety, which manifested itself in violence against those bent on destroying their lifestyle. As the war progressed, atrocities against black soldiers grew to a point where they became commonplace. Unfortunately, Burkhardt does not, nor does he claim to, address the underlying racism found in the South. What made the Confederates so fearful? The book does not fully answer that question. The reader is forced to accept that there are deeper causes not mentioned. The remainder of Burkhardt''s work details each instance of Confederate violence against black soldiers and the Union''s response, or lack thereof. Summing Up:Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries., "Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrathskillfully shows how memories of black massacres were buried as part of the reconciliation movement between North and South. Burkhardt offers a gripping narrative filled with graphic first-hand accounts that convey the brutality suffered by black soldiers at the hands of the Confederates and their own white comrades. He compels the reader to think deeply about how Americans have remembered or forgotten the grisly aspects of the Civil War." -Peter S. Carmichael, author ofThe Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion , The Civil War is viewed by many as the first "good war," complete with the cherished ideal of two armies fighting for lofty principles while strenuously observing all aspects of "civilized warfare." Author George Burkhardt''s aptly titled new work should help to dispel such notions. His primary thesis makes the case that Confederate atrocities against black Union soldiers during the war''s final two and a half years were not isolated, random incidents, but were part of a de facto Confederate policy that offered no quarter to surrendering or wounded black soldiers. According to the author, Lincoln''s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of blacks into the Union army provided the twin catalysts for the Confederates to believe such practices were necessary and even justified their use of "black flag" tactics. To the Southerner, the Negro was barely subhuman, certainly no more than transportable chattel. These two acts threatened the social order, class structure, and cultural fabric of the South, not to mention the very manhood of the Southern male. The sight of former slaves, now clothed in Union blue and fighting their masters as battlefield equals, sparked a rage in the Confederate psyche. Of course, the official Confederate reaction was always one of disappointment if such acts did in fact occur and it was always stressed that the Richmond government did not sanction or approve of such actions. Surrendering enemy soldiers, be they white or black, should always be given quarter while those wounded and left behind on the battlefield would be given the proper medical treatment. Yet the Confederate government would never acknowledge that its soldiers had committed war crimes and no gray-clad officer was ever so charged and convicted. Subsequent retaliations by black soldiers only further enraged the Confederates, whose outrages started to include the execution of some captured white soldiers who were deemed as cavalry raiders, foragers or house-burners. By 1865, it even included some captured in traditional battle, prompting a growing game of retaliatory tit-for-tat between both sides'' commanding officers. One important question raised by Burkhardt is why the Lincoln administration apparently tolerated such atrocities against its black soldiers. The author answers by asserting that had federal authorities carried out similar reprisals against Rebel soldiers, the Confederates would have responded in kind against the Union''s white privates and officers. With a dampened finger raised into the political wind, Lincoln knew the North''s white populace would never have stood for white soldiers being coldly murdered for the benefit of the black man, what with racial prejudice in the North almost the equal of that in the South. Thus, the North did nothing; inaction, in effect, becoming the de facto policy of the national government. The answer reinforces Lincoln''s belief that the war was primarily about Union preservation and not justice for the Negro. Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath begins with the author setting the stage for the reader as to how black troops came to be in the Union army. Following a chapter that describes the Southern reaction, he then takes the reader on a 15-chapter odyssey describing the famous and not-so-famous engagements that saw significant Rebel atrocities perpetrated against black soldiers, as well as the North and South reactions both in the field and on the home front. The book also contains numerous period illustrations, photographs and five maps that blend in well with the text. In his earlier career, the author was a news reporter, editor and newspaper publisher. Those skills served him well in the 20 years he spent researching and writing about Civil War atrocities. Any student of the Civil War who still believes the conflict was all about glory, honor or the romanticized Confederate notion of "moonlight and magnolias" will need to consult this intriguing book., "This book needed to be written. The atrocities that Burkhardt writes about happened, and happened with some frequency, but until now references to individual accounts in memoirs, letters, and official documents were scattered across the huge landscape of Civil War history."- James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., author ofThe Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War, "This book needed to be written. The atrocities that Burkhardt writes about happened, and happened with some frequency, but until now references to individual accounts in memoirs, letters, and official documents were scattered across the huge landscape of Civil War history."-James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., author ofThe Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War, "Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath skillfully shows how memories of black massacres were buried as part of the reconciliation movement between North and South. Burkhardt offers a gripping narrative filled with graphic first-hand accounts that convey the brutality suffered by black soldiers at the hands of the Confederates and their own white comrades. He compels the reader to think deeply about how Americans have remembered or forgotten the grisly aspects of the Civil War."-- Peter S. Carmichael , author of The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion, Recent events around the world confirm that civil wars are vicious and bloody affairs leaving wounds that can fester and reopen for generations. The United States endured a particularly grueling civil war between 1861 and 1865, which resulted in 620,000 American military deaths-more than in any previous or subsequent conflict. Despite these harrowing statistics, white Americans tend to view their civil war as an ennobling experience. The issues that caused the worst bloodbath in American history and the problems that the slaughter left unresolved fail to register in public memory. Civil War buffs seem content to remember only that both sides were valiant, which leads to the comforting conclusion that both were right. Even many professional historians who study the period succumb to its mythic allure, tempering their language and choice of projects to avoid alienating enthusiasts who revel in idealized depictions of mass murder.Students of the black experience in sordid side of the American Civil War have long confronted the struggle that most Americans regard with such fondness. White southerners embraced secession and founded a separate nation in 1860-1861 to preserve human bondage. These Confederates generally dealt harshly with those blacks who challenged the distinctive social and economic order that slavery made possible. During the past generation, scholarly books and articles devoted to the U. S. Colored Troops have established that Confederate forces repeatedly murdered black Union soldiers who fell into their hands, including those who attempted to surrender and wounded men too weak to offer resistance. Curiously, these racial atrocities have usually been studied as regional phenomena, and this narrow perspective has kept such research from altering the fundamental image of the Civil War.In a bold and authoritative work that should rock the field''s historiography, George S. Burkhardt argues that summary executions of black men in blue were not isolated or random affairs but constituted a pervasive pattern reflecting the values that called the Confederate States of America into being. His book shines a light on the conflict''s darkest corners and shatters the comforting delusion that it was a titanic gentlemen''s quarrel over differences white Americans reconciled with dazzling grace after they finished butchering each other in record numbers.Abraham Lincoln''s Emancipation Proclamation and his administration''s formation of 166 black regiments awakened fears rooted deep in the South''s slave system. Jumping to the conclusion that the Yankees intended to unleash a horde of African savages to wage a campaign of extermination against Dixie, Confederates vowed to reply in kind, ignoring the so-called rules of civilized warfare whenever they met black soldiers and the white officers who volunteered to lead them. As Burkhardt easily shows, rebel troops frequently followed through on this threat from their earliest encounters with the U. S. Colored Troops. As the Union Army''s black regiments proliferated, southern desperation intensified, which produced more massacres.Although the Lincoln administration pledged to retaliate for the mistreatment and murder of the Union''s black defenders, it never did. Northern politicians refused to take any action on behalf of African Americans for fear of endangering white prisoners in rebel hands. Federal field commanders often ignored evidence of Confederate war crimes to avoid having to acknowledge them and create a host of complications. Black soldiers sometimes refused quarter to rebel troops, but Union officers and white troops often succeeded in preventing or limiting such excesses.Blacks were not the only Union soldiers to feel the brunt of redoubled Confederate fury. As the war entered its final year, Federal forces embraced a hard-war policy that targeted Confederate civilians by, The Civil War is viewed by many as the first "good war," complete with the cherished ideal of two armies fighting for lofty principles while strenuously observing all aspects of "civilized warfare." Author George Burkhardt''s aptly titled new work should help to dispel such notions. His primary thesis makes the case that Confederate atrocities against black Union soldiers during the war''s final two and a half years were not isolated, random incidents, but were part of a de facto Confederate policy that offered no quarter to surrendering or wounded black soldiers. According to the author, Lincoln''s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of blacks into the Union army provided the twin catalysts for the Confederates to believe such practices were necessary and even justified their use of "black flag" tactics. To the Southerner, the Negro was barely subhuman, certainly no more than transportable chattel. These two acts threatened the social order, class structure, and cultural fabric of the South, not to mention the very manhood of the Southern male. The sight of former slaves, now clothed in Union blue and fighting their masters as battlefield equals, sparked a rage in the Confederate psyche. Of course, the official Confederate reaction was always one of disappointment if such acts did in fact occur and it was always stressed that the Richmond government did not sanction or approve of such actions. Surrendering enemy soldiers, be they white or black, should always be given quarter while those wounded and left behind on the battlefield would be given the proper medical treatment. Yet the Confederate government would never acknowledge that its soldiers had committed war crimes and no gray-clad officer was ever so charged and convicted. Subsequent retaliations by black soldiers only further enraged the Confederates, whose outrages started to include the execution of some captured white soldiers who were deemed as cavalry raiders, foragers or house-burners. By 1865, it even included some captured in traditional battle, prompting a growing game of retaliatory tit-for-tat between both sides'' commanding officers. One important question raised by Burkhardt is why the Lincoln administration apparently tolerated such atrocities against its black soldiers. The author answers by asserting that had federal authorities carried out similar reprisals against Rebel soldiers, the Confederates would have responded in kind against the Union''s white privates and officers. With a dampened finger raised into the political wind, Lincoln knew the North''s white populace would never have stood for white soldiers being coldly murdered for the benefit of the black man, what with racial prejudice in the North almost the equal of that in the South. Thus, the North did nothing; inaction, in effect, becoming the de facto policy of the national government. The answer reinforces Lincoln''s belief that the war was primarily about Union preservation and not justice for the Negro. Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath begins with the author setting the stage for the reader as to how black troops came to be in the Union army. Following a chapter that describes the Southern reaction, he then takes the reader on a 15-chapter odyssey describing the famous and not-so-famous engagements that saw significant Rebel atrocities perpetrated against black soldiers, as well as the North and South reactions both in the field and on the home front. The book also contains numerous period illustrations, photographs and five maps that blend in well with the text. In his earlier career, the author was a news reporter, editor and newspaper publisher. Those skills served him well in the 20 years he spent researching and writing about Civil War atrocities. Any student of the Civil War who still believes the conflict was all about glory, honor or the romanticized Confederate notion of "moonlight and magnolias" will need to consult this intriguing book., This book needed to be written. The atrocities that Burkhardt writes about happened, and happened with some frequency, but until now references to individual accounts in memoirs, letters, and official documents were scattered across the huge landscape of Civil War history."— James G. Hollandsworth, Jr. , author of The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War, Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath skillfully shows how memories of black massacres were buried as part of the reconciliation movement between North and South. Burkhardt offers a gripping narrative filled with graphic first-hand accounts that convey the brutality suffered by black soldiers at the hands of the Confederates and their own white comrades. He compels the reader to think deeply about how Americans have remembered or forgotten the grisly aspects of the Civil War."— Peter S. Carmichael , author of The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion , Journalist Burkhardt believes the role of black troops in the US Civil War has "faded from memory." It is therefore his goal to reclaim the agency of the black soldiers who served in the Union army and in the process explain the causes of Confederate rage against black soldiers. Confederate rage stemmed from a host of things, but the most dominant issue was fear of equality, which might then have led to the capacity for revenge. Beginning with the Emancipation Proclamation, Burkhardt argues, Confederates feared their society was being destroyed. That fear led to outbursts of anxiety, which manifested itself in violence against those bent on destroying their lifestyle. As the war progressed, atrocities against black soldiers grew to a point where they became commonplace. Unfortunately, Burkhardt does not, nor does he claim to, address the underlying racism found in the South. What made the Confederates so fearful? The book does not fully answer that question. The reader is forced to accept that there are deeper causes not mentioned. The remainder of Burkhardt's work details each instance of Confederate violence against black soldiers and the Union's response, or lack thereof. Summing Up:Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries., Wartime Atrocities: The Civil War Experience Americans will mark the Civil War's sesquicentennial in a few years, but the subject of wartime atrocities is a relatively new field of study. Recent books, such asBlack Flag over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War, edited by Gregory Urwin (2004) and John Cimprich'sFort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory(2005) examine wartime massacres and how Americans have remembered them. George S. Burkhardt, a former newspaper editor and journalist, apparently spent twenty years examining wartime atrocities, and his time was not misspent. Anyone examining the subject of no quarter during the Civil War should consult his study. Prolonged wars produce atrocities, and the Civil War was no different. But Burkhardt believes that such incidents were not isolated ones: they comprised part of a disturbing pattern of behavior. He takes a chronological approach to his subject, examining battles from the June 1863 fighting at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana-where African American troops took part in Grant's Vicksburg campaign-to the fighting at Mobile and Selma in 1865. In his chapters, the author examines the war's most infamous massacre, the one Nathan Bedford Forrest's men committed at Fort Pillow, Tennessee; perhaps the worst massacre of any kind during the war-the killing of African Americans at Plymouth, North Carolina; and the worst battlefield massacre, which occurred at the July 1864 Crater battle. Some of the battles Burkhardt describes are well-known to historians, others, such as the fighting at Olustee, Florida, in February 1864, and Fort Blakely, Alabama, in April 1865, are less famous. The battle at Fort Blakely, one Confederate wrote, resulted in "the Yankee Fort Pillow" (239), a Union victory that gave African Americans the chance to show no mercy toward their white enemies. Even in the last days of the war, soldiers continued to take no prisoners. The book's title suggests that the North and South proved equally willing to show no quarter, but the battle of Fort Blakely aside, massacres mostly stemmed from Confederate animosity toward African Americans. Confederates, Burkhardt makes clear, were fighting for slavery, and because of their intense hatred of black troops-a hatred that had its origins in slave culture and Southern racism-they usually greeted African Americans with shouts of no quarter. Clashes between black and white soldiers, therefore, made worse an already bitter and bloody war, and neither the North nor South could do much to stop such killing. Burkhardt's study makes a long overdue contribution to Civil War studies by examining the Union's and Confederacy's response to atrocities within the larger framework of their military policy. In the days before the Geneva Convention, the North and South did not follow "rules" by which its commanders must act or face punishment. On the Confederate side, notions of gentility and honor often meant little in the face of racial hatred for black troops. On the Union side, black soldiers found they often could not restrain themselves when avenging fallen comrades or those who remained enslaved. The Union and Confederate governments might have done more to restrain their men, but troops received mixed messages from their leadership. The Confederate government, Burkhardt shows, had at best an ambivalent attitude toward the mistreatment of black troops. It did not officially endorse no quarter tactics, but it did not discipline commanders who employed them either. Thus, the Confederate armies operated using an unofficial no quarter policy. In response to Confederate misconduct, the United States investigated and issued stern warnings,, "This book reads with all the intensity and relentlessness of a hurricane: It is a horrifying reality, and yet far too interesting, compelling and edifying to ignore."--The Free Lance-Star, UNION GEN. William Tecumseh Sherman famously declared, "War is hell." Few books so thoroughly expose this grisly underbelly of the American Civil War as George Burkhardt''s new work, "Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War." This book reads with all the intensity and relentlessness of a hurricane: It is a horrifying reality, and yet far too interesting, compelling and edifying to ignore. Equal parts military, political and social history, "Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath" examines the Confederate policy of "no quarter"--meaning no surrender allowed, only death, even to captives--to black Union soldiers, and the Federal response. But that description is too sanitized. This book really describes in detail the attitudes of both Northern and Southern whites toward black soldiers, and the ruthless and persistent Southern strategy to murder wounded and captured colored fighters. "Over the years, the Civil War acquired a lily-white complexion, and the black soldiers'' role faded from collective memory," Burkhardt states. "The great struggle was remembered as a fair and square fight, with never an atrocity to sully the national self-image." Such a vision is far from the truth. No mercy for Blacks As Burkhardt explains, the incidents of no quarter to black soldiers at places such as Fort Wagner, Fort Pillow and the Petersburg Mine (often called the Battle of the Crater), were not random, isolated events as previous historians have claimed; they comprised a pervasive pattern--begun by soldiers in the field and tacitly allowed by the Confederate government--to punish their former slaves and to protect their heritage and society. These actions were propelled by Southern rage at the upheaval of their desired social order and the threat to their homes, families, honor and manhood. According to Burkhardt, the only logical reaction to this offense was through the Southern predilection for, and commitment to, violence. In addition to the battles of Fort Pillow and the Crater, Burkhardt examines the lesser-known atrocities such as the Camden Expedition, the Plymouth Pogrom, at Brice''s Crossroads, Saltville, Mobile and Selma; and the men involved, such as Confederates Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Mosby and William C. Quantrill and the famed 54th Massachusetts black regiment, led by Col. Robert Gould Shaw, immortalized in the 1990s by the movie "Glory." But the black Union soldiers, while they deserve pity, also deserve censure. Burkhardt clearly shows that black soldiers responded to the Rebel no-quarter policy in kind. Their murderous reaction--understandable but still immoral--in turn fueled Southern anger, which created more atrocities and continued the violence in a vicious circle. For all the murders of their black comrades, however, the Union soldiers and Federal government took no action to make the South stop. Union politicians talked tough, but Lincoln''s fear of escalation, and a knowledge that white soldiers being killed to protect black soldiers would be violently rejected by his Northern constituents, created empty threats. little-known history It was not until the Confederates began murdering white Union soldiers fighting with blacks--as a response to the Northern hard-war policy begun in 1864--that the Federal government authorized a murder-for-murder response. This degenerated the conflict into a nearly total "black-flag" war. "Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath" is a well-treated, well-written scholarly history of a little-acknowledged aspect of the American Civil War. Burkhardt''s aim in his study was to pull all previous scholarship on the topic together and analyze the cause and motivation leading to the Confederate no-quarter actions and the Union responses. In this, he has succeeded admirably. His analysis is impressively objective. He pulls no punches, The Civil War is viewed by many as the first "good war," complete with the cherished ideal of two armies fighting for lofty principles while strenuously observing all aspects of "civilized warfare." Author George Burkhardt''s aptly titled new work should help to dispel such notions.His primary thesis makes the case that Confederate atrocities against black Union soldiers during the war''s final two and a half years were not isolated, random incidents, but were part of a de facto Confederate policy that offered no quarter to surrendering or wounded black soldiers.According to the author, Lincoln''s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of blacks into the Union army provided the twin catalysts for the Confederates to believe such practices were necessary and even justified their use of "black flag" tactics.To the Southerner, the Negro was barely subhuman, certainly no more than transportable chattel. These two acts threatened the social order, class structure, and cultural fabric of the South, not to mention the very manhood of the Southern male. The sight of former slaves, now clothed in Union blue and fighting their masters as battlefield equals, sparked a rage in the Confederate psyche.Of course, the official Confederate reaction was always one of disappointment if such acts did in fact occur and it was always stressed that the Richmond government did not sanction or approve of such actions.Surrendering enemy soldiers, be they white or black, should always be given quarter while those wounded and left behind on the battlefield would be given the proper medical treatment. Yet the Confederate government would never acknowledge that its soldiers had committed war crimes and no gray-clad officer was ever so charged and convicted.Subsequent retaliations by black soldiers only further enraged the Confederates, whose outrages started to include the execution of some captured white soldiers who were deemed as cavalry raiders, foragers or house-burners. By 1865, it even included some captured in traditional battle, prompting a growing game of retaliatory tit-for-tat between both sides'' commanding officers.One important question raised by Burkhardt is why the Lincoln administration apparently tolerated such atrocities against its black soldiers. The author answers by asserting that had federal authorities carried out similar reprisals against Rebel soldiers, the Confederates would have responded in kind against the Union''s white privates and officers.With a dampened finger raised into the political wind, Lincoln knew the North''s white populace would never have stood for white soldiers being coldly murdered for the benefit of the black man, what with racial prejudice in the North almost the equal of that in the South. Thus, the North did nothing; inaction, in effect, becoming the de facto policy of the national government. The answer reinforces Lincoln''s belief that the war was primarily about Union preservation and not justice for the Negro.Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath begins with the author setting the stage for the reader as to how black troops came to be in the Union army. Following a chapter that describes the Southern reaction, he then takes the reader on a 15-chapter odyssey describing the famous and not-so-shy;famous engagements that saw significant Rebel atrocities perpetrated against black soldiers, as well as the North and South reactions both in the field and on the home front.The book also contains numerous period illustrations, photographs and five maps that blend in well with the text. In his earlier career, the author was a news reporter, editor and newspaper publisher. Those skills served him well in the 20 years he spent researching and writing about Civil War atrocities.Any student of the Civil War who still believes the conflict was all about glory, honor or the romanticized Confederate notion of "moonlight and magnolias" will need to consult this intriguing book., Journalist Burkhardt believes the role of black troops in the US Civil War has "faded from memory." It is therefore his goal to reclaim the agency of the black soldiers who served in the Union army and in the process explain the causes of Confederate rage against black soldiers. Confederate rage stemmed from a host of things, but the most dominant issue was fear of equality, which might then have led to the capacity for revenge. Beginning with the Emancipation Proclamation, Burkhardt argues, Confederates feared their society was being destroyed. That fear led to outbursts of anxiety, which manifested itself in violence against those bent on destroying their lifestyle. As the war progressed, atrocities against black soldiers grew to a point where they became commonplace. Unfortunately, Burkhardt does not, nor does he claim to, address the underlying racism found in the South. What made the Confederates so fearful? The book does not fully answer that question. The reader is forced to accept that there are deeper causes not mentioned. The remainder of Burkhardt''s work details each instance of Confederate violence against black soldiers and the Union''s response, or lack thereof. Summing Up: Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries., "This book needed to be written. The atrocities that Burkhardt writes about happened, and happened with some frequency, but until now references to individual accounts in memoirs, letters, and official documents were scattered across the huge landscape of Civil War history." - James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., author ofThe Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War
