Address Of General James H Wilson At The 27th Re Union Of The Society Of The Army Of The Cumberland Columbus Ohio Sept 22 1897

The Civil War changed the United States in many ways—economic, political, and social. Of these changes, none was more important than Emancipation. Besides freeing nearly four million slaves, it brought agricultural wage labor to a reluctant South and gave a vote to black adult males in the former slave states. It also offered former slaves new opportunities in education, property ownership—and military service. From late 1862 to the spring of 1865, as the Civil War raged on, the federal government accepted more than 180,000 black men as soldiers, something it had never done before on such a scale. Known collectively as the United States Colored Troops and organized in segregated regiments led by white officers, some of these soldiers guarded army posts along major rivers; others fought Confederate raiders to protect Union supply trains, and still others took part in major operations like the Siege of Petersburg and the Battle of Nashville. After the war, many of the black regiments took up posts in the former Confederacy to enforce federal Reconstruction policy. Freedom by the Sword tells the story of these soldiers' recruitment, organization, and service. Thanks to its broad focus on every theater of the war and its concentration on what black soldiers actually contributed to Union victory, this volume stands alone among histories of the U.S. Colored Troops.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Getting the Message Through, the companion volume to Rebecca Robbins Raines' Signal Corps, traces the evolution of the corps from the appointment of the first signal officer on the eve of the Civil War, through its stages of growth and change, to its service in Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM. Raines highlights not only the increasingly specialized nature of warfare and the rise of sophisticated communications technology, but also such diverse missions as weather reporting and military aviation. Information dominance in the form of superior communications is considered to be sine qua non to modern warfare. As Raines ably shows, the Signal Corps--once considered by some Army officers to be of little or no military value--and the communications it provides have become integral to all aspects of military operations on modern digitized battlefields. The volume is an invaluable reference source for anyone interested in the institutional history of the branch.