WILL Headlines, News, & Notes
Firebrand of Liberty
Thursday, July 24, 2008
How two black regiments changed the course of the Civil War.
1:06 pm Wednesday on AM 580's The Afternoon Magazine
Host Celeste Quinn talks to Stephen V. Ash, University of Tennessee history professor, about the little-known but crucial story of how 900 newly freed slaves, under the leadership of white abolitionist officers, captured Jacksonville, Fla. They fought alongside white Union troops and liberated slaves until their mission was abruptly aborted by their commanding officer. Ash makes a strong case that the successes of the two black regiments changed the course of war by convincing President Lincoln to authorize the full-scale enlistment of African-Americans. By the end of the war, some 200,000 black troops had served in the Union Army. Without them, Ash contends, the Union might very well have failed to conquer the Confederacy.
