Alan--
In looking over the UNC Press books on the Civil War...
ENP,
You might also be interested in these:
The Waterman's Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina, by David S. Cecelski, UNC Press; from the book description at UNC Press online:
The first major study of slavery in the maritime South, The Waterman's Song chronicles the world of slave and free black fishermen, pilots, rivermen, sailors, ferrymen, and other laborers who, from the colonial era through Reconstruction, plied the vast inland waters of North Carolina from the Outer Banks to the upper reaches of tidewater rivers. Demonstrating the vitality and significance of this local African American maritime culture, David Cecelski also reveals its connections to the Afro-Caribbean, the relatively egalitarian work culture of seafaring men who visited nearby ports, and the revolutionary political tides that coursed throughout the black Atlantic.
Black maritime laborers played an essential role in local abolitionist activity, slave insurrections, and other antislavery activism. They also boatlifted thousands of slaves to freedom during the Civil War. But most important, Cecelski says, they carried an insurgent, democratic vision born in the maritime districts of the slave South into the political maelstrom of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans and the Union Navy, by Barbara Brooks Tomblin, University Press of Kentucky; from a review:
In her new work, Bluejackets and Contrabands, Barbara Brooks Tomblin explores an important but often overlooked story in the history of the American Civil War: the role of black seamen in the Union navy. Through her examination of official navy orders and the papers of prominent naval officers, Tomblin uncovers the importance of escaped slaves, officially known as "contrabands," to the navy and their primary job of enforcing the blockade of Southern ports. Escaped slaves and free blacks served as sailors, pilots, spies, and guides, as well as stevedores and crewmen. Black seamen provided vital intelligence information regarding Southern waterways and Confederate blockade-runners.
Given the crucial service of black seamen, Tomblin argues that the navy's active recruitment of contrabands, which began almost as soon as the war did, became a model for the army's later and much more hesitant enlistment of black men into the ranks.
The driving force behind the navy's policy to enlist black seamen was Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. In July 1861, Welles "set the tone for the navy's initial response to runaway slaves," when he declared that returning escaped slaves to their owners was both "impolitic and cruel" and suggested to his commanders that they instead use fugitives as crewmen aboard their vessels if possible (p. 10). Echoing General Benjamin F. Butler's "contraband" policy that was issued in May, Welles's decision to employ fugitive slaves seems not to have attracted the negative outcries that Butler's did. In fact, the navy in Tomblin's account seems insulated from Washington politics. Abraham Lincoln, whose meddling in army affairs irritated his generals to no end, appears to have left the navy entirely to Welles's direction. By September 1861, Welles had authorized the enlistment of contrabands "under the same forms and regulations as apply to other enlistments," which included daily rations and monthly pay of ten dollars (p. 17). Unfortunately, Tomblin offers no explanation for the latitude Welles seems to have enjoyed or to any reaction outside the navy of his seemingly progressive stance toward the enlistment of contrabands.
Bringing the