Campfires of Freedom: the Camp Life of Black Soldiers during the Civil War.

Campfires of Freedom: The Camp Life of Black Soldiers during the Civil War. By Keith P. Wilson. (Kent, Ohio, and London: Kent State University Press, c. 2002. Pp. xviii, 336. $39.00, ISBN 0-87338-709-0.)

Keith P. Wilson's provocative study of the social and cultural life of Civil War black soldiers provides a valuable addition to the growing literature on the African American military experience, in large part because of the particular focus of his analysis. His book, unlike many of the recent monographs on the black soldier, has less to do with the military side of the conflict, including the battles fought by the black soldiers, and instead focuses more on the social fabric of the black army community. Wilson is particularly interesting when he explores the complex ways in which the war acted as a dynamic agent for social change and cultural readjustment. He argues that the activities of camp life let black soldiers begin the uncertain process of securing their rights as free Americans and helped them overcome some of the burdens of slavery and racism that had cut them off from the mainstream of cultural life in the nation. Military service was for many men of the United States Colored Troops a liberating and empowering process.

Wilson outlines three ambitious goals that he hopes to achieve in writing the book and that he uses to structure his chapters. He wants to describe the soldiers' lives in camp in a way that reflects both the rich diversity as well as the commonality of their experiences. The army camp, Wilson argues, while at times appearing to reinforce aspects of plantation culture, actually stimulated cultural re-creation and change. His second purpose is to make understandable the aspirations, ambitions, and desires of the black soldiers, to explore their collective memory, and to outline evolving relationships within the community of black soldiers in a time of cultural rediscovery. His final intent is to analyze some of the processes of individual and cultural alteration that took place within the black camps as the soldiers found ways to balance their personal aspirations and autonomy as free men with the obedience and discipline demanded by the army.

The content and structure of Campfires of Freedom will appeal to both social and military historians. The chapters, which examine such diverse aspects of black camp life as training and discipline, dissent, religion, education, music, pastime activities, and kinship ties, are full of interesting insights and provocative questions. Did the dual roles required of black noncommissioned officers as both mediators and disciplinarians make them more vulnerable than white noncommissioned officers to pressures from above and below? If the dispute over equal pay was the "anvil upon which the black military community forged its leadership," did that leadership survive the war (p. 58)? In what ways did black music and religion both facilitate and reflect changing cultural identities? Wilson is at his best when, with both empathy and perception, he peels back the complex cultural layers of the black military community and reveals the inner lives and concerns of the enlisted men and their families. Just as Wilson claims a debt to social historians such as John W. Blassingame, Herbert G. Gutman, and Charles W. Joyner who depict African Americans not as passive victims but rather as agents of change, so military historians will be indebted to Wilson for a better understanding of the dynamics within the ranks of black regiments.

Scholars will find Wilson's bibliographic essay on primary sources very useful and his listing of primary and secondary sources extensive. In addition, his appendixes contain almost three dozen songs that augment his detailed analysis of the nature and importance of the soldiers' music. Campfires of Freedom is an important monograph for anyone interested in understanding the full spectrum of the black military experience during the Civil War.

RICHARD M. REID

University of Guelph