Research Catalog

For their own cause : The 27th United States Colored Troops

Title

For their own cause : The 27th United States Colored Troops / Kelly D. Mezurek.

Author

Mezurek, Kelly D.

Publication

Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, [2016]
©2016

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	Sc E 16-1998	Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Additional Authors

Kent State University. Press, publisher.

Description

x, 354 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

"The 27th United States Colored Troops (USCT), composed largely of free black Ohio men, served in the Union army from April 1864 to September 1865 in Virginia and North Carolina. It was the first time most members of the unit had traveled so far from home. The men faced daily battles against racism and against inferior treatment, training, and supplies. They suffered from the physical difficulties of military life, the horrors of warfare, and homesickness and worried about loved ones left at home without financial support. Yet their contributions provided a tool that allowed blacks with little military experience, and their families, to demand social acceptance and acknowledgment of their citizenship. Their service did not end when their enlistment was over. After the men of the 27th returned to Ohio, they and their families sought full access to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and compensatory citizenship rights for their collective sacrifice. Despite their constant battle against racism, this public behavior benefited the men and their families. It also meant that the African American role in the Union victory remained part of local community remembrance and commemoration. As a result, the experiences of these men from the 27th USCT gave the late-nineteenth-century Ohio black community legitimate hopes for access to equal civil and social rights for all. For Their Own Cause is the first comprehensive history of the 27th USCT. By including rich details culled from private letters and pension files, Mezurek provides more than a typical regimental study; she demonstrates that the lives of the men of the 27th USCT help to explain why in the wars that followed, despite the disappointments and increasingly difficult struggle for African American equality that continued for far too many decades after the promise of the three Civil Warera constitutional amendments, blacks in the United States continued to offer their martial support in the front lines and the back"--Publisher's website.

Series Statement

Civil War in the North

Uniform Title

Civil War in the North.

Alternative Title

27th United States Colored Troops

Subjects

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 322-340) and index.

Contents

Free but unequal -- The making of a regiment -- Baptism under fire -- The labors of war -- A soldier's life -- A veteran's life.

Call Number

Sc E 16-1998

ISBN

9781606352892 (hardcover : alk. paper)
160635289X (hardcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

2016007938

OCLC

935194407

Author

Mezurek, Kelly D., author.

Title

For their own cause : The 27th United States Colored Troops / Kelly D. Mezurek.

Publisher

Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, [2016]

Copyright Date

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Civil War in the North

Civil War in the North.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 322-340) and index.

Chronological Term

1800-1899

Added Author

Kent State University. Press, publisher.

Research Call Number

Sc E 16-1998

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