Marked by Valor: The “Lost” History of the 6th United States Colored Troops, Heavy Artillery
type: CreativeWork
description: “Marked by Valor: The ‘Lost’ History of the 6 th U.S.C.T., Heavy Artillery,” argues that the camaraderie of having been a Black Union soldier solidified a sub-culture of Black veterans and their families in Natchez, Mississippi, that cohered throughout the Reconstruction period using the tools and the affiliations first gained in slavery and strengthened during the soldiers’ time in the army. Underlying this narrative is an interpretation of Southern history that maintains that we cannot understand the events of the postwar period—not only for Black veterans, but to some extent all freed people—if we do not understand all that came before: all the suffering, negotiation, and community building of slavery; all the difficulties, discipline, training and death of military service; all the political organizing and struggle for federal remuneration of the early Reconstruction period; all the paramilitary activity when white rule resurged. All of which resulted in an uncertain legacy of material gains and losses from having been Black Union soldiers, but which certainly led to a solidarity and remembrance culture that these men and their families nurtured into the late 19 th century and beyond. Perhaps the most tangible evidence of this solidarity being the fact that many of these men’s final request was to be buried with their comrades in the National Cemetery at Natchez. Past studies of Black Civil War soldiers emphasized battlefield glory. Recently, several historical monographs have addressed what happened after the fighting, but this dissertation is an attempt to connect the experiences of enslavement with the military service of these men and all that came in the decades that followed. I have relied on a diverse array of primary source materials: census, marriage, legal documents, and contemporary newspapers held by the Historic Natchez Foundation in Natchez; letters and diaries by white Natchez residents held at the Louisiana State University archives; land deed an…
abstract: “Marked by Valor: The ‘Lost’ History of the 6 th U.S.C.T., Heavy Artillery,” argues that the camaraderie of having been a Black Union soldier solidified a sub-culture of Black veterans and their families in Natchez, Mississippi, that cohered throughout the Reconstruction period using the tools and the affiliations first gained in slavery and strengthened during the soldiers’ time in the army. Underlying this narrative is an interpretation of Southern history that maintains that we cannot understand the events of the postwar period—not only for Black veterans, but to some extent all freed people—if we do not understand all that came before: all the suffering, negotiation, and community building of slavery; all the difficulties, discipline, training and death of military service; all the political organizing and struggle for federal remuneration of the early Reconstruction period; all the paramilitary activity when white rule resurged. All of which resulted in an uncertain legacy of material gains and losses from having been Black Union soldiers, but which certainly led to a solidarity and remembrance culture that these men and their families nurtured into the late 19 th century and beyond. Perhaps the most tangible evidence of this solidarity being the fact that many of these men’s final request was to be buried with their comrades in the National Cemetery at Natchez. Past studies of Black Civil War soldiers emphasized battlefield glory. Recently, several historical monographs have addressed what happened after the fighting, but this dissertation is an attempt to connect the experiences of enslavement with the military service of these men and all that came in the decades that followed. I have relied on a diverse array of primary source materials: census, marriage, legal documents, and contemporary newspapers held by the Historic Natchez Foundation in Natchez; letters and diaries by white Natchez residents held at the Louisiana State University archives; land deed an…
author: O’Sullivan, Daniel William
keywords: Black Soldiers, Black Veterans, Civil War, Mississippi, Natchez, Reconstruction, African American Studies, History, Military History
date published: 2025-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:41:09Z
provider: Claremont Graduate University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Claremont Graduate University