Becoming American under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship during the Civil War Era

by Christian G. Samito

Overview

In Becoming American under Fire, Christian G. Samito provides a rich account of how African American and Irish American soldiers influenced the modern vision of national citizenship that developed during the Civil War era. By bearing arms for the Union, African Americans and Irish Americans exhibited their loyalty to the United States and their capacity to act as citizens; they strengthened their American identity in the process. Members of both groups also helped to redefine the legal meaning and political practices of American citizenship.

For African American soldiers, proving manhood in combat was only one aspect to their quest for acceptance as citizens. As Samito reveals, by participating in courts-martial and protesting against unequal treatment, African Americans gained access to legal and political processes from which they had previously been excluded. The experience of African Americans in the military helped shape a postwar political movement that successfully called for rights and protections regardless of race. For Irish Americans, soldiering in the Civil War was part of a larger affirmation of republican government and it forged a bond between their American citizenship and their Irish nationalism. The wartime experiences of Irish Americans helped bring about recognition of their full citizenship through naturalization and also caused the United States to pressure Britain to abandon its centuries-old policy of refusing to recognize the naturalization of British subjects abroad.

As Samito makes clear, the experiences of African Americans and Irish Americans differed substantially—and at times both groups even found themselves violently opposed—but they had in common that they aspired to full citizenship and inclusion in the American polity. Both communities were key participants in the fight to expand the definition of citizenship that became enshrined in constitutional amendments and legislation that changed the nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801477553
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2011
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Christian G. Samito earned a law degree from Harvard Law School and a doctorate in American history from Boston College. He is the editor of Commanding Boston's Irish Ninth: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Patrick R. Guiney, Ninth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry; "Fear Was Not in Him": The Civil War Letters of Major General Francis C. Barlow, U.S.A.; and Changes in Law and Society During the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Legal History Documentary Reader. He edits a series about the legal history of the Civil War era, teaches at Boston College and Boston University School of Law, and practices law in Boston.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Crisis of Citizenship in the 1850s
2. The Question of Armed Service
3. African Americans in Arms
4. Equal Rights and the Experience of Military Justice for African American Soldiers
5. Irish Americans in Arms
6. African Americans and the Call for Rights
7. The Affirmation of Naturalized Citizenship in America
8. The Affirmation of Naturalized Citizenship Abroad
Epilogue: The Legacy of National Citizenship in the Era of the Civil War and ReconstructionNotes
Works Cited
Index

What People are Saying About This

James M. McPherson

The Civil War ushered in the first constitutional definition of U.S. citizenship. In a thorough and systematic study of this development, Christian G. Samito shows how African American and Irish American soldiers helped earn equal citizenship for their people by fighting for the Union. Becoming American under Fire is essential reading for an understanding of this important transformation in the American polity.

Lawrence F. Kohl

Becoming American under Fire makes an important contribution to the history of American citizenship. Christian G. Samito demonstrates that the Civil War military service of Irish and African Americans led them to make demands for full inclusion and it created a moral indebtedness on the part of the native-born white population that made opposing those demands difficult. No other book illuminates this subject as well as this one does. No one else has related the progress of this development so well to the experience of the Civil War.

Heather Cox Richardson

In this important book, Christian G. Samito explains how ex-slaves and Irish immigrants helped to create a new definition of American citizenship. Their experiences in military service, determination to vote, and fervent loyalty to the federal government changed Americans' hazy antebellum concept of citizenship as loyalty to a state into a clear set of rights and duties in a newly powerful nation. This dramatic change defined America in the late nineteenth century, and its repercussions echo today.

Christopher Waldrep

Historians are increasingly recognizing the importance of citizenship as a concept, and Christian G. Samito wisely takes a bottom-up approach, recognizing the agency of those displaced groups agitating for inclusion. Becoming American under Fire is a very good book on an important and timely topic.

Kerby A. Miller

Christian G. Samito's Becoming American under Fire is an important book that clarifies the debt that all Americans today owe to the ex-slaves and Irish immigrants who lived in the United States after the Civil War. Although at the time African Americans were unable to achieve real equality, and also Irish Americans were unsuccessful in liberating Ireland from British rule, in the process of struggling to achieve their goals both groups played major roles—sometimes even in cooperation with each other—in expanding the meanings and protections of citizenship for all Americans.

From the Publisher

Christian Samito's Becoming American Under Fire is a superb study of the expansion of citizenship during the Civil War era. He proves that through active defense of the Union, the Irish and African Americans in the North gained the skills and confidence to demand their place in the American social and political arenas. While the expansion of citizenship affected all Americans, few groups made such a dramatic transition from antebellum nativism and slavery to the legal changes that followed the war as did Irish Catholics and blacks. Because of this, they serve as an excellent lens through which to study this process.

Chandra Manning

Christian G. Samito's thoughtful examination reveals how African Americans' and Irish Americans' ideas and actions in wartime contributed to a notion of citizenship grounded in loyalty and consent, not race or place of birth. We have long known that the Civil War 'nationalized' American citizenship. Thanks to Samito, we now know much more about precisely how that happened and what it meant.

Editorial Reviews

Samito argues that the United States underwent a 'crisis of citizenship' in the 1850s as local allegiances combined with rigid racism to produce a mélange of conflicting definitions of who was and was not an 'American.'... Thoroughly researched and elegantly written, this important work will be profitably read by students of nationalism and the Civil War era. Highly recommended.

Choice

By focusing on the importance of citizenship, Samito offers an important addition to scholarship on the Civil War era.... This is an outstanding book. It offers a terrific bottom-up approach to citizenship debates in the Civil War era and demonstrates the powerful role played by Irish American and African American men in creating new forms of American citizenship and nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century. It would be extremely useful in any course on the Civil War.

Journal of the Civil War Era

By focusing on the importance of citizenship, Samito offers an important addition to scholarship on the Civil War era.... This is an outstanding book. It offers a terrific bottom-up approach to citizenship debates in the Civil War era and demonstrates the powerful role played by Irish American and African American men in creating new forms of American citizenship and nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century. It would be extremely useful in any course on the Civil War.

-- "Journal of the Civil War Era"

In this well-crafted, thoughtfully prepared book, Samito does a nice job of blending the Civil War experiences of African Americans and Irish Americans to draw his conclusions and to explore what it means to be an American, not only in the nineteenth century but in the twenty-first century as well. Anyone interested in Civil War history, American political history, or the American experience in general would do well to take a look at this work.

-- "Journal of American History"

One of the main positive and original assets of Samito's intelligently written and highly readable book is the fact that he combines the role and situation of Africamericans and Irish in relation to their being and becoming 'American'.... Samito's book adds significantly to our understanding of the Irish as well as the Africamerican experience of the Civil War, and should be on the required reading list whenever the issue of ethnicity is raised in connection with the Union side in the Civil War.

--Wolfgang Hochbruck "Amerikastudien/American Studies"

Samito argues that the United States underwent a 'crisis of citizenship' in the 1850s as local allegiances combined with rigid racism to produce a mélange of conflicting definitions of who was and was not an 'American.'... Thoroughly researched and elegantly written, this important work will be profitably read by students of nationalism and the Civil War era. Highly recommended.

-- "Choice"

From the Publisher

"The Civil War ushered in the first constitutional definition of U.S. citizenship. In a thorough and systematic study of this development, Christian G. Samito shows how African American and Irish American soldiers helped earn equal citizenship for their people by fighting for the Union. Becoming American under Fire is essential reading for an understanding of this important transformation in the American polity."

James M. McPherson

"In this important book, Christian G. Samito explains how ex-slaves and Irish immigrants helped to create a new definition of American citizenship. Their experiences in military service, determination to vote, and fervent loyalty to the federal government changed Americans' hazy antebellum concept of citizenship as loyalty to a state into a clear set of rights and duties in a newly powerful nation. This dramatic change defined America in the late nineteenth century, and its repercussions echo today."

Heather Cox Richardson

"Historians are increasingly recognizing the importance of citizenship as a concept, and Christian G. Samito wisely takes a bottom-up approach, recognizing the agency of those displaced groups agitating for inclusion. Becoming American under Fire is a very good book on an important and timely topic."

Christopher Waldrep

"Christian G. Samito's thoughtful examination reveals how African Americans' and Irish Americans' ideas and actions in wartime contributed to a notion of citizenship grounded in loyalty and consent, not race or place of birth. We have long known that the Civil War 'nationalized' American citizenship. Thanks to Samito, we now know much more about precisely how that happened and what it meant."

Chandra Manning

"Christian G. Samito's Becoming American under Fire is an important book that clarifies the debt that all Americans today owe to the ex-slaves and Irish immigrants who lived in the United States after the Civil War. Although at the time African Americans were unable to achieve real equality, and also Irish Americans were unsuccessful in liberating Ireland from British rule, in the process of struggling to achieve their goals both groups played major roles—sometimes even in cooperation with each other—in expanding the meanings and protections of citizenship for all Americans."

Kerby A. Miller

"Becoming American under Fire makes an important contribution to the history of American citizenship. Christian G. Samito demonstrates that the Civil War military service of Irish and African Americans led them to make demands for full inclusion and it created a moral indebtedness on the part of the native-born white population that made opposing those demands difficult. No other book illuminates this subject as well as this one does. No one else has related the progress of this development so well to the experience of the Civil War."

Lawrence F. Kohl

One of the main positive and original assets of Samito's intelligently written and highly readable book is the fact that he combines the role and situation of Africamericans and Irish in relation to their being and becoming 'American’.... Samito’s book adds significantly to our understanding of the Irish as well as the Africamerican experience of the Civil War, and should be on the required reading list whenever the issue of ethnicity is raised in connection with the Union side in the Civil War.

Amerikastudien/American Studies - Wolfgang Hochbruck

In this well-crafted, thoughtfully prepared book, Samito does a nice job of blending the Civil War experiences of African Americans and Irish Americans to draw his conclusions and to explore what it means to be an American, not only in the nineteenth century but in the twenty-first century as well. Anyone interested in Civil War history, American political history, or the American experience in general would do well to take a look at this work.

Journal of American History