Remembering The Battle of the Crater: War as Murder

by Kevin M. Levin

Overview

The battle of the Crater is known as one of the Civil War's bloodiest struggles — a Union loss with combined casualties of 5,000, many of whom were members of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) under Union Brigadier General Edward Ferrero. The battle was a violent clash of forces as Confederate soldiers fought for the first time against African American soldiers. After the Union lost the battle, these black soldiers were captured and subject both to extensive abuse and the threat of being returned to slavery in the South. Yet, despite their heroism and sacrifice, these men are often overlooked in public memory of the war.

In Remembering The Battle of the Crater: War is Murder, Kevin M. Levin addresses the shared recollection of a battle that epitomizes the way Americans have chosen to remember, or in many cases forget, the presence of the USCT. The volume analyzes how the racial component of the war's history was portrayed at various points during the 140 years following its conclusion, illuminating the social changes and challenges experienced by the nation as a whole. Remembering The Battle of the Crater gives the members of the USCT a newfound voice in history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813169729
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	06/16/2017
Series:	New Directions in Southern History
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Historian and educator Kevin M. Levin is currently researching the history of Confederate camp servants (slaves) and the myth of the black Confederate soldier. His published work in the area of Civil War history and historical memory can be found in popular magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Introduction 1

1 The Battle: "Until Every Negro Has Been Slaughtered" 7

2 The Lost Cause: Maintaining the Antebellum Hierarchy 33

3 Virginia's Reconstruction: William Mahone, "Hero of the Crater" 53

4 Reinforcing the Status Quo: Reenactment and Jim Crow 69

5 Whites Only: The Ascendancy of an Interpretation 87

6 Competing Memories: Civil War and Civil Rights 107

7 Moving Forward: Integrating a Black Counter-Memory 125

Acknowledgments 141

Notes 145

Bibliography 161

Index 177

Editorial Reviews

"Levin offers something new and valuable in this book. His approach of unpacking the complex telling and forgetting of the events surrounding one battle allows him a focus and specificity that even many very good treatments of historical memory often lack. Remembering the Battle of the Crater stands to make a real and lasting contribution to the field of Civil War memory studies." — Anne Marshall, author of Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State

From the Publisher