The Exigencies of War: Black Military Service, Free Labor, and Education in Civil War Missouri (2011-2012)
Files
Description
Miller "Bill" Boyd III, a native of St. Louis, is a 1998 honors graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana. In 2006, he received a Masters in African-American Studies from Boston University. His final Masters project entitled "Privilege Lost: Shifting Creole Identity in Antebellum Louisiana" was published in The Griot: The Journal for the Southern Conference on African-American Studies in 2007, winning the organization's top honor for scholarship that year. Boyd began working on his Ph.D. in Early American History at the University of Mississippi in 2008. His dissertation, tentatively entitled "The Exigencies of War: the African-American response to the Civil War in Missouri" examines black military participation, contraband free labor, education, and the struggle for a semblance of economic and social parity in the largest border state. As a result of his scholarship, Boyd has received numerous awards and fellowships including the Robert Eldridge Seiler Supreme Court of Missouri Historical Society Fellowship and the William Foley Research Fellowship.
In Civil War scholarship, black men’s enlistment and active participation in the war effort has been prioritized and connected directly to abolitionism. This project argues that black men’s decision to serve militarily in Missouri was more nuanced. While notions of self-sacrifice and collective emancipation encouraged some black men to join federal regiments, this study asserts that the vast majority of black Missourians based their decisions on their immediate needs and the needs of their families. As black families navigated the uneven collapse of slavery in a state not subject to the Emancipation Proclamation, many descended into utter destitution. Scores suffered and many died because of exposure, disease, and lack of food. Reflective of their desperation, most black Missouri men did not join the military to become a part of the “Sable arm” of the Union army but to earn wages to provide for themselves and their families. For African-American Missouri men, the need for food, shelter, clothing, and financial stability outweighed concerns about abolition, patriotism, or sectional reunification. Consequently, fugitive slaves, without the prospect for employment due to legal proscriptions, predominated black Missouri regiments during the Civil War. On the other hand, most men born free or freed before the war, as well as former slaves who found employment that paid better wages than the army, rejected federal military service. As free labor opportunities became more plentiful in Missouri in mid-1864, federal recruitment stagnated, resulting in the institution of the draft in the state. The fact that some black men chose not to fight does not negate their genuine desire to see slavery abolished in America. Their decisions, however, reflected their newly-found political autonomy as well as the conditions some black families faced during the war. As such, this dissertation demystifies an important aspect of black life during the Civil War and provides new pathways for scholars to think the about the varied and complex ways black men view the conflict and their freedom.
Publication Date
4-15-2012
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Recommended Citation
Boyd, Miller "Bill" III, "The Exigencies of War: Black Military Service, Free Labor, and Education in Civil War Missouri (2011-2012)" (2012). McMinn Fellowship. 2.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/mcminn_fellow/2
Comments
Link to dissertation in eGrove