A group of historians and other concerned citizens recently lobbied the commissioners of Union County to “recogniz[e] the contributions of 10 black Confederate pensioners, known as colored troops during the Civil War.” We’ve seen all this before and it doesn’t look like anything will steer certain folks away from making this all too common mistake [...]
Earl Ijames
We haven’t heard from our favorite “colored Confederate” researcher in quite some time, but it looks like Earl Ijames will be taking part in an upcoming conference on United States Colored Troops in New Bern, North Carolina. The conference is being sponsored by the New Bern Historical Society and runs from May 6-9. The conference [...]
I know many of you out there are looking forward to a day/week without a blog post about Earl Ijames. Many of you are perhaps disappointed with the way I’ve gone about all of this. There is plenty of room to disagree. I want to state up front that my goal has never been to [...]
Here is the audio recording of Earl Ijames’s recent talk in Savannah. The sound quality is pretty good, though there are a few moments where it is difficult to hear what he is saying. I recommend listening with earphones. The recording begins with an account of “Colored Confederates” in the OR. Unfortunately, the recording missed [...]
Update: I now have the audio of this talk. Unfortunately, the files are very large and as it stands I am unable to upload them for your listening pleasure. I will continue to work on this. The talk is literally just a string of individual stories strung together. There is almost no analysis of the [...]
One of the most disturbing aspects of so called accounts of “black Confederates” is the almost complete absence of the voice of the individuals themselves. All too often these men are treated as a means to an end. Accounts all too often reduce complex questions of motivation to one of loyalty to master, army, and [...]
As many of you know fellow blogger and historian, Brooks Simpson, graciously offered Civil Warriors as a forum for Earl Ijames to share his research on “Colored Confederates”. I agreed to the online debate with Mr. Ijames as it would allow all of us to consider his research and analysis. Prof. Simpson also offered to [...]
I hope everyone who had a chance to listen to Earl Ijames’s presentation last night on “colored Confederates” had a good time. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity to attend one of his talks in person, but I have learned quite a bit about his research and interpretation from various [...]
