The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865

Modern War Studies

by Dudley Taylor Cornish

A bona fide classic, The Sable Arm was the first work to fully chronicle the remarkable story of the nearly 180,000 black troops who served in the Union army. This work paved the way for the exploration of the black military experience in other wars. This edition, with a new foreword by Herman Hattaway and bibliographical essay by the author, makes available once again a pioneering work that will be especially useful for scholars and students of Civil War, black, and military history.

Genres: History, Civil War, American Civil War, Nonfiction

342 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 1966

Reviews

[Jerome Otte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive and well-researched history of the role of black troops in the Civil War, a field of study that was rare before the publication of this book. Cornish explores the history of the movement to arm black troops for war on the Union side, devoting a good amount of ink to topics like recruitment, and the origins of black recruitment. The book is mostly focused on black combat troops, with little on garrison or labor contingents (or on black Navy sailors).

At first the Lincoln administration refused to recruit blacks for service in the army in order to placate the border states (although Lincoln’s exact reasoning and thoughts on the matter remain unclear), until public opinion pushed the government to accept black enlistments. The North devised a number of novel recruitment schemes, and appointed white officers to head the new black regiments. Many of these officers were volunteers from prominent abolitionist families, and they were also generally more well-trained than officers in white regiments. Cornish also addresses the Confederacy’s efforts to re-enslave captured blacks and their massacres of black prisoners of war, which proved futile since it only increased blacks’ determination to fight.

Thorough and balanced, and written in a reserved, unsentimental tone. The book is quite dense and seems to be aimed for an academic audience, but it is quite interesting nevertheless.

[Petesea · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great subject that has some details that I found fascinating - today's Officer Candidate Schools are a direct descendant of boards to evaluate officers for the black regiments; the wealthy were able to hire substitutes to serve for them if they were drafted and many black soldiers were those substitutes; President Lincoln was not an ardent supporter of having black troops from the beginning of the war; and many more. I wish that this book had more information on the battles that the black troops had, was more organized and better written - it become very redundant at times. A lot of the beginning of the book is taken verbatim from newspaper accounts at the time and it made for choppy reading. I wish that this had been in chronological order (it would have been easier to follow) and that General's names consistently included whether they were Union or Confederate which made it hard to follow the narrative. This is more of a scholarly work, but the subject is compelling.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Sable Arm is an evaluation of colored troops and their circumstances during the American Civil War. It documents the prejudices and leadership of the white officers.

[Mel Bush]

This is a thorough study of the induction of black soldiers into the United States Army during the Civil War; an enlightening chapter in the fight for civil rights.