What I'm Reading: African American Faces of the Civil War

This is a twofer--a fascinating book full of period photographs, in which the images are accompanied by capsule biographies. The author has compiled cartes de visite, tintypes and ambrotypes, all of them images of black Civil War soldiers. They include famous names like Martin Delany and Lewis Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass, as well as people otherwise unknown. And they served in the best-known of all black regiments--the 54th Massachusetts, featured in the movie Glory--as well as the obscure ones, like the 108th Infantry USCT. You can learn more about the book, and you can also get a taste of the images.

Now, if someone would just do an album of African-American women in the Civil War...Don't suggest that it should be me...