Thunder at the Gates

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THUNDER AT THE GATES: [Thunder at the Gates] is a brutally honest, comprehensive account of [the African American regiments'] contributions and an excellent addition to Civil War collections. --Booklist, starred review [A] solid addition to the Civil War literature... Providing a fuller picture of black men's involvement in the war, Egerton weaves in the activities of the [54th and] 55th Volunteer Infantry Division and the Fifth Cavalry. He emphasizes the way race affected the men's military experiences, looking as much at individual black soldiers as white officers... Egerton's fine work pays respect to the black soldiers who fought and died for black liberation. --Publishers Weekly Egerton presents a captivating narrative... [His] study of the individuals and attention to their lives after the war is extremely well researched and well documented. This is an important addition to the shelves of Civil War books. --Library Journal Gracefully written and well-researched, Thunder at the Gates is an indispensable chronicle of the triumphs and tribulations of three regiments of black soldiers who fought to destroy legalized slavery and helped preserve the American Union. Egerton's powerful narrative allows the men, and the families who supported them, to live in our imaginations just as they should. --Annette Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author, with Peter S. Onuf, of Most Blessed of the Patriarchs : Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination Massachusetts sent three black regiments into Union service, including the famous 54th Infantry featured in the film Glory. Douglas Egerton evocatively recovers the story of these soldiers and their officers, exploring their campaigns, the symbolic impact of their service, and how wartime activities shaped their postwar lives. This is a deeply satisfying rendering of an important subject. --Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Union War and Nau Professor of History, University of Virginia Only those who have known slavery can understand how fiercely the fire of liberty can burn in the human heart. Douglas Egerton's account of Massachusetts' African American volunteers -- the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry and 5th Massachusetts Cavalry -- lays out vividly the energies and personalities that prompted their gallant rush. As was said in 1863, so Douglas Egerton says for us now: Tell it with pride to the world! --Allen Guelzo, New York Times bestselling author of Gettysburg: The Last Invasion We have long known of the history of the pioneering black Massachusetts regiments of the Civil War--the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth infantry and Fifth Cavalry--and their impact on the military and political battlefields. In this deeply-researched and stunningly narrated new study of their exploits, Egerton, by focusing our attention squarely on the men, both the enlisted and officers, has found a new and exciting way to retell the story of those whose actions had a profound impact on the outcome of the struggles against slavery and racial oppression. --Richard J. Blackett, Professor of History, Vanderbilt University Thunder at the Gates is the first book to provide a full account of the three black regiments raised by Massachusetts in the Civil War. The 54th's famous assault on Fort Wagner is here, but so also are many other campaigns and battles fought by that regiment, the 55th, and the 5th Cavalry. The narrative is enriched by the stories of more than a dozen individual soldiers and officers, which gives a human and personal dimension to this important work. --James M. McPherson 'None were braver in the fight' wrote the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar about Massachusetts' black regiments, and Douglas Egerton takes up that refrain, chronicling with nuance and insight the heroic struggle for freedom and justice of soldiers such as Lewis and Charles Douglass, William Carney and Stephen A. Swails. Egerton brilliantly interweaves personal stories and political context, evoking the battlefields of Ft. Wagner and Olustee, and the profound legacy of what happened there. This is a great book, worthy of the men who inspired it. --Elizabeth R. Varon, author of Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War