Very interesting …

My friend a former colleague Jim Remsen sends along these history opts from time to time. Thought I would share.

As you'll recall, I'm writing a book (tentatively titled Scars & Stripes) about the life and times of a dozen black Civil War soldiers, half of them escaped slaves who had found sanctuary in my little hometown of Waverly, Pa., just north of Scranton. I'm writing about the war years now, and stumbled on a poem I want to share here. 

A Parable in Verse. The Pittston Gazette published this in April 1863, just as the North was debating whether to finally allow "colored troops." The war effort had bogged down and fresh fighters were needed. Lots of Northerners still resisted the very prospect of black men in uniform, prompting the Lincoln-friendly Gazette to run this trenchant poem. Please look past the dated terminology to the underlying message.

Book Progress. I'm delighted to report that the Willary Foundation, a philanthropy administered by the Scranton family, is supporting my Scars & Stripes project through a $21,150 grant to the Center for Anti-Slavery Studies. This covers not only research expenses but also the creation of a related educational website. Many thanks for that! Other good news is that a geneaologist has helped me locate two living descendants of the Norris brothers, who were among Waverly's black soldiers, as well as a descendant of one of Waverly's principal white supporters. I've shared my findings with one of those descendants already.

"Poetical Justice." Let me leave you with a vivid story that will appear in the book. Six Waverly recruits were posted in 1863 to a fort near Petersburg, Va., under the command of a fiery white abolitionist. A raiding party returned to camp one day with a plantation owner they'd taken captive, a  fellow who was known to have whipped his slaves especially severely.  An eyewitness wrote that the commander gathered his black troops for a show of "poetical justice." He had the planter tied to a tree and let one of the soldiers--a runaway from that very plantation--whip the man's back bloody. Then two runaway women, also victims of the planter, did the same "to remind him that they were no longer his, but safely housed in Abraham's bosom, and under the protection of the Star Spangled Banner."