"The release of C.P. Weaver’s book, Thank God My Regiment an African One: The Civil War Diary of Colonel Nathan W. Daniels, sheds light on a nearly forgotten chapter of the Gulf Coast’s history.  .  . For the past decade, Weaver has deciphered Daniel’s words, which sometimes were written not only on the lines of the diary, but around the edges of the page and in the opposite direction of already written sentences.  She is now working on subsequent diaries that Daniels wrote in the Reconstruction era at her Oakton, VA, home.  Published by the Louisiana State University Press, the book is a significant contribution to document the role of the Gulf Coast and African-American troops in the Civil War."

--Regina Hines, The Mississippi Press

"Published by Louisiana State University Press, Thank God My Regiment an African One tells how the 2nd Louisiana Native Guards was unit caught between the military worlds of black and white.  Hoping to prove his men’s worth in battle, Colonel Daniels wrote of boredom and his frustration at simply guarding a supply depot, prisoners, military convicts and an unfinished fort.  In April of 1863, the opportunity to prove his regiment’s ability came with orders to raid what was then East Pascagoula, Mississippi.  The release of Weaver’s work is a first in many ways.  It is a culmination of 10 year’s work by the author.  It is a glimpse of a beginning for African Americans as soldiers in the U. S. Army and it is a look back into the past at life on Ship Island in 1863."

--Public Relations Department, National Park Service, Ocean Springs Record

"Although listed as editor, C.P. Weaver had done much more than make Daniels’ diary readable (itself no small feat, since he was prone to that bane of diary decoders known as cross-writing).  She has provided a significant study of conditions in Lousiana at the start of the war, and extensively annotated many otherwise obscure references in the diary itself.  Add to this a unique collection of photographs recorded during the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard’s Ship Island service, with the high drama of the political intrigues that eventually purged the Union’s first three black regiments of its white commanders and black line officers, and the importance of this book becomes clear."

--Noah Andre Trudeau, Blue & Gray Magazine

"Incredible!...Weaver’s careful editing and thorough scholarship have brought Daniels’ diary to life.  Anyone interested in the hardship, frustration, and courage of soldiers at war will be enthralled by this book."

--James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., author of The Louisiana Native Guards

"C.P. Weaver has done us an immense service by editing the Civil War diary of Colonel Nathan W. Daniels.  Many of us were familiar with the heroic 54th regiment of black soldiers from Massachusetts, but little did we know that the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard Volunteers also had a compelling history.  Now the story is told, here in this remarkable book."

--Jane Alexander, actress, producer, and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts

"This remarkable diary contains rare photos.  One photograph provides an image of one of only two black majors who served the Union army during the Civil War.  Until now, no one knew what he looked like....[Thank God My Regiment an African One] will fascinate Civil War historians and particularly those interested in black history."

--Biloxi Sun Herald

Nathan W. Daniels was a unique individual among the 2 million men who served in the Union armies. He was the white commanding officer of the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard Volunteers, an all-black regiment. Daniels’ unit was one of three such regiments organized in the autumn or 1862 by General Benjamin F. Butler. All had white colonels, but some 70 blacks held officers’ commission.

That experiment ended with Butler’s successor, General Nathaniel P. Banks. The officer status of blacks was abolished in 1863, as were the assignments of the three white colonels. Why this happened, and how it occurred, is the crux of this eyewitness account.

[Posted on Ship Island, 10 miles off the coast of Mississippi] . . . the regimental colonel had ample opportunity to maintain a diary. His entries are lengthy, but personal and political. Internal arguments and military machinations dominate the contents. The Civil War is but the stage on which the first use—or misuse— of black troops is played out.

The 54th Massachusetts was a black regiment remembered for what it did. The 2nd Louisiana Native Guards was another black regiment, now remembered sadly for what it tried to do.

James I. Robertson, Jr., Richmond Times-Dispatch

Even more remarkable than the diary is a set of previously unpublished photographs taken on Ship Island. The most striking image is a dual portrait of Daniels and Major Francis E. Dumas, the wealthiest free black man in Louisiana and the highest-ranking black officer in the Union army during the Civil War. No picture of Dumas was known to exist until now.

 William Shea, Arkansas Review

Like other White Northerners who led black troops during the Civil War, Col. Nathan W. Daniels was an idealist determined to improve the lot of African Americans. Unfortunately for the politically naïve [colonel], his commitment to black equality alienated his brother officers, and they would force him from the service.

C. P. Weaver provides well-researched introductory essays and numerous annotations that place a noble but bewildered man’s reflections in proper historical context.

Thank God My Regiment an African One is required reading for grasping the full range of obstacles that African Americans faced in their struggle for freedom and equality during the Civil War era.

Gregory Urwin, Civil War History

Unlike the 1st and 3rd Regiments of the Louisiana Native Guards that fought at Port Hudson, the 2nd spent much of the war in unexciting duty on Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi. [Editor C.P. Weaver’s] contributions to [Col. Nathan W. Daniels’ diary] add much information on the history of the 2nd Regiment, including a roster and rare pictures of the colonel and the free people of color and former slaves who served under him. Indeed, Weaver’s explanations often prove essential to understanding the full implications of the events mentioned in the diary, which constitutes less than half of the text of the book.

Daniels offers little insight into the lives or the motives of the troops he commanded, although he does reveal in sometimes moving rhetoric, his commitment to freedom and equality, as well as his respect for the courage and abilities of [his] men.

As the Second Regiment evacuated at the end of [their one military engagement at Pascagoula, Mississippi, April 9, 1963], a Union ship fired on the African American troops, "friendly fire" that historians have usually concluded was an accident. Because of an earlier conflict between some of the ship’s sailors and his men and rumors he had heard, Daniels suspected the ship deliberately fired on his men. Weaver makes a plausible case for that having been the case and brings out other less deadly instances of conflict between white and black Union soldiers.

Although disappointing in having little to say about those soldiers, Daniels’ diary still proves a useful source on what Joseph Glatthaar has called, "The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers."

Gaines M. Foster, Louisiana History

Daniels resembled many white officers commanding black troops. A literate abolitionist from New York and Ohio and a veteran, he was part mercenary and part ideologue.

officers of the Native Guards were black, drawn from [New Orlean’s] elite. Daniels confidant was Major Francis E. Dumas, perhaps the wealthiest and best educated free black in Louisiana. Captain Pinckney P. B. S. Pinchback, later Radical governor, was company commander. Editor, C. P. Weaver, argues that the ranks included both free men and slaves, including Dumas’ former slaves and men born in the Congo. Weaver emphasizes the "prejudiced environment" and "negrophobic" atmosphere that enveloped the [men] . . . but leaves largely unexplored the social and cultural cleavages that existed among the troops themselves.

Daniels gives pithy, revealing, and detailed accounts of race, class, and sex in military life . . . [and] seemingly underwent a metamorphosis from abolitionist to radical while in command. Although he arrested companies of the [white] 13th Maine Volunteers for refusing to drill with [his black troops] on Ship Island, his diary shows him studiously inattentive to the
suffering of black soldiers’ families.

Harold Wilson, Journal of Southern History

C. P. Weaver makes the most of Colonel Daniels’ brief diary, adding extensive and thorough contextural footnotes in an attempt to bring him alive. Weaver’s fine editing adds much more to [his] story than Daniels himself puts into it. Daniels is a complex character, and what we learn of him through Weaver’s editing makes us question the sincerity of his written words. The book does not really provide a lot of insight into the lives of the officers and men of black Civil War regiments. There are glimpses, but page for page, is it mostly about Daniels.

Steven D. Smith, Military and Naval History Journal

  THE AUTHOR

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