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  AASLH Certificate of Commendation

"This excellent book presents the first detailed coverage of an extremely important and herertofore negelected aspect of Civil War history. Hollandsworth has demonstrated that these African-American soldiers paved the way for the acceptance of blacks as a part of the United States Army even though their role has been overshadowed by the attention given to the 54th Massachsuetts Infantry. The Louisiana Native Gaurds is exhaustively researched and well-written, and it should find a warm reception from scholars and buffs alike."

--Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., Louisiana State Department of Parks and Tourism

"[Hollandsworth's book about the Native Guards] is . . . a story of persistent struggle against a demon that America seems incapabale of exorcising."

--Richard Blackett, Indiana University

"Scrupulously researched and written in a lively fashion, James Hollandsworth's study of this unusual regiment is a timely and welcome addition to Civil War Scholarship. This is a rich social and political history of some of the Civil War's most remarkable soldiers, men who were loyal to home and to a larger than local cause of freedom. This was a regiment only Lousiana could have produced, and in the end, a telling mesaure of what the war was about."

--David W. Blight, Amherst College

"Hollandsworth's book has the harshness of truth from cover to cover. The Civil War has too much poetry and literature writen about it already. The Louisiana Native Guards adds facts--grueling, sweating, hurting facts about how we came to be the country we are."

--Doug Thompson, Arkansas Democrat Gazette

"Hollandsworth . . . has reconstructed the history of Louisiana's first three black Union regiments with commendable skill and objectivity. The Louisiana Native Guards is a worthy addition to the pioneering work of Cornish and Glatthaar. Exploiting previously unconsulted sources, Hollandsworth corrects many false impressions that exist about both the Confederate and Union Native Guards. For instance, he is the first historian to correctly identify all the black officers commissioned in Butler's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Native Guards. He also reveals many personal details concerning these men, which illuminate the impact that African Americans had on the Civil War in Louisiana and how that experience changed them and their country. It can only be hoped that the monographs on the USCT regiments of Tennessee and Arkansas currently under preparation will take Hollandsworth as their model. The Louisiana Native Guards not only offers new insights pertaining to Union military affairs in the lower Mississippi Valley, but it also highlights the social and political implications of emancipation and Reconstruction."

--Gregory J. W. Urwin, University of Central Arkansas

"James Hollandsworth's The Louisiana Native Guards is a fascinating and informative account of African American participation in the Civil War, an important but relatively unknown chapter in American social, as well as military, history. Hollandsworth has gathered together an impressive collection of sources--including diaries, letters, government documents, and newspapers--to tell the stroy of the Native Guards, and it is indeed one of the book's strong points that the author lets these sources speak for themselves. The result is an interesting and very readable book in which the human voices that speak to us from our collective past are not subsumed by the rhetoric of historical anaylsis. Reading Hollandsworth's book, one thus feels the pride of African American soldiers on parade before the citizens of New Orleans, the fear that must have been overpowering as it became clear to Union troops that the assault on Port Hudson was a miserable failure, and most especially the sting of racial discrimination that marked the Native Guards' lives well after their heroic actions in battle."

--Christopher C. De Santis, University of Kansas

"Hollandsworth's thoroughly researched history unfolds in an economical yet stylish narrative that should guarantee the book a wide readership. If most of the themes explored here are now familiar ones, they are no less significant for being so. For too long, African-American participation in the Civil War was regarded as a sideshow to the main event. But Hollandsworth's efforts point up the rewards to be gained from exploring the black military experience in terms of the larger meaning and con[text]."

--Martin Crawford, Keele University

"Hollandsworth thoroughly and clearly describes the history of the Louisiana Native Guards. He bases his study on a careful analysis of secondary sources and a close reading of contemporary newspapers, military documents, and correspondence from Northern and Southern soldiers. The result is an informative and enlightening look at both race and life in the military from the perspective of an early black military unit."

--Cary D. Wintz, Texas Southern University

"Hollandsworth's book is an admirable unit study, which tackles issues much broader than the experience of the Native Guards. General readers will find their time with the book both enjoyable and informative. Scholars, however, will likely find fault with the author's brevity and relative superficiality on a number of issues, such as racial attitudes, intraracial composition and stratification of the black population, and especially the Reconstruction period in Louisiana and the South at large. More troubling, perhaps, is that the author's subtitle purports to represent the black military experience in its totality; such is nowhere near the case. This book chronicles only the Louisiana Native Guards, a unit which did not represent the whole of the black troops enrolled in the state, much less those elsewhere in the South and especially in the North. Yet if readers (and classroom teachers) are looking for a brief study of the multi-faceted army experience of former slaves and free Negroes in one of the most complex of deep South states, they need look no farther than this entertaining and readable book."

--Christopher Phillips, Emporia State University

"Although much of this story is familiar, The Louisiana Native Guards adds fresh details and insights to the narrative. Treatment of the ill-fated assault on Port Hudson, wherein the Native Guards were ordered to attack the rebel wroks from a position "exposed to fire from three sides . . ." (p. 53), and wherein two officers and twenty-four enlisted men in the 1st Regiment lost their lives, leaves no stone unturned. The chronical of discrimination that the officers endured at the hands of white enlisted men and fellow officers -- particularly General Nathaniel P. Banks and his staff -- similarly deepens conventional understanding. In short, James Hollandsworth has uncovered a wealth of local sources and has sifted carefully through the evidence to separate fact from fiction. His list of black officers, for instance, appears to be definitive.

At the same time, the book disappoints in a few respects. The last chapter, 'Manhood of the Colored Race,' which treats the postwar lives of the officers, adds little to present knowledge and forsakes the promise of its tantalizing title. More generally, in casting such a bright spotlight on the officers, Hollandsworth leaves the enlisted men laregly in the shadows. Bypassing military service records and pension files which survive for the rank and file as well as the officers, he relies for the most part on official reports and regimental records to plumb the collective experience of the enlisted men. Such an approach almost inevitably leaves them faceless and nameless, an anonymity that might appear less striking but for his rich portraits of the officers.

The foregoing caveats notwithstanding, students of Louisiana and of the black military experience during the Civil War will find much of value in James Holandsworth's meticulous study."

--Joseph P. Reidy, Howard University

"The author has done an admirable job in presenting an objective account of the Louisiana Native Guards. Hollandsworth chronicles the cruel discrimination suffered by the men and duly notes their bravery, patience and contribution to the Northern victory. But he does not gloss over their weaknesses. When appropriate, he also points out when they performed poorly, and does not exaggerate their role at Port Hudson.

The research is impressive, based largely on government documents, personnel files, and other primary material. The photographs are appropriate and an appendix provides more detail on the careers of the black officers. The result is a well-written, fair account of a largely forgotten part of the Civil War. Louisiana provided more black soldiers to the Union army than any other state; it is a story worth telling.

--Terry L. Jones, Northeast Louisiana University

"This well-written, extensively footnoted study is more than a regimental history. The Native Guards’s service is examined in the context of the society it originated in and the racism its soldiers endured in service to both the Confederacy and the Union. The author’s sympathies are clearly with the black soldiers of the Native Guards who "asked to be accepted as responsible citizens of the State they loved . . . yet at every turn . . . were rebuffed." Both scholars and Civil War buffs will find this book a valuable resource."

--Judy Yandoh, Civil War News

"Although not a historian by training (Hollandsworth holds a doctorate in psychology), his writing is crisp, clear, and economical. This is a short book on a highly significant topic, but Hollandsworth has done it justice. His sensitivity to the nuances of relations between Northern whites and these sophisticated Southern blacks is well done. He has scoured the archival sources for new material and has thoroughly versed himself in the secondary literature. The interpretation is solid and worth reading. The author delineates his intentions and then accomplishes them."

--The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (summer 1996)

"James G. Hollandsworth has written an interesting and well-researched account of the creation, disbandment, reformation and military record of an unusual Civil War military formation. This reviewer, at least, would disagree with the implications of the subtitle for this slim volume, which suggests that the experiences of this black unit were entirely typical. In some way this is true, but in other the Louisiana Native Guards were unique. . . . Many aspects of the history of the Native Guards were unusual, but they shared with other black troops the experience of being denigrated on all sides, of frequently being used as drudges, or on occasion as cannon fodder, of suffering the indignities of poor pay, inferior equipment and inadequate medical care. This is a proud story, diligently researched and well told."

--Edward Ransom, University of Aberdeen (U.K.)

"Was the Native Guards’ military experience a microcosm of that undergone by the 180,000 black men who served in the Union army as the author contends? In most cases the answer is "yes." Native Guards faced discrimination in the form of unequal pay, poor equipment, lack of medical care, and far too many assignments to fatigue duty. Probably the most blatant prejudice was faced by Native Guards officers who were subjected to a deliberate campaign led by Butler’s successor, Nathaniel P. Banks, to force them out of the service and to replace them with white officers. Most of the original Guard officers fell victim to this purge, though a few hardy souls held on to their commissions until the end of the war. . . . The Louisiana Native Guards is a solidly researched and well-written history that makes a positive contribution to the vast literature of the Civil War. The author sums up their story by stating that while ‘pawns of three governments, the men of the Native Guards worked hard and did their duty.’ For soldiers no higher praise is necessary."

--Robert A Taylor, Florida Atlantic University

"James Hollandsworth’s The Louisiana Native Guards is a brief but comprehensive overview of the pioneering military organization. Of particular interest is the relative wealth of information about the original officer corps, whose ill-treatment is a central theme of the book. Because so many of the men in the ranks of the expanded force were illiterate former slaves, few letters, diaries, or memoirs of enlisted men survive. Consequently, Hollandsworth is unable to provide much information about the experiences and attitudes of the common soldiers.

One revealing document which has only recently come to light is a diary written by Colonel Nathan W. Daniels, the original commander of the 2nd Native Guards. [A review of C. P. Weaver’s book, Thank God My Regiment an African One, follows. . . .]

Hollandsworth and Weaver provide an excellent introduction to the origin of the Union’s earliest black military organizations. Both books are gracefully written and both should be widely read."

--William L. Shea, Arkansas Review

"Although James Hollandsworth is not a professional historian, he has contributed a worthwhile study to the ever-expanding shelves of African-American history. The Louisiana Native Guards would be an outstanding selection for a graduate seminar in the Civil War because it examines a unique southern city during the Civil War and expounds on the role black soldiers played in that war. Every page of Hollandsworth’s work educates and does so with a remarkable readability."

--Brian D. McKnight, East Tennessee State University

Hollandsworth writes with verve and an eye for detail that brings this fascinating and neglected chapter of the Civil War to life. He shows convincingly that the war's significance for the development of the Afro-American civil rights movement lay not simply  in the abolition of slavery, but in the politicization of black soldiers who experienced mistreatment and discrimination in the armies of both the North and the South. That said, the book would have benefited from rather more reflection and analysis. Just why so many former Confederate guardsmen were prepared to transfer their allegiance in 1862, for example, is not adequately explained, nor is the political aftermath of the war explored in sufficient detail. Hollandsworth's treatment of the campaigns in which ex-servicemen engaged in the later 1860s and 70s is rather clipped, and the voices of the participants are seldom allowed to interrupt his narrative of events. Nevertheless, this is a useful book and one that contains much of interest to historians of racial politics in the USA as well to military historians.

-- Mark Harrison, Sheffield Hallan University

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