Black Flag Over Dixie is a polemic analysis of the overarching role that race played during the Civil War. Temple University professor of history Gregory J.W. Urwin assembles a
disparate collection of essays that achieve a synergistic effect in refuting the reconciliationist vision of the Civil War as an honorable contest between chivalrous opponents. Urwin's slate of twelve prominent and heretofore unheralded historians examine purported Confederate and Union Army racial atrocities in each operational theater, including battles at Milliken's Bend, Poison Springs, Jenkin's Ferry, Fort Pillow, and Petersburg. The authors contend that the psychology of "whiteness" framed southern and northern conduct of the war and frequently manifested itself in racial atrocities. Although Confederate atrocities were more frequent and larger, black soldiers retaliated when presented with an opportunity. Myriad cascading effects emanated from racial atrocities; however, two effects were most prominent. First, Radical Republicans incorporated reports of racial atrocities into their "bloody shirt" propaganda to advocate a "hard war" strategy against the South. Secondly, Union and Confederate governments failed to establish and enforce coherent policies to address racial atrocities. The lack of policies emboldened southern insurgents during Reconstruction and also facilitated the North's abandonment of African Americans in exchange for reconciliation after the war.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the introduction of black regiments threatened psychological, deep-rooted, white supremacist underpinnings and exacerbated southern fears of slave insurrection. The presence of black soldiers also provided southern confirmation that the war was a cultural and social revolution designed to reshape the South. Consequently, engagements between Confederate and black regiments quickly escalated into "Black Flag" conflicts of no quarter given. Although the "Fort Pillow Massacre" was not the first or largest racial atrocity, reports of the massacre became tantamount to a rallying cry of "No Quarter" for black soldiers and a Radical Republican demand for an escalation of the war. Following the "Fort Pillow" and "Poison Springs Massacres," black soldiers of the 2"d Kansas Colored Voluntary Infantry Regiment retaliated by killing wounded Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Jenkin's Ferry on the Saline River. Simultaneously, Radical Republican Senator Benjamin R. Wade of Ohio framed a propaganda campaign around the "Fort Pillow Massacre" designed to marshal public will towards pursuing a hard war against the South.
Despite the "Fort Pillow Massacre" Congressional investigation and an eventual Union strategy of "Total War," the Lincoln administration failed to adopt a coordinated and coherent policy towards Confederate racial atrocities. Similarly, the Confederate administration failed to articulate a coordinated policy on the legal status of black soldiers. The failure of both governments to develop and disseminate coherent racial policies to their field forces signaled tacit approval of racial atrocities. Chad L. Williams' essay, "Symbols of Defeat: African American Soldiers, White southerners, and the Christmas Insurrection Scare of 1865," argues that white Southerners' unrelenting disdain for black soldiers coupled with their acceptance of racial atrocities provided significant impetus for a southern insurgency during Reconstruction.
In his essay, "The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Towards Southern Civilians, 1861-1865," Mark Grimsley provides a more comprehensive approach towards the role of racism in America. Grimsley asserts that racism is an American inheritance that has cast a very "Long Shadow" over America since its inception. Racial atrocities are not unique to the Civil War but are also evident in virtually every American conflict. Sheer utilitarian necessity rather than moral superiority forced the Union to field black regiments. Consequently, this ingrained American racism enabled the North to quickly forget both the contributions of black soldiers and southern racial atrocities in order to advance reconciliation.
Urwin has crafted an extraordinary book using essays of varying quality to effectively shatter the myth of the "Lost Cause" and portray the Civil War as a hotly contested social revolution. Several of the essays contained in Black Flag Over Dixie appear deliberately vague in an attempt to stimulate discussion and further research. Mark Grimsley's concluding analysis on racism and reconciliation fuses the disparate essays together and invokes comparison to David Blight's seminal discussion of race, memory, and reconciliation in Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Inevitably, Black Flag Over Dixie will invite comparisons and discourse on ongoing American military operations in the current "Global War on Terrorism." Specifically, how does the American perspective on race inform its perception and conduct of the war?