– Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with The 33D United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. Volunteers
The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest war fought on US-American soil and still to this day, there has never been anything like it. 1861-1865, US-citizens fought against each other over slavery, states rights and westward expansion (History, 2021). The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was supposed to liberate all of the enslaved citizens and made it possible for them to join the Union Army (History, 2022). After the liberal Union Army officially won over the opposing, more conservative Confederate Army, slavery was officially abolished in the US (Britannica, 2022). The following period is now known as the Reconstruction era and marked by the winner’s attempt to secure the rights achieved through the victory over the Confederates, as well as the integration of the Southern states; of which some aspects, especially the latter, failed.
“In this „land of the free“ we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair trial, murdered for any imaginary wrong conceived in the brain of the negro-hating white man. There is no redress for us from a government which promised to protect all under its flag.”
Taylor, pg. 61
Susie King Taylor, née Susannah Ann Baker, was born in 1848 in Liberty County, Georgia – as one of nine children and raised in slavery. She was lucky to be raised in a household where slaves were treated cordial and she was allowed to be with her grandmother in Savannah when she was seven years old. As the eldest of all her siblings she was fortunate enough to be sent to visit a school in the city, although attending a school for black enslaved children was illegal at that time. She got an exceptionally well education compared to other children in slavery at that time. When she was 13 years old, her uncle decided it was best for the safety of the family to flee to St. Catherines Island which was secured by the more liberal Union Army. From this time onwards, Susie can be regarded as a freedwoman. Being one of the few former slaves able to read and write, Taylor got the opportunity to work as a teacher for the children on St. Simon’s Island. During that time, she married her first husband, Edward King, aged 14. As he was a soldier in the first black regiment, she accompanied and served them as a laundress and nurse, but also as a teacher. After war, she still worked as a one, but circumstances made it hard for her and her husband, who soon after died, to retain a good lifestyle. Being left as a single-mother, Taylor had to work as a housekeeper in Boston for the rest of her life to make ends meet. Later, she married a second time: a man named Russell L. Taylor. While travelling to the South again when her son was on his deathbed, Taylor wrote her memoirs, part of that being the novel which this blog post is about; making her the only African-African woman to ever write about her experience in the American Civil War (Kelly, 2020).
„Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with The 33D United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. Volunteers“ is an autobiographical book, which Taylor published many years after the described events. Taylor sketches an overview of her ancestry (ch. 1) and early life (ch. 2), leading up to her service in the Civil War (ch. 3-10) and the years during Reconstruction (ch. 11-12). At the end, she gives an interesting plead about the circumstances in which she finds her contemporary US and how she thinks that the final goal go equality and freedom is yet to be achieved (ch. 13); finishing her story with travel reports of her life during Reconstruction (ch. 14) – most suitable for considering travel writing.
Hypothese
In „Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with The 33D United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. Volunteers“ (1902), the author Susie King Taylor describes to which extent the Reconstruction era after the American Civil War in several regions of the US was rather a regression than an improvement for Women and Civil Rights.
The first incident is the visit of her deadly ill son in 1898. He has been travelling with „Nickens and Company“ (pg. 69), which to me seems like a business travel. Surprisingly, he already „had been ill two weeks when they sent [her]“ (pg. 69), which suggests that his illness has been underestimated from the start, as it turned out to be deadly for him. Taylor first of all describes her journey to Shreveport, where her ill son was located.
When entering the train in Cincinnati, she is told by a white man to take the smoking car as „that is the car for colored people“ (pg. 69). With that he indicates clearly that African-American people at that time were seen as unworthy for comfortable travel. Furthermore, it occurred to me that the smoke to some extent symbolises the „blackness“ of the skin color of the people that are supposed to ride in this car. It shows how contemporarily, racism was veiled in more general categories such as „smoking“ and „non-smoking“.
Taylor mentions that she „wanted to return home again“ (pg. 69) rather than being forced to sit in this car, but considering her son’s state she gives in. Additionally, she thinks about that „others ride in these cars“ (pg. 69) which indicates a general connectedness and understanding between the African-American people’s suffering. Still, her refusal to this car generally is a hint to her high self-esteem which she holds had regardless of her skin color and which also seems quite self-evident for her.
Another situation which occurred on the journey is when two men enter the train and ask her „Where are those men that were with you?“ (Pg. 70). Later in the story she gets to know that they were policemen looking for a man that had eloped with another man’s wife. Still, it rang to me that she as a woman was asked about a man accompanying her because it seems like it was unusual for a black woman to travel alone. Surprisingly, for the most part of the story, no skin colour or ethnic is mentioned. That fits the description of Taylor as a woman who did not make much difference between black and white (Groeling, 2019); but it also sometimes confuses the context of her story.
When the conductor tells her about how black people in the South were lynched and abused on a daily basis, it nearly appears inevitable and normal – he even answers to her confusion with „Oh, that is nothing“ (pg. 71). It shows how racism was well-known and accepted within the population. Another prove for that is the incident of a man who was „murdered in cold blood for nothing“ (pg. 72); a narrative which she concludes with the observation that „the persons were never punished when they were white, but no mercy was shown to negroes“ (pg. 73).
Describing the train resembling a typical „laborer’s car used in Boston“ (pg. 71) she also includes poor white people, besides the black ones. It adds up with what is mentioned in the text by Rosen (2018), that poor whites as well as the former slaves sought labor in the industrial sectors and traveled in the cities to find one. It goes to show how similar their destinies after the Civil War went.
Taylor’s narrative of her son’s story ends with a huge disappointment. Her boy dies in Shreveport with her being unable to get him a berth to be carried home. When she writes „It seemed very hard, when his father fought to protect the Union and our flag, and yet his boy was denied, under this same flag, a berth to carry him home to die, because he was a negro“ (pg. 71-72), all of her disappointment in the state and resignation over the contemporary circumstances come to show. When reading this passage, I noticed how enraged she must have been over the situation, as she rarely emotionally mentions her son’s death but rather the circumstances in which society denied him being at home in death.
„A great many [white people] have the idea that the entire Negro race are vastly their inferiors. A few weeks of calm unprejudiced life here would disabuse them, I think. I have a more elevated opinion of their abilities than I ever had before. I know that many of them are vastly the superiors of those…who would condemn them to a life of brutal degradation.“
Unknown Union Captiain, Mintz 1998
Throughout the story, the army and its reputation play a huge role for Taylor. She seemingly gets annoyed by how former black soldiers are treated worse than others when wearing their buttons (pg. 73). The quote of a newsman which she includes is particularly interesting. When he mentions that „Sherman ought to come back and go into that part of the country“, the resignation over the situation becomes graspable. Sherman, as a leader and famous contributor to the victory of the Union Army is a symbol for a hero in fighting injustice and slavery. It goes to show that seemingly only violence can end the abuse and injustice in the South which Taylor lamented a lot in her novel.
Her glorification of the treatment of black people during the war shows a huge difference to what she experienced during Reconstruction; and to some extent, her frustration is understandable.
Even today, the Civil Rights for black people are by far not yet secured. For black women, double discrimination also plays a huge role and has yet to be overcome. There is also a clear interconnectedness between Black Rights and Women Rights Movement (Fleming, 1975); both of which still have a long way to go.
“My people are striving to attain the full standard of all other races born free in the sight of God, and in a number of instances have succeeded. Justice we ask, to be citizens of these United States, where so many of our people have shed their blood with their white comrades, that the stars and stripes should never be polluted.”
Taylor, pg. 76
Secondary Sources
American Civil War | Causes & Effects (2022): Encyclopedia Britannica, [online] https://www.britannica.com/summary/Causes-and-Effects-of-the-American-Civil-War [abgerufen am 19.06.2022].
Boisseau, Tracey Jane (2008): View of Travelling with Susie King Taylor | thirdspace: a journal of feminist theory and culture, thirdspace, [online] https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/thirdspace/article/view/boisseau/3214 [abgerufen am 16.06.2022].
Fleming, John E. (1975): Slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction: A Study of Black Women in Microcosm, in: Negro History Bulletin, vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 430–433.
Groeling, Meg (2019): Susie King Taylor: The First African American Army Nurse, Emerging Civil War, [online] https://emergingcivilwar.com/2019/02/27/susie-king-taylor-the-first-african-american-army-nurse/ [abgerufen am 11.06.2022].
History.com Editors (2021): Civil War, HISTORY, [online] https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history [abgerufen am 17.06.2022].
History.com Editors (2022): Black Civil War Soldiers, HISTORY, [online] https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/black-civil-war-soldiers [abgerufen am 18.06.2022].
Kelly, Kate (2020): Susie King Taylor (1848–1912), Educator, Author, Activist, America Comes Alive, [online] https://americacomesalive.com/susie-king-taylor-1848-1912-educator-author-activist/ [abgerufen am 19.06.2022].
Mintz, Steven (1998): Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, The Gilder Lehrmann Institute of American History, [online] https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-black-soldiers-civil-war [abgerufen am 12.06.2022].
Susie King Taylor (U.S. National Park Service) (2020): National Park Service, [online] https://www.nps.gov/people/susie-king-taylor.htm [abgerufen am 11.06.2022].