The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson

This journal, from which Higginson drew his celebrated memoir, Army Life in a Black Regiment, finally receives its deserved full publication. Higginson (1823-1911) was a minister, naturalist, ardent abolitionist--he was one of the ""secret six"" who supported John Brown-- and commander of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, one of the Union's earliest forces of freed slaves during the Civil War. (He is also remembered as the principal correspondent of Emily Dickinson.) Providing needed definitions and identifications, Looby's edition also includes letters that throw further light on Higginson's principal concern: the rapidly changing relations between the two races during warfare in the South. The immediacy of Higginson's reflections, as well as their sharp insights, make this journal both distinctive and enduringly compelling. For example, he recorded the halting steps required of both blacks and whites, such as simply learning to call each other ""Mr.,"" as both peoples grappled with the implications of manumission. The introduction by Looby (a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania) gives a somewhat literary and fashionable reading of the journal, throwing light it upon gender bending and homosocial behavior. A historian, however, would have emphasized Higginson's extraordinary effort to see his black soldiers and other former slaves as humans who, like himself, were trying to make sense of their rapidly changing world. Higginson's vivid texts can once again educate, gratify and delight readers. (Dec.)