I Can’t Wait to Call You My Wife: African American Letters of Love and Family in the Civil War Era

Historian Roberts (Evangelicalism and the Politics of Reform in Northern Black Thought, 1776–1863) spotlights how free and enslaved African Americans “cultivated family amidst a precarious existence” in this illuminating collection of letters. Divided chronologically into the antebellum, Civil War, and postwar periods, each of the book’s three sections opens with an essay offering crucial historical context and background information on the letter writers. A few of the correspondents, including married couple Adam and Emily Plummer, appear in multiple sections, providing a sense of narrative continuity. Enslaved on nearby plantations in Maryland, Adam and Emily saw each other on weekends and managed to keep their family together until 1851, when Emily and three of their children were sold at auction. The collection’s love letters reflect “the resilience of the human spirit in the face of some of the most brutal ways humans can abuse one another,” Roberts writes, while other missives seek to keep tabs on separated family members or document harsh treatment by plantation owners. After the war, correspondents discussed their struggles to find employment and education and their quest for racial equality. Expertly curated and contextualized, these letters simmer with palpable longing and fierce determination. Readers will be riveted. Illus. (Oct.)