Note:  What follows is a three part story, which we will present in consecutive blog posts, that permits us to see the history of central Virginia in a new way:  with a focus on the journeys of African American men, born in the shadow of Jefferson’s Monticello, who fought for the Union army in the Civil War.  These men represent the Virginia roots of thousands of U.S.C.T. soldiers, men who were dispersed by the system of slavery and then converged, during the war, in black regiments, and fought to save the Union and to end slavery.

Historians have neglected what regimental histories can reveal about the experience of common soldiers during the Civil War. Many in number, regimental histories provide an accurate portrait of the life of the Union soldier during the conflict and also comment on why soldiers went to war.

Today we present the first part of an interivew with our inaugural book prize winner, J. Matthew Gallman. Gallman won our prize for his book Defining Duty in the Civil War (UNC Press, 2015). In part one, Gallman discusses why he wrote his book, the importance of satire in the Civil War era, the concept of loyalty in the North, and his previous work on Anna E. Dickinson.