Race and Radicalism in the Union Army

In this compelling portrait of interracial activism Mark A. Lause documents the efforts of radical followers of John Brown to construct a triracial portion of the Federal Army of the Frontier. Mobilized and inspired by the idea of a Union that would benefit all black Indian and white soldiers fought side by side achieving remarkable successes in the field. Against a backdrop of idealism racism greed and the agonies and deprivations of combat Lause examines links between radicalism and reform on the one hand and racialized interactions among blacks Indians and whites on the other. Lause examines how this multiracial vision of American society developed on the Western frontier. Focusing on the men and women who supported Brown in territorial Kansas Lause examines the impact of abolitionist sentiment on relations with Indians and the crucial role of nonwhites in the conflict. Through this experience Indians blacks and whites began to see their destinies as interdependent and Lause discusses the radicalizing impact of this triracial Unionism upon the military course of the war in the upper Trans-Mississippi. The aftermath of the Civil War destroyed much of the memory of the war in…