Civil War Historian to Speak in Medford Sept. 16th

– David Fredo

The noted American historian Ronald S. Coddington will be speaking on “African American Faces of the Civil War” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 16, at the Royall House and Slave Quarters. The address, enhanced by archival photographs, is sponsored collectively by the Medford Historical Society and Museum, the Royall House and Slave Quarters, and the Friends of the Medford Public Library. It is free and open to the public.

Coddington’s address, based on his book of the same name (published in 2012 by The Johns Hopkins University Press), tells the extraordinary story of the Civil War through the photographic images and history of men of color in their various roles as laborers and enlisted men and officers in the Union military. It is estimated that some 200,000 African Americans served in the Northern Army and Navy.

As a contributing writer for the New York Times’ “Disunion” series, Coddington has pieced together accounts of the lives and fates of individuals based on personal documents, military records, and old pension files. His inspiring stories are of ordinary men who became valued workers and fighters, and who overcame numerous challenges, including prejudice and racism.

Coddington writes a monthly “Faces of War” column in the Civil War News, which features profiles of enlisted soldiers with accompanying photographs. These columns have been published in three collections, once again by The Johns Hopkins University Press. He has also published another book, Faces of the Confederacy, in 2008.

“The individual black experience in the Civil War has been underappreciated,” Coddington says. “Most Americans today know it through Glory, the movie about the famed Fifty-fourth Massachusetts infantry and its courageous yet tragic assault on Fort Wagner [in Charleston, South Carolina], or from scant chapters in history books illustrated with the same photographs of unnamed black men in blue uniforms.”

Coddington calls the service of these troops “groundbreaking,” and adds, “Considered from the African American perspective, the war had been about freedom from the beginning. The brave black men who fought for equality were central to the greatest chapter in American history.”

The year 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War (1861-1865), by far the bloodiest war involving the United States, with upwards of 700,000 deaths of soldiers and civilians on both sides of the devastated battlefields. All three sponsoring Medford organizations have scheduled special events through the past year to commemorate the costly conflict.

The September 16 program is supported in part by a grant from the Medford Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. The Royall House and Slave Quarters is located at 15 George Street. On-street parking is available.