Private No More - (New Perspectives on the Civil War Era) by Sharon A Roger Hepburn (Paperback)

About the Book

"Private no More: The Civil War Letters of John Lovejoy Murray, 102nd United States Colored Infantry is a collection of letters written by and for John Lovejoy Murray, a private in Company E., 102nd E USCI, during the course of the Civil War. The letters, discovered by Murray's mother within the pages of a pension file, reveal the experience of the war through the eyes of a literate northern black soldier. Unlike many of the discovered letters from literate black soldiers during the war, the Murray letters were not written for public audiences such as black abolitionist newspapers. The letters reveal intimate reflections on family, friends, and community during the course of the War. The book shares these letters and the story of John Lovejoy Murray to provide insight on a relatively undocumented experience in Civil War scholarship"--

Book Synopsis

The John Lovejoy Murray collection of letters contains insights into the experiences of an African American soldier and his regiment during the Civil War. John Lovejoy Murray, a private in Company E, 102nd USCT, died of disease in a Charleston hospital on April 12, 1865. Through John Murray's letters, readers can experience the war through the eyes of a literate northern Black soldier.

His is the story of the soldiers who did not receive accolades for their heroic actions in battle, the ones who spent more time on picket and fatigue duty than on the front lines, the ones who died from disease more than they did of battle-related wounds. Murray's letters are significant because they are ordinary in some respects yet extraordinary in others. Some of the activities and sentiments portrayed in the letters are hardly distinguishable from those described in letters written by White soldiers. In other ways, the letters represent a perspective distinctly from a Black soldier in the Union army. Although many of his experiences may have been typical, John Lovejoy Murray himself, a literate, freeborn, northern Black man, was atypical among Union Black soldiers.

Review Quotes

Private No More adds significantly to our understanding about the diversity of USCT soldiers and their experiences. It is a must read for those interested in Civil War soldiers' letters, the common soldier, and the conflict in the Department of the South.--Tim Talbott "Emerging Civil War"

As a largely intact collection of private papers written by a northern black soldier to family members unedited by an outside source, Private No More is extremely rare and will be greatly appreciated by Civil War historians.

--Richard Reid, history professor emeritus, University of Guelph

This collection of the letters of an African American Union Army soldier during the Civil War represents a welcome addition to the published collections of soldier correspondence from that conflict, in which Black voices have been badly underrepresented. The research is quite impressive and illuminating, and the footnotes do much to contextualize the letters and add value to the presentation.--Michael Thomas Smith "author of The Enemy Within: Fears of Corruption in the Civil War North"

About the Author

SHARON A. ROGER HEPBURN is professor of history at Radford University. She is the author of Crossing the Border: A Free Black Community in Canada, which received the 2008 Albert B. Corey Award. She lives in Christiansburg, Virginia.