By Todd Mildfelt and David D. Schafer
A controversial
character largely known (as depicted in the movie Glory) as a Union colonel who
led Black soldiers in the Civil War, James Montgomery (1814–71) waged a far
more personal and radical war against slavery than popular history suggests. It
is the true story of this militant abolitionist that Todd Mildfelt and David D.
Schafer tell in Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind, summoning a life
fiercely lived in struggle against the expansion of slavery into the West and
during the Civil War.
This book follows a
harrowing path through the turbulent world of the 1850s and 1860s as
Montgomery, with the fervor of an Old Testament prophet, inflicts destructive
retribution on Southern slaveholders wherever he finds them, crossing paths
with notable abolitionists John Brown and Harriet Tubman along the way. During
the tumultuous years of “Bleeding Kansas,” he became a guerilla chieftain of
the antislavery vigilantes known as Jayhawkers. When the war broke out in 1861,
Montgomery led a regiment of white troops who helped hundreds of enslaved
people in Missouri reach freedom in Kansas. Drawing on regimental records in
the National Archives, the authors provide new insights into the experiences of
African American men who served in Montgomery’s next regiment, the
Thirty-Fourth United States Colored Troops (formerly Second South Carolina
Infantry).
Montgomery helped
enslaved men and women escape via one of the least-explored underground
railways in the nation, from Arkansas and Missouri through Kansas and
Nebraska. With support of abolitionists
in Massachusetts, he spearheaded resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act in
Kansas. And, when war came, he led Black soldiers in striking at the very heart
of the Confederacy. His full story thus illuminates the actions of both
militant abolitionists and the enslaved people fighting to destroy the peculiar
institution.
About the Authors
Todd Mildfelt
taught history, social studies, and science in special education programs in
secondary schools. He researches and writes about territorial Kansas, the Underground
Railroad, and African American migration.
David D. Schafer served as a park ranger for the National Park Service for over three
decades at historic sites in Kansas, Hawaii, Missouri, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico,
and Texas. He is now an independent historian.
ISBN 978-0806192901,
University of Oklahoma Press, © 2023, Hardcover, 406 Pages, Maps, Photographs, Illustrations, End Notes,
Bibliography & Index. $44.10. To Purchase the book click HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment