The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War

Louisiana State University Press, 1995. First edition. Hardcover. Fine/fine. Fine in fine dust jacket. First printing. Hardcover. xiv+ 140 pp. with bibliography, index, appendix roster of black officers in the Native Guard. Illustrated with photographs. Early in the Civil War, Louisiana's Confederate government sanctioned the formation of a militia unit of black troops, the Louisiana Native Guards. It was a response to the demands of New Orleans' large black community that they participate in the defense of their state and the unit was used by the Confederate authorities for public display and propaganda purposes. After the fall of New Orleans they were offically disbanded but General Benjamin Butler reorganized them into the Union Army (they later became the part of the Corps d'Afrique and later the 73rd Regiment of United States Colored Troops) and several blacks were commissioned as line officers. They performed largely menial jobs such as digging earthworks and after Nathaniel Banks assumed command from Butler, he purged the black officers, replacing them with white officers. After the war, its veterans took up the struggle for Civil Rights, particularly voting rights in Reconstruction Louisiana.