Book ID: CBB001212747

Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts (2010)

unapi

Wilder, Burt G. (Author)
Reid, Richard M. (Editor)


University of Massachusetts Press


Publication Date: 2010
Physical Details: x + 282 pp.; ill.; maps
Language: English

Amazon: In early 1863, in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Massachusetts began recruiting black soldiers to serve in the Civil War. Although the first regiment formed, the 54th Massachusetts, would become the best-known black regiment in the war, the second regiment raised, the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, performed equally valuable service in the Union Army. Burt Green Wilder, a Boston-born, Harvard-educated doctor-in-training, was among the first white officers commissioned to staff the 55th Massachusetts. Like other officers serving in the state's African American units, Wilder was selected for his military experience, his firm Anti-Slavery principles, and his faith in the value of black troops. From the time he joined the 55th in May 1863 until the regiment was discharged in September 1865, Wilder recorded his experiences and observations. He described the day-to-day activities of a Civil War surgeon, the indignities suffered by black enlisted men at the hands of a War Department that denied them the same treatment offered to white troops, and the role of the regiment in the campaign around Charleston and in Florida. Service in the southern states also allowed Wilder to indulge a passion for natural science and comparative anatomy, including the collection of unusual species, one of which the spider known as Nephila wilderi still bears his name. After the war he completed his medical studies at Harvard and joined the faculty of Cornell University, where he became a distinguished professor of zoology as well as an outspoken advocate of racial equality. In his introduction to the volume, Richard M. Reid analyzes Burt Wilder's diary and places it within the context of the war, the experience of African American troops, and Wilder's life and career.

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Reviewed By

Review Sheppard, Jonathan C. (2012) Review of "Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts". History: Reviews of New Books (pp. 11-12). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001212747/

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Authors & Contributors
Savitt, Todd Lee
Wynia, Matthew K.
Washington, Harriet A.
Olakanmi, Ololade
Jacobs, Elizabeth A.
Hoover, Eddie
Concepts
African Americans and science
African Americans
Medicine and race
Medicine
Medicine and the military; medicine in war
Physicians; doctors
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
18th century
Places
United States
Virginia (U.S.)
North America
Africa
Atlantic world
Atlantic Ocean
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