Background
George Washington Williams was born on October 16, 1849 in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, the son of Thomas and Nellie (Rouse) Williams, of mixed white and negro blood.
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(George Washington Williams was an American Civil War vete...)
George Washington Williams was an American Civil War veteran, minister, politician, lawyer, journalist, and groundbreaking historian of African-American history. Shortly before his death he travelled to King Leopold II's Congo Free State. Shortly before his death he travelled to King Leopold II's Congo Free State. Shocked by what he saw, he wrote an open letter to Leopold about the suffering of the region's inhabitants at the hands of Leopold's agents, which spurred the first public outcry against the regime running the Congo under which millions lost their lives.
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( A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebelli...)
A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865 (originally published in 1888) by pioneer African American historian George Washington Williams remains a classic text in African American literature and Civil War history. In this powerful narrative, Williams, who served in the U.S. Colored Troops, tells the battle experiences of the almost 200,000 black men who fought for the Union cause. Determined to document the contributions of his fellow black soldiers and to underscore the valor and manhood of his race, Williams gathered his material from the official records of U.S. and foreign governments and from the orderly books and personal recollections of officers commanding Negro troops during the American Civil War. The new edition of this important text includes an introductory essay by the award-winning historian John David Smith. In his essay, Smith narrates and evaluates the book’s contents, analyzes its reception by contemporary critics, and evaluates Williams’s work within the context of its day and its place in current historiography.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Troops-Rebellion-1861-1865-Norths/dp/0823233855?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0823233855
(This extremely interesting volume demonstrates, from the ...)
This extremely interesting volume demonstrates, from the official records of the war of the rebellion, that the negro displayed in that protracted struggle the highest qualities of a soldier in many a hard-fought battle. Courage to attack, bravery to endure, fearlessness under deadly fire, and daring in assault, were as conspicuous in him as in the bravest and best of his white fellow-soldiers. That these qualities should be found in men belonging to a race long enslaved is evidence that there is in the race a moral and intellectual basis for the highest culture. All that men have attained they may attain. Colonel Williams, who is himself a colored man, proves by his book that he can guide the pen with skill, force, and sound judgment. In its sixteen chapters he tells us what the negro has done as a soldier, both in ancient and modern times; and he has done this in a style and spirit and with a degree of intelligence which make his volume eminently readable, instructive, and historically valuable. A valuable and interesting history of Negro troops in the War of the Rebellion. The author is himself a soldier, and participated in many of the battles which lie describes. Truly, as he says," the part enacted by the negro troops in the war of the rebellion is the romance of North American history." His chapter, "The Cloud of Witnesses," is a cloud of testimony from Secretary Stanton and many great generals, all of whom put these black men among the foremost of soldiers. They understood the issue, as when the ex-slave, standing guard and seeing his own master brought in as a prisoner, saluted him: "Ah, master, bottom rail on the top this time." They appreciated the symbolism of the Federal garb, as when another on guard said to those who would jostle his authority: "This man is of no particular account, but you must 'spect this uniform." They had the fire of patriotism, as when the soldier addressed his comrades thus: "Our massas, dey hab lived under de flag. Dey got rich under it, and everything beautiful for de chillun; under it dey hab grind us up and put us in their pocket for money. But de fust minute dey tink de old flag mean freedom for us cullud folks, dey pull it right down and run up a rag of dere own. But we'll neber desert de ole flag, boys. We hab lib under it for 1862 years, and we'll die for it now." The author writes of the military prowess of his own race. He was an officer of artillery in the Republican forces of the Mexican army, and an officer of the 6th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. He participated in many of the battles he describes, including some of the most severe conflicts of negro troops with the enemy in Virginia. He has been intrusted with the journals and orderly-books of officers from the rank of lieutenant to that of major-general, and has been personally acquainted with six major-generals who at one time commanded negro troops. The first chapter is devoted to a summary of the services of negro soldiers in ancient times, beginning with their record in ancient Egypt; then follows a summary of their record in modern times, and then the detailed record of their history in the war of the rebellion.
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clergyman politician Soldier author
George Washington Williams was born on October 16, 1849 in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, the son of Thomas and Nellie (Rouse) Williams, of mixed white and negro blood.
His elementary education began in a pay school. During his youth his mind was fired by the arguments of William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass and by such literary productions as Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dred. In 1862, as soon as his age permitted, he enlisted as a private in the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, rose at once to be an orderly sergeant, and before the war closed was promoted to Gen. N. J. Jackson's staff.
Upon his retirement from the army he entered Howard University, where, at his own suggestion, he was permitted to organize the institution on a military plan and take charge of the grounds. In 1874 he graduated from Newton Theological Institution, Newton Centre, Massachussets.
He attended lectures in the Cincinnati Law School.
In May 1865 he sailed for Texas, where he landed on the Rio Grande and went as colonel at the head of his troops to capture munitions which had been sold to Mexico by the Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby-Smith. Subsequently he was sent to Carlisle Barracks to drill colored troops. His work was so exemplary that he was recommended by his officers for a commission in the Regular Army, but the Senate refused to confirm his appointment, supposedly because of his color.
On June 11 of that year he was ordained to the Baptist ministry. After supplying the Twelfth Baptist Church, Boston, for a time, he was unanimously elected pastor, but a gunshot wound through the left lung received during the war unfitted him for the rigorous climate of New England, and after about a year he resigned his Boston pastorate and went to Washington, D. C.
After an attempt to launch a journal called The Commoner, for which he secured such noted contributors as Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass but was unable to secure subscribers, he went in 1876 to Cincinnati, where he was chosen pastor of the Union Baptist Church. Here he soon won the respect of Murat Halstead, who published his articles signed Aristides in the Cincinnati Commercial.
Williams' second journalistic venture, the Southwestern Review, a weekly newspaper, was more successful than the first, but it failed to absorb all his energy or satisfy his ambition.
After reading law for two years in the office of Alphonso Taft, he was admitted to the Ohio bar. In 1877 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the state legislature, but secured an appointment in the office of the auditor of Hamilton County, whence he entered the federal internal revenue service as an appointee of President Hayes.
In 1879, after a bitter campaign, he was elected to the Ohio legislature for two years. He served as United States minister to Haiti in 1885-86, and in the latter year was a delegate to the World Conference of Foreign Missions at London, where he made a speech on the "Drink Traffic in the Congo. " He had become interested in the Congo as early as 1884 and proposed a plan for employing American negroes there in the service of the Belgian government. Visiting the region under Belgian auspices, he published criticisms of the methods of the officials of the Congo Free State.
In America he modestly strove for the recognition of his race by writing History of the Negro Race in America (1883) and A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion (1888).
He died at Blackpool, England, while an employee of the Belgian government.
In addition to his religious and political achievements, George W. Williams wrote groundbreaking histories about African Americans in the United States: A History of Negro Troops in the War of Rebellion and The History of the Negro Race in America 1619 - 1880. The latter was the first overall history of African Americans, showing their participation and contributions from the earliest days of the colonies.
( A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebelli...)
(This extremely interesting volume demonstrates, from the ...)
(George Washington Williams was an American Civil War vete...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
He was an impassioned orator, a popular speaker, and a clear-thinking writer. Personally, he was somewhat fastidious, kindly and genial in manner. Though a partisan Republican, he was an honest official whose character was above reproach.
He met Sarah A. Sterrett during a visit to Chicago in 1873. They were married the following spring and had one son together.
