Duty Driven: The Plight of North Alabama's African Americans Du Paperback – Illustrated, 21 September 2012

I'm certainly no expert, but I like to think that I'm fairly well read on the Civil War. Many recent books on that war are merely "new interpretations" of commonly known facts. Duty Driven by historian Peggy Allen Towns (no familial relationship) does not fit into that category. Almost everything in this book was new information to me.Towns's area of research is northern Alabama, the mid-point of the Tennessee River Valley. More specifically, it focuses on the African-Americans living in that area during the Civil War, how the war affected them, and how they reacted to it. Her presentation makes it clear that Towns is very aware that the people she writes about lived in the mid 19th Century, not the early 21st Century. While they possessed the full range of emotions that people now living have, their expectations and reactions were based on a somewhat different world view. She does not attempt to foist modern values on them or judge their actions by those values. Instead, any explanation given for the actions of an individual that she writes about is in that individual's own words, gleaned from letters and depositions or other official documents such as pension records.In her introduction, Towns says that what began as an attempt to research her own family history quickly expanded to a broader project when she found that although there were historical documents available, little had been written about the African-American experience in northern Alabama during the Civil War. She resolved to remedy that lack. Although the bulk of Duty Driven concerns African-American males who escaped slavery to join Northern units and the battles those units participated in - participation often not noted in other histories - the book is not limited to those men. Towns also presents the stories of slaves who stayed behind, some despite opportunities to leave, and even of those few who chose to take up arms against the North.Nor does Towns ignore African-American women. A passage I particularly enjoyed tells of Emily Frazier. Due to illness, she was not required by her master to perform hard work and was allowed to engage in business. One of her enterprises was going into the country, buying moonshine from poor whites, and selling the liquor to Union soldiers occupying the area. In Emily's words, "I kept that up till the soldiers cut up so bad that the officers found it out and forbid me selling it." As a veteran myself, I can easily picture what Emily was talking about.Duty Driven deserves a place on the shelf of anyone desiring a more complete picture of the Civil War era.

Duty Driven is a book that fulfills a Civil War buff's appetite. Especially those with an interest in the history of Colored troops of the Civil War with a genre of North Alabama. The book is filled with rare Civil war era photos of North Alabama and interesting historical data concerning Blacks of the Civil War era of North Alabama.

Tells an important story from the Civil War period and fills a significant gap in accounts of how African-Americans responded to the conflict in North Alabama. Well researched and told in compelling fashion.

I have not finished the book yet. But what I’ve read so far was very informative about records during the Civil War. I found the Southern Commissions Papers on the fold3 website. In the book, it explains what the” Southern Commissions Papers “are and gave me examples of what was said in them. Because of what I found out about these records, I was able to locate records for 2 of my ancestors. So it helped me with my family tree.

I have just finished reading my copy of Duty Driven. This scholarly research work was presented in a very smooth, informative and readable fashion. I would hope that school age children ( as well as adults) will have the opportunity to read this. I felt a huge feeling of pride swell up within me, especially since I have an ancestor who was a documented member of these Alabama USCT soldiers. Great job and I look forward to the works to follow!