The First U.S. Army Brigade made up of Freed Slaves
A novel about identity, integrity, and the fight for human dignity.
In Black Cloud Rising (Grove Press 2022), author and scholar David Wright Faladé (Professor of English at the University of Illinois) tells the story of Richard Etheridge, who towards the end of the Civil War joined America’s first and only “African Brigade.” This is a novel every single high schooler in the country needs to read. And it should be required for anyone who wants to vote (I guess that would only work in a country in which every child gets a good education).
Later recognized as a state hero, Richard Etheridge is a young man when he joins the African brigade in late 1863. Led by the one-armed General Edward Augustus Wild (an intriguing character) and Captain Alonzo G. Draper (who like the general, was one of few Union officers willing to lead an all-Black army unit), the brigade is comprised of newly freed slaves plus a few northern men who’d never been enslaved.
The “African Brigade’s” mission is to flush out rebel guerrillas, “bushwackers,” who continue to fight in Union-won territory. Its other mission is to prove to the army and the country that freed slaves can be trusted as combat soldiers.
It’s 1863, after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The Confederate rebels are trying to overturn the results of the Civil War. Can anyone imagine such a thing? Trying to overturn a legally (and militarily) decided Union win through bombast, violence, and murder?
Set mostly in the swampy barrier islands of northeastern North Carolina, the real Richard Etheridge was the son of the master of the house and a black slave. In the novel, the author adds a rich backstory about Richard’s happy childhood relationship with his cousins Patrick (Paddy) and Sarah. Until they get old enough to understand that he was a slave and they were his masters. Much later, when they are older, Paddy tells Richard that he’s always been “like family” and Richard answers that he isn’t “like” family, he “is family.”
At the end of the Civil War, the real Etheridge family signed loyalty to the Union, but so did everyone who realized it was the most expedient way to go about business. In the novel, Cousin Paddy joins the Confederate Partisan Rangers — the rebels who have formed their own militaristic (but not military) bands. Second amendment and all that.
As the African Brigade moves forward, their raids free those still being held as slaves, Richard moves closer to reuniting with his childhood love, and the United States of America made reparations to all who had suffered under the inhumane system of slavery. (Just kidding about the last part — that’s still something this country hasn’t yet managed to do nearly 160 years after the Civil War).
This is a novel about identity, integrity, and the fight for human dignity.
I was delighted to interview the author for a New Books Network podcast.
