Advance Praise for Thunder at the Gates

“We have long known of the history of the pioneering black Massachusetts regiments of the Civil War—the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Infantry and Fifth Cavalry—and their impact on the military and political battlefields. In this deeply researched and stunningly narrated new study of their exploits, Egerton, by focusing our attention squarely on the men, both the enlisted and officers, has found a new and exciting way to retell the story of those whose actions had a profound impact on the outcome of the struggles against slavery and racial oppression.”

—RICHARD J. BLACKETT, Professor of History, Vanderbilt University

“‘None were braver in the fight’ wrote the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar about Massachusetts’ black regiments, and Douglas Egerton takes up that refrain, chronicling with nuance and insight the heroic struggle for freedom and justice of soldiers such as Lewis and Charles Douglass, William Carney, and Stephen A. Swails. Egerton brilliantly interweaves personal stories and political context, evoking the battlefields of Fort Wagner and Olustee, and the profound legacy of what happened there. This is a great book, worthy of the men who inspired it.”

—ELIZABETH R. VARON, author of Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War