Books by Edwin C. Bearss

The first published personal narrative by a regimental commander of free black troops, Thank God My Regiment an African One offers a unique glimpse into the daily lives of white leaders of the earliest black soldiers. It is a significant contribution to the ongoing documentation of the experience of black troops in the Civil War.

Edwin Bearss tells how he and two other Civil War historians discovered the Union gunboat Cairo still intact at the bottom of the Yazoo, her big guns loaded and ready to fire, much of the gear aboard just as it was on the December morning when the crew abandoned her - and how, almost miraculously, she was later salvaged and restored.