Celebrating Black History Month: Martin Delany, first African-American major in US Army

On February 8, 1865, Martin Delany, born as a free man in Charles Town, Virginia January 24, 1812, was commissioned as a major in the US Army, becoming the first African-American field officer.  

Growing up, Delany and his siblings learned to read and write by their mother, despite the prohibition of educating black people.  His mother moved them to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to ensure their continued freedom and learning. His father joined them a year later, after he was allowed to buy his freedom.

At 19, Martin traveled to Pittsburgh, where he attended the Cellar School of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and apprenticed with a white physician.  He was one of four black men accepted into Harvard Medical School, but were dismissed after white supremacists complained.

Delany continued to be active in medicine and politics, attending his first National Negro Convention in 1835. He began publishing The Mystery, the first black-owned newspaper printed west of the Appalachians. 

In 1856, he moved his family to Chatham, Ontario, Canada, where he assisted in the Underground Railroad, helping escaped slaves who reached freedom in Canada. 

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln called for a military draft.  Delany began recruiting black men for the Union Army, and raised thousands of enlistees, forming the new United States Colored Troops.  In early 1865, Delany was granted an audience with Lincoln and proposed a corps of black men led by black officers, who could win over black Southerners to the Union.

He was commissioned as major February 8, 1865 as the first black major in the US Army, and achieving the highest rank a black man would reach during the Civil War. 

Read more on this amazing man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Delany

Book review - The Gettysburg Cypher by K. R. Eckert

I enjoy reading speculative fiction (since I write it myself) so I was intrigued when I saw the synopsis for The Gettysburg Cypher by K. R. Eckert.  I had to read it and happy I did.

The book opens right before the battle of Gettysburg with men planning to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.  Naturally, the plan fails but one of the cohorts manages to hand off a Bible, containing codes, cyphers and information pertaining to the scheme to a preacher just before he dies.

Present time: An historian from the Smithsonian receives a diary from another member of the conspiracy which talks of the plot against Lincoln.  Since this is big news, it is broadcast across the nation. 

Descendants of the original plotters (the Brigade) are still in the Asheville, North Carolina area and hanging onto the ideals of their ancestors.  They’re fanatical in their defense of the beliefs of the South, to the point that even the murder of innocent children is not too much for them.  When news of the diary breaks, they are spurred into action.

The main action of the novel is the pursuit of the old Bible, which if found, would be devastating to the Brigade and their goal to win the Civil War.  Since they have no idea where it is, they kidnap the family of the great-great-grandson (now a Monsignor) of the preacher who received the Bible from the dying spy in 1863.

The Monsignor has only heard of the Bible from his childhood and doubts it exists but has no choice but to find it to save his niece and her young son.  He teams up with History Hunters Paul Davenport and Sara Walsh to help him in this seemingly impossible task.

I first thought the novel involved time travel since the character known as the ‘Colonel’ appears in both the Civil War segment and the present but eventually all became clear.

The Gettysburg Cypher is a fun read.  Although there wasn’t much of the ‘cypher’ aspect, in many ways it was better than Dan Brown’s work.  The best part of the novel to me is Eckert’s depiction of the Civil War seen through the eyes of the participants.  He has a way of bringing the past alive.