Booknotes: Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind

New Arrival:

• Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind: James Montgomery and His War on Slavery by Todd Mildfelt & David D. Schafer (OU Press, 2023).

This volume represents yet another example of that recurring publishing phenomenon in which a long-neglected topic is suddenly addressed by two full-length treatments released close together. Back in 2022, I reviewed that year's release of Robert Conner's James Montgomery: Abolitionist Warrior. Published the very next year was this study, Todd Mildfelt and David Schafer's Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind: James Montgomery and His War on Slavery (2023). Mildfelt and Schafer's book is nearly twice the length of Conner's (and includes an even more detailed history of Montgomery's remarkable Civil War career), and its bibliography reveals a source range and depth much more in line with what we'd typically expect from a scholarly examination of the topic. Conner's book also lacked maps, which this one certainly does not.

From the description: "A controversial character largely known (as depicted in the movie Glory) as a Union colonel who led Black soldiers in the Civil War, James Montgomery (1814–71) waged a far more personal and radical war against slavery than popular history suggests. It is the true story of this militant abolitionist that Todd Mildfelt and David D. Schafer tell in Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind, summoning a life fiercely lived in struggle against the expansion of slavery into the West and during the Civil War."

Montgomery negotiated the "the turbulent world of the 1850s and 1860s" with "the fervor of an Old Testament prophet," launching a campaign of "destructive retribution on Southern slaveholders." More from the description: "Montgomery helped enslaved men and women escape via one of the least-explored underground railways in the nation, from Arkansas and Missouri through Kansas and Nebraska. With support of abolitionists in Massachusetts, he spearheaded resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act in Kansas."

During the early period of the Civil War, Montgomery was one of the most notorious leaders of Kansas Jayhawkers, but he also undertook a rare transformation from freebooter to successful (but still no stranger to controversy) conventional officer. As a Union Army colonel, he led both black and white troops into battle, beginning with a regiment in James Lane's Kansas Brigade. More: "Drawing on regimental records in the National Archives, the authors provide new insights into the experiences of African American men who served in Montgomery’s next regiment, the Thirty-Fourth United States Colored Troops (formerly Second South Carolina Infantry)." At the head of that unit, Montgomery conducted coastal raids in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, the most widely known event from that phase of his career being the infamous burning of the town of Darien. He led a brigade at the 1864 Battle of Olustee, earning just praise for his handling of the rearguard during that Union defeat. Later that year, he returned to uniform as the leader of a Kansas militia regiment and went into action against Sterling Price's Confederate expedition as it transited the Kansas-Missouri borderland.

Obviously, the rendering of any kind of final judgment has to come after actually reading this thing (it arrived only last week), but even a superficial glance through it suggests strong addressing of shortcomings found in the 2022 biography.