Gordon C. Rhea
Author
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Stephen A. Swails - Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction
By Gordon C. Rhea
Gordon C. Rhea - an American lawyer and historian who specializes in the American Civil War, especially the Overland Campaign.
Ticket Pricing
Adults - $30 Teachers - $10 Students - $5 Children - Free of charge
7:00pm - Courtyard open with small meals by Amalia Café & Live Music
8:00pm - Start of the concert
To purchase your ticket, click the link below:
Gordon C. Rhea
Gordon C. Rhea received his B.A. in history from Indiana University, his M.A. in history from Harvard University, and his law degree from Stanford University Law School. He served as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities and as an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington D.C. and the United States Virgin Islands. He has been in the private practice of law since 1983.
Mr. Rhea has written seven award-winning books about the American Civil War, including The Battle of the Wilderness, The Battles at Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, To the North Anna River, Cold Harbor, On To Petersburg, Carrying the Flag, and In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee. He has lectured across the country at the invitation of numerous historical societies, universities, and historic preservation organizations on topics of military history and the Civil War era and has served on the boards of historical societies, history magazines, and historical preservation organizations, including the Civil War Library and Museum, Philadelphia, the North and South magazine, and the Charleston South Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission.
Mr. Rhea conducts tours for organizations that raise funds to purchase and preserve historical sites related to the Civil War era, including the Civil War Trust, the Central Virginia Battlefield Trust, the Blue and Gray Education Society, and the Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield. He has also appeared multiple times as a historian and presenter on nationwide television programs, including productions by The History Channel, A&E Channel, Discovery Channel, and C-Span.
Program
Stephen A. Swails - Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction.
By Godon C. Rhea
Stephen Atkins Swails is a forgotten American hero. A free Black in the North before the Civil War began, Swails exhibited such exemplary service in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry that he became the first African American commissioned as a combat officer in the United States military. After the war, Swails remained in South Carolina, where he held important positions in the Freedmen’s Bureau, helped draft a progressive state constitution, served in the state senate, and secured legislation benefiting newly liberated Black citizens. Swails remained active in South Carolina politics after Reconstruction until violent Redeemers drove him from the state.
After Swails died in 1900, state and local leaders erased him from the historical narrative. Gordon C. Rhea’s biography, one of only a handful for any of the nearly 200,000 African Americans who fought in the Civil War or figured prominently in Reconstruction, restores Swails’s remarkable legacy. Swails’s life story is a saga of an indomitable human being who confronted deep-seated racial prejudice in various institutions but nevertheless reached significant milestones in the fight for racial equality, especially within the military. His is an inspiring story that is especially timely today.
