The Underground Railroad and the Civil War (Untold History of the Civil War)

Gr 5-8-Two competently written, but dry titles. Each book includes black-and-white maps and average-quality archival photos and reproductions. Brooks examines participation by blacks in service to the Union and Confederate causes. While this is an aspect of the war that is not well known, the treatment here is sketchy at best. The rationales behind allowing African Americans to serve as well as the debates that held up their deployment on both sides of the conflict are explored in greater depth in Jim Haskins's Black, Blue and Gray: African Americans in the Civil War (S & S, 1998). Nofi presents the history of the Underground Railroad, its most famous participants, escapes, and rescues. He details the various jobs of the Railroad's workers and reasons why people supported it and participated in its activities. Correspondence among the members of this loosely knit organization round out the presentation. Jim Haskins's Get on Board: The Story of the Underground Railroad (Scholastic, 1995) remains a more readable, better-developed account.-Virginia R. La Juene, Schenectady County Public Library System, NY

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