Blue, Gray and Black Blood

When President Lincoln sent out the call for a voluntary army to defend the fragileUnion of States threatened by the secession of southern states, some who firstanswered the call were farm boys from western Massachusetts. This is the story of theexperiences of one regiment, the 52nd Massachusetts Volunteers, who fought theRebels in the bayou country of South Louisiana. Every participant in their engagements, the farm boys and their commanders, and the Rebels and theirs, considered south>By chance, two northern soldiers spoke the Acadian French of their Quebec neighbors.A common language permitted them a rare opportunity to communicate with the enslavedwho followed the Union soldiers to freedom without being able to communicate with theirliberators in French-speaking Acadiana.Within the framework of known history, the author has told a compelling story ofyoung men of the 52nd growing up in the crucible of war and older men and womenof disparate cultures first clashing and ultimately recognizing the commonalities oftheir cultures. The reader is delighted to learn that an appreciation of humor and thebizarre are as universal qualities of fellow men as pride and cruelty.