Silent Cavalry

How Union Soldiers from Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta—and Then Got Written Out of History

By: Howell Raines

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist reveals the little-known story of the Union soldiers from Alabama who played a decisive role in the Civil War, and how they were scrubbed from the history books.

“It is my sincere hope that this compelling and submerged history is integrated into our understanding of our nation, and allows us to embrace new heroes of the past.”—Imani Perry, professor, Harvard University, and National Book Award-winning author of South to America

We all know how the Civil War was won: Courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But is there more to the story?

As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Howell Raines shows, it was not only soldiers from northern states who helped General William Tecumseh Sherman burn Atlanta to the ground but also an unsung regiment of 2,066 Alabamian yeoman farmers—including at least one member of Raines’s own family.

Called the First Alabama Cavalry, U.S.A., this regiment of mountain Unionists, which included sixteen formerly enslaved Black men, was the point of the spear that Sherman drove through the heart of the Confederacy. The famed general hailed their skills and courage. So why don’t we know anything about them?

Silent Cavalry is part epic American history, part family saga, and part scholarly detective story. Drawing on the lore of his native Alabama and investigative skills honed by six decades in journalism, Raines brings to light a conspiracy that sought to undermine the accomplishments of these renegade southerners—a key component of the Lost Cause effort to restore glory to white southerners after the war, even at the cost of the truth.

In this important new contribution to our understanding of the Civil War and its legacy, Raines tells the thrilling tale of the formation of the First Alabama while exposing the tangled web of how its wartime accomplishments were silenced, implicating everyone from a former Confederate general to a gaggle of Lost Cause historians in the Ivy League and a sanctimonious former keeper of the Alabama state archives. By reversing the erasure of the First Alabama, Silent Cavalry is a testament to the immense power of historians to destroy as well as to redeem.

©2023 Howell Raines (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Howell Raines is a legendary writer, editor, and social critic. With Silent Cavalry he has yet again revealed that the history of the U.S. South is one of far greater complexity and depth than what is commonly ascribed to it, from both outside and inside the region. It is my sincere hope that this compelling and submerged history is integrated into our understanding of our nation, and allows us to embrace new heroes of the past.”—Imani Perry, professor, Harvard University, and National Book Award-winning author of South to America

“Following breadcrumbs from family lore, Howell Raines has uncovered the remarkable story of white men from Alabama’s hill country who fought for the Union and, equally important, the century-long effort by Confederate sympathizers to erase them from history. . . . An invaluable addition to revisionist—as in, actual—history.”—Cynthia Tucker, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of The Southernization of America

“Silent Cavalry marks another chapter in Raines’s storied career of giving voice to the voiceless, highlighting the men and women who, without proper credit, did their part to make America a better, more equitable place.”—Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

A book I am adding to my Alabama History shelf

The reader is an excellent reader/actor. I have listened to his presentation three times and enjoyed every chapter.
I bought the hard copy as well.
I arrived in Birmingham the year after the author was born, and lived on the Southside. Listening to the book reminded me of sitting on the porch being read to.

Outstanding research

I think you have just the beginning. Until you visit Winston county and surrounding area it’s hard to envision just how “lying out” could work. Visit savage gulf state park and see not only spectacular natural occurrence but also the hidden gems for hiding out.

splendid

Finally something positive and human about the state of Alabama. thank you. to date, nothing but the grotesque fills the ears and minds of the greater public about this state, which is odd because us northerners also hear about how "nice" southern folks are. it's great to hear a story about those in Alabama who loved the United States so much that they were willing to fight for what she believed in at its inception - that all men are endowed with unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Enlightening and captivating

I'm not a Civil War history buff... I'm a social historian for the late 18th, turn of the 19th centuries in the US. But I've been surrounded by friends and associates who are steeped in the Civil War, in one fashion or another, and who eagerly bought their copies of Ken Burns' miniseries, going on to sing the praises of Shelby Foot. When I watched the series, it always seemed to be just a bit black&white, not unlike America: The Story of Us. Mr. Raines' book is rather satisfying in that it explains those little gaps of the conflict and era that seemed to be stepped over in Burns' film. There is also, given the cult of political upheaval we're seeing today, elucidating information that makes it clearer as to what is unfolding today, particularly with the conservative south and why they support certain policies and people. This book is well worth the "read".

My new favorite civil war history

An excellent book but first as a seasoned Audible consumer I know to thank the performer and editors for an excellent production. Well read, good sound engineering, accurately pronounced names and places (rare) and no recording pauses, repeats or skips to upend the listener experience. Now for Mr. Raines work. Yes I am a fly fisherman and I count his Flyfishing Through the Mid-life crisis to be a classic for fishing and male aging. This latest work of nonfiction is so much more than the unit history it first appeared to be. It reveals American history from inside a rural Alabama County out to a region, state, confederacy and the nation’s maturity through Reconstruction. It is meticulously researched. The broadest themes are told through individual people, little people one might say who each in their own sphere contributed to the overall depravity and vanquishing of Reconstruction. I loved it.

More Marxist revisionism

It’s clear from the book that author Howell Raines dislikes, in no particular order, Donald Trump, Shelby Foote and Nathan Bedford Forrest. After 458 pages of ad hominem attack on ‘The Lost Cause’, Raines finally admits that he is championing the Marxist revisionism of the Civil War and Reconstruction spearheaded by WEB Dubois and Eric Foner. The story of the First Alabama and the war-within-the-war is terrific. But it is spoiled by Raines’ non-stop attacks on Trump, Foote, Forrest, William Dunning and more. Raines is outraged by Ken Burns allowing Foote to say that Forrest and Abraham Lincoln were the two geniuses of the war, but as blood thirsty as Raines describes Forrest, listeners would do well to remember that the most blood thirsty character of the war was Lincoln himself. Lincoln was willing to kill as many people as necessary to save the Union. And he did. That point is really the most interesting yet unmentioned aspect of the Civil War. Listen to it for the little bit of history but be prepared for the nonstop woke nonsense.

Mr. Raines is not a racist. Big deal

I thought the book would be about the actual cavalry. Instead, it is a tribute to Mr. Raines enlightened family regarding their racial tolerance in Alabama. As an Alabamian, I can attest to the malignant racism that blighted our state for over a 150 years or more. Many of us grew up with a similar aborrhence to racism that surrounded us in Birmingham and throughout the state. Mr. Raines does have an impressive family tree of anti-racists. So if you want to read about that, buy this book.
The narrator does a good job on this autobiographical pat on the back written by Mr. Raines.

Much better than it sounds; ill-served by narrator

I am a native Alabamian fascinated with this story. Lots of interesting information in it. But the audiobook falls short. After finishing the audio version, i turned to the printed version via Kindle. The night-and-day feelings i am experiencing remind me of the importance of the listener's relationship with the narrator. Some listeners not from the South may like this narrator's fake, throw-down Southern accent, which he launches nearly every time he comes to a quotation mark, no matter who is writing or speaking. I guess it is his way of setting off quotations. But I found it off-putting and a distraction from the content of the quotation. I admit I generally don't like audibobook narrators' faking accents when reading to me. But this is one of the worst cases. I grew up Southern and never knew anyone who talked like Mark Bramhall's condescending mimicry. And unlike his apparent imagining, there are dozens of Southern accents, not just one. Reading via Kindle, though, I really like this book - a combination personal memoir, mystery who-done-it, history and historiography. The research and detective work are impressive, though one occasionally wonders whether Raines overstates the glory and the obscurity of the 1st Alabama, given citations to previous work. Anyone of our generation who grew up troubled by racism and propagandized about the Civil War, the "Lost Cause" and the South in general will identify with Howell Raines' awakening experiences.