Event
Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Soldier
Fee:
Free. A $5 donation is suggested.Location: LAT/LONG: 34.236040, -77.942960
Bellamy Mansion Museum
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Description
A lecture with William B. Gould IV on the life and legacy of his great-grandfather escaped Wilmington slave and Union sailor William B. Gould 1.
William B. Gould IV is the Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus at Stanford Law School. He served as Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in the Clinton administration.
The heart of his book, Diary of a Contraband, is the remarkable Civil War diary of the author’s great-grandfather, William Benjamin Gould, an escaped slave who served in the United States Navy from 1862 until the end of the war. Gould was a plasterer working at the Bellamy site the year before his escape. His journey from downtown Wilmington, past Confederate forts to the Union ships at the mouth of the Cape Fear river, is told on tours at the museum today. The diary vividly records Gould’s activity as part of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia; his visits to New York and Boston; the pursuit to Nova Scotia of a hijacked Confederate cruiser; and service in European waters pursuing Confederate ships constructed in Great Britain and France.
Gould’s diary is one of only three known diaries of African American sailors in the Civil War. It is distinguished not only by its details and eloquent tone (often deliberately understated and sardonic), but also by its reflections on war, on race, on race relations in the Navy, and on what African Americans might expect after the war.
Prof. Gould's talk encompasses this amazing story and, like the book, his thoughts about the legacy of his great-grandfather and his own journey of discovery in learning about this remarkable man.
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