Thomas Morris Chester’s Civil War Dispatches 1864

Thomas Morris Chester pursued a number of careers, including teaching, law, and journalism. As the fi rst and only African American journalist to cover the Civil War for a major daily American newspaper— the Philadelphia Press—he fi led dispatches about the progress of the war. In them, including the two from August 1864 reproduced here, he emphasized the exploits of “colored troops,” that is, African American soldiers who fought during the later stages of the Civil War. As such, his reports became important documents in the ongoing debate about the place of African Americans in American society, whether they should be allowed to defend the nation’s interests as members of the military, and what their future would be after the war. Chester’s dispatches from Virginia, specifi cally from near Richmond, the Confederate capital, and Petersburg, a vital city to its south, give the modern reader a ground’s-eye view of the progress of the war and the part that African American troops played in it.