Joseph Glarthaar s Forged in Battle is not the first excel- lent study of Black soldiers and their White officers in the Civil War, but it uses more soldiers letters and diaries- including rare material from Black soldiers-and concen- (5) rates more intensely on Black-White relations in Black regiments than do any of its predecessors. Glathaar s title expresses his thesis: loyalty, friendship, and respect among White officers and Black soldiers were fostered by the mutual dangers they faced in combat.
(10 ) Glarthaar accurately describes the government s discrim- inatory treatment of Black soldiers in pay, promotion, medi cal care, and job assignments, appropriately emphasizing the campaign by Black soldiers and their officers to get the opportunity to fight. That chance remained limited through (15) out the war by army policies that kept most Black units serving in rear-echelon assignments and working in labor battalions. Thus, while their combat death rate was only one-third that of White units, their mortality rate from disease, a major killer in his war, was twice as great. (20) Despite these obstacles, the courage and effectiveness of several Black units in combat won increasing respect from initially skeptical or hostile White soldiers. As one White officer put it, "they have fought their way into the respect of all the army."
(25) In trying to demonstrate the magnitude of this attitudi- nal change, however, Glarthaar seems to exaggerate the prewar racism of the White men who became officers in Black regiments. "Prior to the war," he writes of these men, "virtually all of them held powerful racial prejudices."
1. The passage as a whole can best be characterized as which of the following?
(A) An evaluation of a scholarly study
(B) A description of an attitudinal change
(C) A discussion of an analytical defect (D) An analysis of the causes of a phenomenon
(E) An argument in favor of revising a view
2. According to the author, which of the following is true of Glarthaar s Forged in Battle compared with previous studies on the same topic?
(A) It is more reliable and presents a more complete picture of the historical events on which it concentrates than do previous studies.
(B) It uses more of a particular kind of source material and focuses more closely on a particular aspect of the topic than do previous studies.
(C) It contains some unsupported generalizations, but it rightly emphasizes a theme ignored by most previous studies.
(D) It surpasses previous studies on the same topic in that it accurately describes conditions often neglected by those studies.
(E) It makes skillful use of supporting evidence to illustrate a subtle trend that previous studies have failed to detect.
3. The author implies that the title of Glatthaar s book refers specifically to which of the following?
(A) The sense of pride and accomplishment that Black soldiers increasingly felt as a result of their Civil War experiences
(B) The civil equality that African Americans achieved after the Civil War, partly as a result of their use of organizational skills honed by combat
(C) The changes in discriminatory army policies that were made as a direct result of the performance of Black combat units during the Civil War
(D) The improved interracial relations that were formed by the races facing of common dangers and their waging of a common fight during the Civil War
(E) The standards of racial egalitarianism that came to be adopted as a result of White Civil War veterans repudiation of the previous racism
4. The passage mentions which of the following as an important theme that receives special emphasis in Glarthaar s book? (A) The attitudes of abolitionist officers in Black units
(B) The struggle of Black units to get combat assignments
(C) The consequences of the poor medical care received by Black soldiers
(D) The motives of officers serving in Black units
(E) The discrimination that Black soldiers faced when trying for promotions