Martha Settle Putney - Other Contributions

Other Contributions

Dr. Putney's chronicling of the military exploits of African Americans was not confined to the written word. She also conveyed these histories through the medium of public speaking. On July 17, 1998, for example, she spoke at a National Park Service ceremony at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., occasioned by the inception earlier that year of the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. She began her remarks with a reference to the fatal attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, noting that "numerous accounts and the film 'Glory' have pretty much brought this event to the attention of the general public." She then pointed out that this assault "was one of the many battlefield exploits of African Americans during the Civil War. Before the war ended, black troops had been involved in hundreds of skirmishes and engagements including thirty-five major battles." Dr. Putney went on to cite the statistics of the grim price paid by the blacks who served the Union on land and sea: of their 200,000 number, there were "some 68,000 casualties; some 37,000 of these lost their lives."

Dr. Putney was a member of the NAACP and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History). She volunteered at the Smithsonian Institution and was on the editorial board of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.