TEXT: African American Soldier
  in the Civil War
  USCT 1862–66
  Warrior
  OSPREY
  P U B L I S H I N G
  Mark Lardas • Illustrated by Peter Dennis
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Warrior • 114
  African American Soldier
  in the Civil War
  USCT 1862–66
  Mark Lardas • Illustrated by Peter Dennis
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  3
  CONTENTS
  INTRODUCTION
  4
  CHRONOLOGY
  7
  ENLISTMENT
  9
  TRAINING
  14
  APPEARANCE AND DRESS
  19
  CONDITIONS OF SERVICE AND DAILY LIFE
  22
  Life in camp • On campaign
  BELIEF AND BELONGING
  42
  THE SOLDIER IN BATTLE
  45
  AFTERMATH
  55
  MUSEUMS AND REENACTMENT
  57
  BIBLIOGRAPHY
  59
  Books • Articles and pamphlets • Web resources
  COLOR PLATE COMMENTARY
  61
  INDEX
  64
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  INTRODUCTION
  In 1861 when President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops I engaged
  myself for the great Civil War, the War of the Rebellion. The United States
  was not taking Negro troops.
  (Alexander H. Newton [a free black living in New York City],
  Out of the Briars.) 
  F
  or the Civil War’s first two years slavery was the elephant in the
  room – an unavoidable object whose presence was denied. The
  Union government was determined to show that the war was not
  about slavery. It was about preserving the union or states’ rights –
  although both sides knew that slavery was the only states’ right that
  could rupture the union. The Civil War started as a white man’s war. The
  Union refused to enlist blacks for fear of further alienating the rebelling
  states, and losing the states that had not seceded but were unsupportive
  of abolition. 
  To win European support for the Confederacy, the South employed
  “show units” of unofficial state militia regiments in New Orleans and
  Memphis. These had no official duties except to march in parades when
  foreign newspapermen were present. These men had to provide their
  own weapons and equipment, apart from when the South abandoned
  New Orleans and gave the blacks worn-out muskets to cover the retreat
  of the white units. With this unusual exception, the Confederacy refused
  to allow participation by freed blacks, and was not yet sufficiently
  desperate for manpower to arm slaves. African Americans could serve
  only as auxiliaries: servants, teamsters, or cooks.
  On May 26, 1861, the Union general Benjamin Butler, then
  commanding Fort Monroe, Virginia, refused to return three runaway
  slaves to their owner – a colonel in the Confederate Army. Butler held
  that runaway slaves belonging to owners in rebellion against the United
  States were “contraband of war.” Like any property providing military
  advantage they could be seized. Congress approved of his logic: it ratified
  Butler’s position on August 6, 1861, passing the First Confiscation Act,
  which directed the armed forces to confiscate property employed in the
  service of the rebellion – including slaves. 
  This was aimed more at harming rebellious slave-owners than
  emancipating slaves. Yet large numbers of “contrabands” collected
  wherever the Union established outposts in the Confederate states. The
  Army was barred from using these blacks. Congress passed the Militia
  AFRICAN AMERICAN SOLDIER 
  IN THE CIVIL WAR:
  USCT 1862–66
  4
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  Act on July 17, 1862, allowing the Army to hire contrabands as laborers,
  to be paid one ration a day, and $10 per month, $3 worth of which
  should be provided as clothing. African Americans could be hired only
  as laborers – not as soldiers.
  Some generals attempted to recruit blacks to fill shortages in their
  numbers. One Union commander, Gen David Hunter, unofficially
  raised a regiment of runaway slaves in South Carolina in April 1862.
  Ordered to disband the regiment, he refused to do so, and was relieved.
  Benjamin Butler was more successful in September 1862. Commanding
  Union forces in New Orleans, Butler raised three regiments of black
  troops. He cleverly used the fiction that he was recommissioning and
  expanding the regiment of Free Men of Color that had served in the
  Confederate Army. 
  In reality, fewer than 10 percent of the members of the Confederate
  regiment reenlisted in the Union Native Guard regiments raised by
  Butler. Despite claims that all the recruits were freemen, half were slaves,
  most runaways, when they enlisted. In one regiment, a company was
  raised from slaves owned by a free black, Francis Dumas – who received
  a captain’s commission.
  Butler commissioned the 1st Native Guard Regiment on September
  27, 1862. A few days earlier, on September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the
  preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. This only freed slaves in regions
  “in rebellion against the United States.” As with the Confiscation Act, it
  was primarily intended to harm the Confederacy. The Emancipation
  Proclamation also ended any chance of European intervention – unless
  the Confederacy similarly eliminated slavery. Additionally, the casualties
  of the Peninsular Campaign were hard to justify in a war merely to
  “preserve the union.” 
  Shifting the war aim towards emancipation, as well as union, removed
  barriers to African Americans serving in the Army. Butler kept his
  regiments. To the west, the State of Kansas was also in the process of
  raising a regiment of African American troops – in this case acknowledged
  5
  Gen Benjamin Butler (seated)
  declared these runaways to be
  contraband of war, when their
  master, a Confederate officer,
  tried to claim them. Butler later
  raised the first three African
  American regiments using this
  premise. (Author’s collection)
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  runaways from Missouri. That fall, Hunter’s unofficial regiment was
  reconstituted as the 1st South Carolina (Colored) Regiment, commanded
  by Col Thomas W. Higginson, an abolitionist Unitarian minister who had
  supported John Brown and the anti-slavery Jayhawkers in Kansas before
  the Civil War. By January 1, 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation
  took effect, additional African American regiments were being raised in
  North and South Carolina, and Louisiana. The New England states,
  Massachusetts foremost among them, were clamoring for permission to
  raise African American regiments.
  The common soldiers’ opposition to fighting alongside African
  Americans faded. Many objected to African Americans, but the casualty
  lists at Fredericksburg convinced other white soldiers of the virtue in the
  “racially tolerant” view that: 
  The right to be killt I’ll divide with him,
  And give him the bigger half! 
  (William Wells Brown, The Negro in the American Rebellion)
  Conscription further weakened opposition to African American
  soldiers. When the Federal Conscription Act took effect in July 1863, riots
  protesting against the Act took place in some Northern cities. Often led
  by white Irish immigrants, the rioters turned their resentment at being
  conscripted to liberate slaves – viewed as potential competitors for their
  jobs – against blacks in those cities. In New York City African Americans
  were hunted down by mobs, and a black orphanage was burned down. 
  As William Wells Brown recorded in his history of African American
  participation in the Civil War, most people seriously expected that the
  “niggers won’t fight.” But fight they did. Sometimes, as at Port Hudson
  and Fort Wagner, they lost. At other early actions, most notably at Honey
  Springs and bloody Milliken’s Bend, they won. The Union Army, hungry
  for men, realized that the experiment was successful, and expanded it.
  Black men could fill conscription quotas as well as whites. States were
  willing to persuade, pay, or compel blacks to join. By the end of 1863
  over 50,000 blacks had joined the Army. By the war’s end 178,975 blacks
  had enlisted.
  Blacks were segregated, serving in African American regiments, not
  as part of white formations. With the exception of Butler’s Native Guard
  regiments, the officers appointed to African American regiments were
  white. Owing to white prejudice, only a handful of blacks received
  commissions in the new regiments, most in 1865 or 1866.
  Members of African American units faced death if captured. Some of
  the first prisoners captured from such a regiment were executed: the
  African Americans were summarily executed as slaves in rebellion, and
  the whites tried and hanged them for inciting slave rebellion. One of the
  commanders in the West, Ulysses S. Grant, hearing what had happened,
  promised to execute one Confederate prisoner for every member of an
  African American unit executed for rebellion. The official killing
  stopped, but these soldiers still risked unofficial acts of murder, massacre,
  and maltreatment if they fell into Confederate hands.
  African American regiments were initially given state names. Federal,
  not state authorities, raised the regiments with Southern state names. Few
  Union states were eager to claim African American regiments. The effort
  6
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  was federalized; a Bureau for Colored Troops was created, and the African
  American regiments became the United States Colored Troops (USCT).
  The 1st US Colored Infantry Regiment (USCI – United States Colored
  Infantry) came into existence on the eve of Gettysburg. By the beginning
  of 1864 the existing state regiments – except for those from Massachusetts
  and Connecticut, states with abolitionist governors and state legislatures –
  were renumbered under the Federal system. For example, the 1st South
  Carolina (Colored) became the 33rd Regiment, USCT.
  By the war’s end, the USCT regiments earned the respect of those
  they fought with – and against. They proved to be among the best units
  in the Union Army: dogged in defense, relentless in attack, and
  disciplined when on garrison duties. 
  CHRONOLOGY
  1860
  December 20 South Carolina secedes from the United States. 
  1861
  February 4
  Confederacy formed; joined initially by North and South Carolina, 
  Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
  April 12
  Fort Sumter fired upon by Confederate forces.
  April 15
  President Lincoln declares a state of insurrection and sends out a call 
  for volunteers.
  May 26
  Gen Benjamin Butler refuses to return three runaway slaves to their 
  Virginian owners, claiming they are “contraband of war.”
  August 6
  First Confiscation Act passed.
  1862
  July 17
  Militia Act first authorizes Army to enlist African American laborers at a 
  rate of one ration a day and $7/month, plus $3/month in clothing.
  August
  Kansas Senator Jim Lane begins recruiting the 1st Regiment of Kansas
  Volunteers (Colored).
  September 2
  Black Brigade of Cincinnati organized as unarmed labor force.
  September 22 Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect January 1, 
  1863.
  7
  The “contraband” policy
  encouraged slaves owned by
  secessionists to escape to
  freedom. These contrabands
  provided a pool from which the
  first African American regiments
  drew strength. (Library of
  Congress, Prints and
  Photographs Division)
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  September 27 Benjamin Butler swears the 1st Regiment of the Louisiana Native Guard
  into service.
  1863
  January 1
  Emancipation Proclamation takes effect.
  May 22
  Bureau for Colored Troops established by General Order No 143.
  May 27
  1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guard regiments (Corps d’Afrique) lead 
  assault on Port Hudson, LA.
  June 7
  Battle of Milliken’s Bend.
  July 4
  Union wins Gettysburg and Vicksburg surrenders.
  July 17
  Battle of Honey Springs.
  July 18
  54th Massachusetts attacks Fort Wagner, Charleston, South Carolina.
  1864
  February 20
  Battle of Olustee.
  April 12
  Fort Pillow Massacre.
  June
  Congress authorizes “all persons of color who were free” in April 1861 
  to be paid same wage as white soldiers.
  June 15
  Siege of Petersburg begins. Twenty-two USCT regiments participate.
  July 30
  Battle of the Crater.
  August 22
  Atlanta falls. 
  September 29 Chapin’s Farm, Virginia. Thirteen USCT soldiers win Medal of Honor.
  November 8
  Lincoln reelected.
  December 3
  25th Army Corps Organized – only corps almost exclusively comprised 
  of USCT units.
  1865
  March 3
  Enrollment Act authorizes Army to pay all African American soldiers the
  same wage as whites, retroactive to January 1, 1864.
  April 2
  Siege of Petersburg ends.
  April 3
  Richmond falls to the Union.
  April 9
  Lee surrenders at Appomattox.
  May 15
  63rd USCT regiment fights at Palmetto Ranch, Texas, the last major 
  action of the Civil War.
  8
  In one of the first encounters
  between the 1st South Carolina
  (Colored) and the enemy,
  Confederate troops released
  bloodhounds used to track and
  control runaway slaves against
  them. Instead of running from
  the dogs as their former masters
  expected, the Union soldiers
  used bayoneted rifles to settle
  the score. (Author’s collection)
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  ENLISTMENT
  Hart’s Island, NY, 1864
  Madam – I seat myself at this time as an opportunity affords itself to me
  to drop you a few lines in way of a communication, to inform you that I
  am well; and I hope when this comes to hand that it may find you all the
  same. My object in writing is to inform you that I have enlisted in the
  army of the United States for one year, but having faith and confidence in
  my Father above, I live in hopes to get back home once more, when I expect
  to find my work and old customers waiting for their old whitewasher and
  house-cleaner to resume his old station. As time is short, and business so
  brisk, I will have to come to a close. I now remain yours most obediently,
  Isaac Stokeley,
  NY, Colored Regt
  (Post, Soldiers’ Letters)
  Alexander Newton, who had unsuccessfully attempted to enlist in 1861,
  fled New York City after the July 1863 draft riots. In December, living in
  New Haven, Connecticut, he achieved his goal of engaging himself for
  the great Civil War. As he wrote in his memoirs, “On the 18th of
  December, 1863, I enlisted Twenty-Ninth Regiment of the Connecticut
  Volunteers, as a private.”
  Isaac Stokeley and Alexander Newton were among 178,975 blacks
  enlisting in the United States Army during the American Civil War. In
  some ways they were atypical. Less than one-sixth of the blacks that
  joined the Army were – like these men – residents of free states. The rest
  came from slave states. The majority of the 99,337 enlisted from states
  in rebellion against the United States were from Louisiana, Mississippi,
  and Tennessee. 
  9
  The Civil War was nearly two
  years old before the Army
  changed its policy to permit
  blacks to enlist. African
  Americans throughout Union-
  controlled areas celebrated 
  when they could finally join.
  (Author’s collection)
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  Newton was also born a freeman. Most enlistees were slaves –
  runaways, or slaves from Union states who joined to become free.
  Stokeley was probably a runaway slave when he enlisted. The rolls of the
  31st USCI – the only Colored Regiment raised at Hart’s Island – show an
  Isaac Small and an Isaac Still, but no Isaac Stokeley. Stokeley was
  probably an assumed last name, to provide a runaway slave a defense
  against slave-catchers. If so, Small or Still reclaimed his real name when
  he enlisted, but wrote to a former employer in the name by which he was
  known to her.
  In the free states a black could enlist at a recruiting station. Generally
  these were located in large cities, or smaller towns with black
  communities, such as New Bedford, Massachusetts, or Oberlin, Ohio.
  James H. Gooding, a seaman from New Bedford, enlisted in a
  hometown company raised for the 54th Massachusetts (Colored) by
  Capt William Grace, a white New Bedford merchant. Black communities
  and abolitionist organizations funneled potential recruits to northern
  rendezvous, where regiments were forming. In some cases, they ran the
  Underground Railroad in reverse, taking former runaways in Canada
  back to the United States. 
  In early 1863, reaching a recruiting rendezvous could be a challenge
  – especially in regions with a strong anti-African American element like
  New York City, or southern Ohio and Indiana. Travel arrangements were
  often made secretly, with sympathetic whites purchasing the tickets.
  Even in abolitionist strongholds, like Massachusetts, individual white
  opposition made enlisting difficult. When the 54th Massachusetts was
  being organized, one Army recruiter in Boston
  refused to enlist African Americans.
  In slave states, including loyal slave states,
  African American regiments went to the blacks to
  find recruits. One of the first duties of an officer
  assigned to a new African American regiment was
  leading recruiting parties. Joseph M. Califf, a
  captain in the 7th USCI, later wrote of these duties
  in his Record of the Services of the Seventh Regiment,
  “The usual method of proceeding was, upon
  reaching a designated point, to occupy the most
  desirable public building ... found vacant, and with
  this as a rendezvous, small parties were sent into
  the surrounding country, visiting each plantation
  within a radius of twenty or thirty miles.” 
  By 1863 the Union was hungry for soldiers.
  African Americans who joined were promised their
  freedom and pay. The response was enthusiastic.
  Califf related: “The laborer in the field would
  throw down his hoe or quit his plow and march
  away with the guard, leaving his late master looking
  after him in speechless amazement.” 
  Nor were slaves slow to take advantage of the
  opportunity offered. In some cases, sympathetic
  owners encouraged their slaves to join. John
  Eubanks of Kentucky got his owner’s permission,
  as he narrated: “He say, ‘enlist in the army, but
  10
  One of many recruitment 
  posters encouraging blacks to
  join the Union Army in 1863.
  (National Archives)
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  don’t run off.’” Eubanks then “walked 35 miles from Glasgow to Bowling
  Green, to the enlisting place. On the way I meet up with two boys. They
  run away from Kentucky, and we go together.”
  Eubanks’s master was unusual. Most wanted to keep their slaves. That
  did not prevent slaves from enlisting, even in loyal states. William
  Emmons, also a slave in Kentucky, said that he:
  left and joined the Army when I was 18. Forty of us from the
  plantation around Carlisle went at the same time... Three white
  fellows we knowed came riding up and says, “Where you darkies
  going?” We told him we was going to war, and they tried to make
  us go back to the plantation. We told them we’d kill them sure
  enough, if they kept meddling with us. They got scared and left
  us alone. (Emmons Narrative)
  Slaves in areas of the Confederacy not controlled by the Union also
  enlisted. Their first challenge was reaching Union lines. John Young,
  born a slave in Arkansas, was one such enlistee: 
  I run off from home in Drew County [Arkansas]. Five or six of us
  run off to Pine Bluff. We heard that if we could get with the
  Yankees we’d be freed, so we run off to Pine Bluff and got with
  some Yankee soldiers... Then we went to Little Rock, and I joined
  the 57th Colored Infantry. (Young Narrative)
  Escaping was risky. One runaway, Barney Stone, recalled his escape: 
  One day when I learned that the Northern troops were very close
  to our plantation, I ran away and hid in a culvert, but was found,
  and would have been shot, had the Yankee troops not scattered
  them [his pursuers] and that saved me. I joined that Union Army. 
  (Stone Narrative)
  Not all blacks were as eager – or willing – to join up, as Henry H.
  Buttler showed in the tale of his escape: 
  In 1863, Mr. Sullivan transported about 40 of us slaves to
  Arkansas, locating us on a farm near Pine Bluff, so we would not
  be taken by the Federal soldiers. They had a chance to escape,
  and go to the free states. I think I was the only one that deserted
  Mr. Sullivan. I went to Federal Headquarters at Fort Smith,
  Arkansas, and was received into the Army. (Buttler Narrative)
  James Ayers, a recruiter from Illinois, recounted in his diary
  experiences with reluctant recruits: 
  I have often been told by them when trying to coax them to enlist,
  “why,” they say, “I don’t want to be a soldier.”
  “Well,” say I, “you will be made free men just as soon as you enlist.”
  “Oh sir,” say some, “I would rather be a slave all my days than
  go to war. I can’t shoot, nor I don’t want to shoot anybody. I
  can’t fight.”
  11
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  “Well,” say I, “we can soon learn you.”
  “Yes massa, but I have a wife.”
  “So have we,” say I, “and don’t you think our wives are dear to us
  as yours are to you?”
  “Well, Master, I ain’t fit for a soldier, anyhow.”
  “Well, what’s the matter?”
  “Oh sir, I’s corrupted,” meaning ruptured, or “got rheumatism”
  or pain in the back, or pneumonia, or arm bent tooth ache or
  some excuse...
  Peter Bruner, a private in the 12th Regiment, United States Colored
  Heavy Artillery (USCHA), told of encountering reluctant slaves on a
  recruiting mission in A Slave’s Adventures Towards Freedom: 
  We came to two or three large plantations. There were a great
  many colored people and as soon as they saw us they ran. We
  started after them and succeeded in capturing about 15 of the
  men. We started with our men and camped out at the foot of a hill
  and commenced to get supper when we were fired on by the
  rebels. This scared the recruits so bad we had gotten that they ran
  again. After this skirmish with the rebels, we coming out
  victorious, we caught our recruits and took them to camp. They
  cried, some of them, like babies and we had to let them go.
  The first experience a recruit might undergo was a physical. Thomas
  J. Morgan, who commanded an African American regiment, described
  this process in his Reminiscences of Service: 
  The first thing to be done was to examine the men. A room was
  prepared, and I and my clerk took our stations at a table. One by
  one the recruits came before us a la Eden, sans the fig leaves, and
  were subjected to a careful medical examination, those who were
  in any way physically disqualified being rejected. Many bore the
  12
  Not all blacks joined up near
  training camps. After joining, 
  the next step might be a train
  trip to the local training camp 
  for African American troops.
  (Author’s collection)
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  Conscription applied to blacks 
  in the Civil War as well as
  whites. Some blacks became
  substitutes for white draftees;
  others, like these reluctant
  recruits, had to be impressed
  into service. (Author’s collection)
  wounds and bruises of the slave-driver’s lash, and many were unfit
  for duty by reason of some form of disease to which human flesh
  is heir. In the course of a few weeks, however, we had a thousand
  able-bodied, stalwart men.
  Where black enlistment was voluntary – mainly in Military Districts
  containing the loyal slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky,
  Missouri, and parts of Tennessee) – potential recruits disqualified due to
  disabilities often persisted in trying to join. These Districts created
  invalid regiments, made up of troops incapable of field service but
  capable of garrison duties to utilize these willing, but physically
  disqualified men. 
  Other Military Districts, notably those containing Kansas, Louisiana,
  and the Carolinas, conscripted African Americans for the Army,
  especially from the pools of contrabands in those regions. Additionally,
  African Americans in the Northern states were liable to conscription
  along with whites, and African Americans could serve as substitutes for
  whites who were drafted. Hunter’s Regiment (as it was referred to by
  Thomas Higginson in Army Life in a Black Regiment) consisted almost
  exclusively of conscripts. There, the enlistment physical yielded
  different results. 
  Esther Hill Hawks, a volunteer doctor who served in both North and
  South Carolina, reported the results of one such parade in A Woman
  Doctor’s Civil War: 
  All of the men who came in for examination were either
  hopelessly lame and come hobbling along with (new) sticks cut
  for the purpose not many rods from Camp or they have some
  mysterious disease which has baffled the skills of all doctors 
  way back to “ole massa’s time” and the amount of suffering such
  men will bear and the stubbornness with which they persist 
  in shamming disease, in order to escape “soldiering” is truly
  wonderful! The examinations are very ludicrous.
  Men who passed inspection – whether volunteers or conscripts –
  then enlisted. They signed papers committing
  them to serve in the United States Army for a
  fixed period. Those joining when the
  regiment was forming typically enlisted for
  three years. Those, like Stokeley, enlisting
  after the training period ended, or in the
  field, committed to one year’s service.
  Enrolling a name was straightforward for
  the Northern free blacks, but could be a
  challenge for slaves, many of whom had been
  known by a single name up to that point.
  Henry Romeyn, an officer in the 14th USCT,
  related one such encounter in a memoir
  written after the war:
  A man had passed the scrutiny of the
  medical officers and was asked his name.
  13
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  The first steps to joining the
  army were an examination 
  by a recruiting officer followed
  by a physical examination.
  (Author’s collection)
  “Dick,” was the reply.
  “But every soldier, white or black, has two names; what other one
  do you want?”
  “Don’t want none – one name enough for me.”
  “You must have one. Some of these men take their mother’s name,
  some take their old master’s. Do you want to be called by your old
  master’s name?”
  “No sah, I don’t. I’s had enough of ole masser.” (Romeyn, “With
  Colored Troops in the Army of the Cumberland”)
  Many runaways refused to take their master’s name. Omelia Thomas
  told an interviewer: “My father said he was really George LeGrande. But
  after he enlisted in the War he went by the name of George Grant.
  There was one of the officers by that name, and he took it too” (Thomas
  Narrative). Generals Butler, Banks, Thomas, and Weitzel frequently
  found themselves similarly honored.
  TRAINING
  The first attempt to “form company” was a crucial test of the faith of the
  new officer. No uniform clothing had been issued, and many of the recruits
  had scarcely rags enough to hide their nakedness. I confess that I was
  staggered, almost appalled, at the thought of the self-imposed task.
  (Henry Romeyn, on taking charge of a company in the 14th
  USCI Regiment)
  Less promising material for soldiers than the newly recruited African
  American troops was hard to find in Civil War America. Most slaves
  were unfamiliar with firearms. It was illegal for slaves to use them. Most
  were uneducated. It was a felony to teach slaves to read and write.
  “Keep books and guns out of slave hands if you want to keep them
  14
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  Learning to handle firearms
  transformed slaves into soldiers.
  Blacks and their white officers
  knew that someone who could
  shoot was too dangerous to keep
  as a slave. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographs Division)
  slaves,” was how Joe Higgerson, a slave who joined the Union Army,
  explained ante-bellum policy in his narrative. Even in free states, the
  ability of black freemen to own guns was highly restricted. Most literate
  Northern blacks were self-educated.
  “The enlisted men of my regiment were mostly slaves from the
  plantations of those counties of Maryland and Virginia which lie east of
  the Chesapeake Bay,” stated George R. Sherman, a white officer in the
  7th USCI, in “The Negro as a Soldier.” “These recruits came to us
  ignorant of anything outside their own plantation world.” Ignorant
  slaves were slaves less likely to hold disruptive opinions.
  The black soldiers of the USCT possessed two things that allowed
  them to overcome this handicap: experienced officers and a willingness
  – by the private soldier – to learn and work hard. 
  White regiments elected their company officers. Of USCT regiments,
  only two of the three Louisiana Native Guard regiments raised by Gen
  Butler had officers assigned that way. The rest were appointed. The first
  regiments had white officers appointed by state governors who wished to
  see the experiment of using black troops succeed. Later the officers,
  almost all white, were appointed by the Army, and had to pass an
  examination prior to receiving a commission.
  At a minimum these men had seen combat, and were experienced in
  military life. White officers could gain promotion as field officers in an
  African American regiment – major, lieutenant-colonel, or colonel.
  Non-commissioned officers, even privates, could receive the shoulder
  strap of a company officer. This drew numerous volunteers. The Army
  could be (and was) choosy about giving promotion. Candidates had to
  demonstrate that they possessed the skills to operate their command –
  whether a company or a regiment – and that they were motivated to
  become officers in an African American regiment for reasons beyond
  the financial gain and additional status this potentially easy route to
  promotion brought. 
  To ensure an adequate supply of competent officers, supporters of
  using black troops created an officer-training
  academy in Philadelphia. Enlisted whites seeking a
  commission in the African American regiments
  could obtain leave to attend this preparatory
  academy prior to a board examination. The
  experiment was so successful that it was imitated in
  the Spanish–American War.
  The recruits were also highly motivated to learn
  to be soldiers. For ex-slaves the payment for success
  would be freedom. For Northern freemen, it was
  the opportunity to gain respect, and the rights of
  citizenship. George Sherman stated, “They are
  quick to learn the manual of arms, and the
  evolutions of the army drill. In these they took great
  pride and pleasure, and when well uniformed their
  appearance was always good.” 
  The first task was organizing the thousand men
  in a regiment. Recruits were broken into 100-man
  companies. Often the companies, identified by
  letter, were organized along with the regiment, the
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  When a shortage of qualified
  officers for the African American
  regiments developed, a training
  school was established in
  Philadelphia. (Library of
  Congress, Prints and
  Photographs Division)
  first men enlisting being assigned to Company A, with the final hundred
  assigned to Company K. (There was no Company J.) Thomas Morgan
  “assigned them to companies according to height, putting men of nearly
  the same height together. When the regiment was full, the four center
  companies were composed of tall men, the flanking companies of men
  of medium size, while the little men were sandwiched between. The
  effect was excellent... It was not uncommon to have strangers who saw it
  on parade for the first time, declare the men were all of the one size.” 
  For members of the USCT training meant drill, drill, and drill,
  followed by more drill. Jacob Bruner, an officer in the 9th Louisiana
  Volunteers (Colored), wrote to his wife in May 1863: “We have about
  one hundred men recruited. We drill twice each day. I am detailed to
  drill a squad tomorrow. They learn very fast and I have no doubt they
  will make as rapid progress as white soldiers.” 
  Units that could fire their muskets more quickly and more accurately
  than their opponents, units that could maneuver more quickly than
  their opponents, won. Achieving proficiency meant practicing the steps
  to load, aim, and fire a musket until it became instinctive. It meant
  practicing marching and changing formation until such actions became
  as natural as breathing. So officers constantly drilled their men. Henry
  V. Freeman described training his regiment, the 12th USCI, in “A
  Colored Brigade in the Campaign and Battle of Nashville”: 
  Drill was incessant. The whole regiment was at first an extremely
  awkward squad. But some of the men proved apt pupils. The
  more intelligent were soon able to assist their more awkward
  comrades. In what seems now a remarkably short space of time
  the men were making good progress in company and regimental
  drill, and were a fair way to become soldiers, so far as drill and a
  knowledge of camp duties could make them such.
  In On the Altar of Freedom James Gooding wrote of the evolution of his
  unit, the 54th Massachusetts (Colored), and the pride that the men
  showed in their accomplishment:
  During the past week things have assumed a more military shape
  than before, owing to the fine state of the weather, permitting out-
  door drilling. Since the men have been in camp the drilling has
  been conducted in empty barracks, until the past week. It is quite
  enlivening to see squads of men going through their evolutions.
  Competition developed between the various units in a regiment. 
  Lt Col Nelson Viall, of the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery
  (Colored), noted:
  It was gratifying to observe when a new company was mustered
  into service a strong feeling to emulate and excel the companies
  previously organized. In company movements they took especial
  pride. It was no uncommon occurrence where several companies
  were drilling together, for one company to rest awhile and
  observe closely the movements of the others. (Chenery, The
  Fourteenth Regiment)
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  African American troops
  undergoing training drills.
  (Author’s collection)
  Even the most skeptical officers in the Union Army conceded after
  watching African American regiments that had finished training, “Men
  who can handle their arms as these do, will fight.” Gen George 
  H. Thomas, a Virginian who initially doubted the utility of African
  American troops, after watching Thomas Morgan’s regiment, told
  Morgan that he “never saw a regiment go through the manual of arms
  as well as this one.”
  Part of the training process was developing non-commissioned
  officers – sergeants and corporals. While white NCOs were used initially,
  blacks quickly replaced most. An infantry regiment had 55 sergeants and
  86 corporals. An artillery or cavalry regiment required 65 sergeants and
  102 corporals. 
  NCOs were chosen for literacy, leadership, intelligence, and
  appearance. Senior sergeants – sergeant majors, the company first
  sergeants, and the quartermaster and provost sergeants – all had to handle
  paperwork. That demanded literacy – or a very good memory.
  Literate recruits could be found in Northern regiments. Many ex-
  slaves could read and write. Black newspapers published in the North
  and informal networks formed before the war taught black runaways to
  read. Becoming literate was seen as a first step towards being truly free.
  The 54th Massachusetts and 29th Connecticut recruited the cream of
  the North’s blacks. A shopkeeper in civilian life, Alexander Newton
  became quartermaster sergeant of the 29th Connecticut because he
  already possessed the skills for the job. 
  Among regiments raised in slave states finding literate individuals
  was more difficult. Henry Romeyn, with the 14th USCI raised in
  Kentucky, picked someone from outside that state. “I had one man –
  free born – from north of the Ohio who could read and write and made
  him my first sergeant.” 
  Thomas Higginson, of the 1st South Carolina (Colored), was able to
  find slaves among the runaways who enlisted and had secretly taught
  themselves to read and write. Of Prince Rivers, who eventually became
  the regiment’s sergeant major, he wrote in Army Life in a Black Regiment:
  There is not a white officer in this regiment who has more
  administrative ability, or more absolute authority over his men; they
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  Camp William Penn outside
  Philadelphia was one of the
  biggest training camps for
  African American troops. Here
  one regiment (probably the 127th
  USCI) stands in mass formation.
  (National Archives)
  do not love him, but his mere presence has controlling power over
  them. He writes well enough to prepare for me a daily report of his
  duties in the camp; if his education reached a higher point, I see
  no reason why he should not command the Army of the Potomac.
  Illiteracy was not always a bar to promotion, especially in regiments
  raised in the South. Higginson promoted the initially illiterate Robert
  Sutton to corporal, later writing of the man, “If not in all respects the
  ablest, he was the wisest man in our ranks... Not yet grounded in the
  spelling-book, his modes of thought were clear, lucid, and accurate.” 
  For many blacks, especially those enlisted from slavery, it was the first
  opportunity they had ever had to assume a responsible position of
  leadership. While some fell short, most thrived in their positions. Thomas
  Morgan wrote of his NCOs, “They proved very efficient, and had the war
  continued two years longer, many of them would have been competent as
  commissioned officers.” It was a remarkable concession in a bigoted age.
  Former slaves had to adjust to the concept of fellow blacks having
  authority over them. “‘He needn’t try to play the white man over me,’ 
  was the protest of a soldier against his corporal the other day,” stated Col
  Higginson in his memoirs. “To counteract this I have often to remind
  them that they do not obey their
  officers because they are white, but
  because they are their officers; and
  guard duty is an admirable school for
  this, because they readily understand
  that the sergeant or corporal of the
  guard has for the time more authority
  than any commissioned officer who is
  not on duty.” 
  During training, the regiment was
  presented with its regimental colors.
  These were two flags – the national
  colors and a regimental standard
  unique to the unit. The symbol of the
  regiment, the colors were used to rally
  the regiment on the battlefield.
  Capturing an enemy’s colors was an
  ultimate honor for a regiment and
  losing its own was an ultimate disgrace.
  To protect the colors each regiment
  18
  The Presentation of Colors was 
  a solemn ritual that marked the
  entry of a regiment into service.
  Here the 22nd USCI receives its
  colors in a public ceremony.
  (Potter Collection)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  appointed a color guard – two sergeants who held the colors and eight
  corporals who defended them. Joseph Califf described the formal
  ceremony in which the colors were presented to the 7th USCI:
  At dress-parade on this day the regimental colors were brought
  out for the first time, and a color-sergeant and color guard
  selected. In doing it, Col. Shaw called the non-commissioned
  officers of the regiment together and stated to them the danger
  as well as the honor of the position to be filled, and then called
  for volunteers. Nearly all stepped to the front, and a selection was
  made from among those volunteering.
  When training had been completed – a process that took 60 to 90
  days – the regiment was ready to march to war.
  APPEARANCE AND DRESS
  A colored sentinel was marching on his beat in the streets of Norfolk, VA,
  when a white man, passing by, shouldered him insolently off the sidewalk,
  into the street. The soldier, on recovering himself called out, – “White man,
  halt!”
  The white man, Southerner like, went straight on. The sentinel brought
  his musket to a ready, cocked it, and hailed again, – “White man, HALT,
  or I’ll fire!”
  The white man, hearing shoot in the tone, halted, and faced about.
  “White man,” continued the sentry peremptorily, “come here!”
  He did so.
  “White man,” said the soldier again, “Me no care one cent about this
  particular Cuffee, but white man bound to respect this uniform (striking
  his breast). White man, move on!” (Brown)
  The USCT wore uniforms and carried equipment
  identical to that of the rest of the Union Army. That
  gave the uniform value to the blacks that wore them.
  In their view it transformed a slave into an object of
  dignity: an American soldier. 
  The first attempts to create African American
  regiments were accompanied by attempts to clothe
  these units in special uniforms. Susie King Taylor, a
  runaway black slave who married a sergeant in the
  1st South Carolina (later the 33rd USCI), wrote in
  Reminiscences of my Life in Camp of the uniforms given
  to Hunter’s Regiment, “The first suits worn by the
  boys were red coats and pants, which they disliked
  very much, for they said, ‘The rebels see us, miles
  away.’” When the 54th Massachusetts was being
  organized, some well-meaning white supporters
  advocated clothing the regiment in canary yellow
  and scarlet, as they believed that blacks – like
  children – would be attracted to bright colors. 
  19
  This drawing, widely reproduced
  in the late 19th century,
  expresses the transformation 
  in status that the uniform
  provided. Even an ex-slave,
  under the color of his authority,
  could order the actions of the
  Army’s commanding general.
  (Author’s collection)
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  The dignity of men like James Gooding was never challenged by 
  such comic-opera costumes. By the beginning of 1863 the Federal
  government had massive stockpiles of issue uniforms and equipment for
  any number of new regiments. It was also disinclined to spend extra
  money on brightly colored African American uniforms. Hunter’s
  Regiment – to its enlisted personnel’s relief – surrendered its red
  pantaloons and jackets for the sky blue and navy blue of the rest of the
  Army, including other African American regiments. Jacob Bruner wrote
  to his wife, “As fast as we get them we clothe them from head to foot in
  precisely the same uniform that ‘our boys’ wear, give them tents, rations,
  and Blankets and they are highly pleased and hardly know themselves”
  (Bruner Letters). 
  The men serving in the USCT viewed their uniforms as an indication
  that they were accepted as soldiers: men, not chattels. They treated their
  uniform and equipment with reverence. Often, one of the first places
  visited after their initial pay muster was a photographer’s studio – for a
  permanent record of their status as United States soldiers.
  Given a choice, black troops showed a preference for the most formal
  uniform combinations. The Native Guard (later Corps d’Afrique)
  regiments organized with black officers opted for the dressier infantry
  frock coat over the four-button sack coat, and the crowned Hardee (or
  Hancock) hat over the kepi or forage cap. The appearance was more
  professional and less civilian than that preferred by white troops. Thomas
  Morgan related that his men “took great pride in appearing on parade
  with arms burnished, belts polished, shoes blacked, clothes brushed, in
  full regulation uniform, including white gloves.” 
  One of the war’s ironies was that the black troops, despised as they
  were by both sides, ended up with some of the best equipment and
  uniforms of any group of troops in the war. It was not due to a regard
  for black troops. By the time that the Union Army was recruiting blacks,
  inferior equipment in Army warehouses, such as the 1816 smoothbore
  muskets or Mexican American surplus equipment, had already been
  distributed to existing units. Early war shortages had been satisfied; the
  crooked contractors and those producing the shoddiest goods had been
  identified and weeded out. By 1863 uniforms and equipment purchased
  were worth keeping and of good quality. While it was happenstance that
  black troops got good equipment – there was simply very little shoddy
  equipment in the warehouses – the troops took it as a message that they
  were valued. They returned value for value – fighting harder than
  anyone expected them to fight.
  Years after the war, the uniform and equipment remained a fond
  memory. “The uniform I wore was blue with brass buttons; a blue cape
  lined with red flannel, black leather boots, and a blue cap. I rode a bay
  color horse – fact everybody in Company K had bay color horses,” Albert
  Jones, a private in Company K of the 1st US Colored Cavalry, told an
  interviewer 60 years after the war ended (Jones Narrative). Some soldiers
  kept their uniform as a touchstone. Arthur Boone, who joined the 9th
  Louisiana after it became the 63rd USCI, kept his gun and uniforms after
  the war. His son J. F. Boone related, “My oldest brother kept that gun and
  them blue uniforms with the brass buttons” (Boone Narrative). 
  The brass buttons held particular fascination for the black soldiers.
  A former slave related that during her day of liberation: 
  20
  Most black soldiers procured 
  a studio photo of themselves 
  in uniform, often with weapon 
  in hand. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographs Division)
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  Company E of the 104th USCI
  pose outside their barracks 
  in their best uniforms shortly
  before being discharged. The
  quality of uniforms issued to
  black soldiers is obvious in this
  photograph. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographs Division)
  When the colored troops come in they were playing:
  Don’t you see the lightning?
  Don’t you hear the thunder?
  It isn’t the lightning.
  It isn’t the thunder.
  But the buttons on the Negro uniforms!
  Frederick Douglass predicted as much in a recruiting speech given
  on July 6, 1863: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass
  letters U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his
  shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on the earth
  or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of
  citizenship in the United States.”
  African American troops received the same kit as the white soldiers:
  a wool blanket and a rubberized blanket or poncho, and a haversack,
  knapsack, and canteen. They either used the same wall or Sibley tents as
  their white counterparts, or were issued half a dog tent – identical to
  regular army issue. As with the uniforms, the quality was excellent. For
  an ex-slave, who previously owned nothing – even the clothes on his
  back – the army kit represented wealth beyond dreams. 
  John McMurray, an officer in the 5th USCI, wrote in his memoirs of
  Charles Hubbard, a private in his company: 
  He could not bear to see anything go to waste, but seemed to
  think it his duty to gather up all of the stuff the other boys didn’t
  want or gotten through with, especially in the clothing line... He
  would always have two pairs of trousers, always two shirts, and
  usually three; never less than two blouses, his knapsack full and
  bulging out and two woolen blankets strapped on top; in addition
  to all this, a frying pan, coffee pot, tin cup, and various other
  cooking utensils tied to his load here and there with strings.
  McMurray, a white raised in comfortable circumstances, found
  Hubbard’s behavior eccentric, but Hubbard must have found
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  McMurray’s casual attitude towards property – things of value that you
  could actually keep – equally odd.
  The USCT was equally fortunate when it came to weapons. American
  Indian regiments had to make do with inferior firearms. Many white
  regiments soldiered through the war with smoothbore muskets, some
  dating back to the War of 1812. Other units had castoffs from European
  armies. As with uniforms, by the time the Union began raising African
  American regiments, the armories were empty of the worst rifles. 
  William Gladstone documented that African American infantry
  regiments intended for front-line duties were virtually uniformly armed
  with either the 1861 Springfield or the 1853 Enfield – first-line rifled-
  muskets, and the best muzzle-loading rifles issued during the war.
  Infantry regiments intended to guard supply lines or prisoners, or hunt
  guerrillas, might be issued second-class weapons, like the Lorenz rifle
  from Austria. Garrison troops, especially the heavy artillery regiments,
  were issued third-class rifles, such as the .69-cal. Prussian or Austrian
  rifles. In all cases he found that African American units fought with
  functional rifles, appropriate to the service provided by a unit, not
  smoothbores. 
  If black soldiers were proud of their uniforms, they were enthusiastic
  about their weapons. For most, it was the first time that they were
  allowed to use weapons. Even those like James Gooding, a whaler who
  used both firearms and harpoons, took satisfaction in their weapons.
  Gooding wrote home about the experience, “Yesterday the men
  received their new arms. We are supplied with the Enfield rifle, made in
  1853, so you may suppose they intend us to make good use of them; and
  I doubt not, that if the opportunity presents itself, they will be made
  good use of.”
  As with much of their army life, the black recruits’ enthusiasm meant
  they mastered their tools quickly. Col Higginson wrote, “One captain
  said to me to-day, ‘I have this afternoon taught my men to load-in nine
  times, and they do it better than we did it in my former company in
  three months.’” 
  CONDITIONS OF SERVICE AND 
  DAILY LIFE
  During my temporary absence as brigade inspector my own company refused
  to answer their names when I inspected them, thinking I had left the company
  and was trying to make them take seven dollars per month... I know of no
  white regiment that would have remained in the service thirteen months as
  my company has, without any pay, that would have given us less trouble.
  (Capt Thomas W. Fry, 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery
  [Colored], relating a “mutiny” over pay. [Chenery])
  Black troops experienced equality in uniforms and weapons because of
  circumstance, not policy. They were issued with good equipment when it
  was easier and cheaper for the Army to do so. But black troops suffered
  discrimination, especially when it came to pay, rations, and work assigned. 
  22
  This anonymous drummer boy
  was one of the many slaves in
  Louisiana who escaped bondage
  and joined the USCT to secure
  his freedom. (National Archives)
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  James Gooding had a genuinely
  American response to his
  unequal pay – he wrote a letter
  to the President, petitioning for
  redress of grievances. The letter
  is preserved today in the
  National Archives.
  (National Archives)
  Pay was the most egregious discrimination that blacks experienced.
  The first black regiments raised, including the Rhode Island regiment
  whose officer is quoted, were promised the same pay as their white
  counterparts. Congress took 18 months to fulfill that promise. The first
  law authorizing the Army to pay African Americans was the Militia Act,
  passed by Congress in July 1862. It set the pay for all African American
  employees of the Army at laborers’ rates: one ration per day, and $10 per
  month, of which $3 was to be in clothing. 
  The intention was to see that contrabands hired by the Army as
  laborers were paid reasonably. However, it meant that no African
  American recruit, regardless of rank, could be paid more than $7 per
  month. In January 1863, when the 54th Massachusetts was raised, a 
  white private received $13 per month, and a white sergeant major $21
  per month. 
  The reaction of African American soldiers who enlisted after being
  promised pay equal to whites can be imagined. Alexander Newton
  remembered in his memoirs, “When we were told by him [the
  Paymaster] that we could receive only $7 per month each, for our
  services our spirits fell. So I, together with the rest of my comrades, was
  really disgusted with this failure on the part of the Government to give
  us a decent compensation for our work as soldiers.”
  James Gooding recorded the reaction of the 54th Massachusetts to
  the first pay parade in which they were to accept this pay cut: “He [Col
  Littlefield] then said, ‘all who wish to take the ten dollars per month,
  raise your right hand,’ and I am glad to say not one man in the whole
  regiment lifted a hand.” 
  Another black soldier in the 54th Massachusetts wrote home about
  his feelings of humiliation: 
  We have fought like men; we have worked like men; we have been
  ready at every call of duty, and thus proved ourselves to be men: but
  still we are refused the thirteen dollars per month. Oh what a shame
  to be treated thus! ... Sir, the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Regiments
  would sooner consent to fight for the whole three years, gratis, than
  to put ourselves on the same footing of contrabands... We enlisted
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  It took two years of steadfast
  service before African American
  troops received pay equality, 
  but most received equal pay,
  plus the difference in what they
  were owed, before their final pay
  muster. However this was not
  always the case and some troops
  never received their back pay.
  (Author’s collection)
  as Massachusetts Volunteers, and we will not surrender that proud
  position, come what may. (Redkey, A Grand Army of Black Men)
  Only Congress could fix this problem after the Attorney-General
  ruled that it was illegal to pay African American soldiers – freemen or
  former slaves – more than $7 per month. While unequal pay was
  recognized as an injustice, Congress’s efforts to correct it were blocked
  by the Peace Democrats, who wanted to discourage slaves from joining
  the Army. By starving the Army of soldiers – including African
  Americans – the Peace Democrats felt they could force the war to end. 
  Blacks continued to join, and to fight, regardless. Newton recorded
  “We quieted our passions and went to work like good soldiers.”
  Higginson related:
  In my regiment the men ... seemed to make it a matter of honor
  to do their part, even if the Government proved a defaulter; but
  one third of them, including the best men in the regiment, quietly
  refused to take a dollar’s pay, at the reduced price. “We’se give our
  soldiering to de Government, Colonel,” they said, “but we won’t
  despise ourselves so much for to take the seven dollars.” They even
  made a contemptuous ballad, of which I once caught a snatch.
  “Ten dollar a month!
  Three of that for clothing
  Go to Washington
  Fight for Lincoln’s daughter!”
  “Lincoln’s daughter” stood for the Goddess of Liberty. They
  would be true to her, but they would not take the half-pay.
  Eventually, gradually, the African American soldier received justice.
  Shamed by the performance of units like the 54th and 55th
  Massachusetts, Congress granted equal pay to freedmen in July 1864. The
  Peace Democrats blocked increasing the pay of troops enlisted as slaves or
  runaways above the level of laborers’ wages, although they provided the
  same military service as their free brethren. Finally, in March 1865 a new
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  Army rations were plentiful and
  nutritious, if dull. Unfortunately,
  because it was easy to shuffle
  spoiled rations to African
  American regiments, they
  received more than their share 
  of bad food. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographs Division)
  Congress, purged of Peace Democrats by the
  1864 election, gave all African American
  troops equal pay retroactive to January 1,
  1864. The 20,000 slaves who enlisted in 1863
  lost pay for that year’s service, and those who
  died before the pay rise was voted never
  received the retroactive pay. 
  Even then, few of the former slaves
  received the bounty for enlisting. If a man
  had been a slave in April 1861, he was not
  entitled to the general enlistment bounty
  when he joined. Slaves owned by loyal whites
  – such as those recruited in Kentucky and
  Maryland – saw their bounty go to their
  former owner, as compensation for the loss
  of their property. In the 7th USCI, the
  officers went to the Secretary of War and secured a special $100 bounty
  for the majority of their men ineligible for other bounties, but few
  regiments had such dedicated officers.
  Those soldiers who managed to get a bounty, and collect their
  accumulated pay, often ended up with nothing. Many African
  American soldiers put their savings in the Freedman’s Savings Bank. It
  collapsed in 1874, taking two-thirds of the money saved by the African
  American veterans.
  A second problem faced by African American troops was poor
  rations. Like white troops, African American soldiers received:
  twelve ounces of pork or bacon, or one pound and four ounces of
  salt or fresh beef; eighteen ounces of soft bread or flour, or twelve
  ounces of hard bread, or one pound and four ounces of corn-
  meal; and to every 100 rations, fifteen pounds of beans or peas, or
  ten pounds of rice or hominy; ten pounds of green coffee or eight
  pounds of roasted (or roasted and ground) coffee, or one pound
  and eight ounces of tea; fifteen pounds of sugar; four quarts of
  vinegar; one pound and four ounces of andamantine or star
  candles; four pounds of soap; three pounds and twelve ounces of
  salt, and four ounces of pepper. (Official Records)
  The problem was the quality of the ration received. Food was
  perishable. John Billings, a white soldier who wrote of life in the Army,
  observed that this led to “... quantities of stale beef, or salt horse, served
  out and rusty, unwholesome pork” and “petrified bread honeycombed
  with bugs and maggots.” Billings noted that “Unwholesome rations were
  not the rule, they were the exception” (Billings, Hard Tack and Coffee).
  Bad food was neither universal nor Army policy. It was not limited to
  black troops: white units also received poor-quality rations on occasion.
  However, African American regiments were the most recent units added
  to the Army and the ones least likely to have their NCOs working with
  the commissariat. Add a belief that quality did not matter for blacks, and
  African American regiments often became the home for such rations.
  While many USCT officers rejected substandard food sent to their
  regiments, the 32nd USCI was one regiment ill served by its officers.
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  Fatigue duties included such
  undesirable, but necessary, 
  tasks as burial details. 
  (Library of Congress, Prints 
  and Photographs Division)
  Benjamin Williams, a private in that regiment, bitterly wrote, “All the
  rations that are condemned by the white troops are sent to our
  regiment. You should see the hard tack we have to eat. They are moldy
  and musty and full of worms, not fit for a dog to eat, and the rice and
  beans and peas are musty, and the salt horse (the salt beef, I mean) is so
  salt that after it is cooked we can’t eat it” (Redkey). 
  As additional African American regiments joined and were brigaded
  together, the problem eased. Most rations were of good quality. A
  division or brigade rarely got more than a regiment’s worth of spoiled
  food. Once African American regiments were brigaded together, it was
  harder for brigade quartermasters outside the African American
  brigades to shuffle spoiled food to black regiments. Indifferent,
  disengaged, or uncaring officers willing to accept spoiled rations existed
  among the African American regiments, but there was less scope to
  exploit this. 
  African American troops also got a disproportionate share of fatigue
  duties, the messy, but necessary tasks associated with maintaining an
  army: gathering firewood, digging and filling in “sinks” (as latrines were
  called), clearing stables, building roads, cleaning equipment,
  preparing entrench ments. Fatigue duties were the unavoidable hard,
  dirty, dull, and utterly vital activities. African American regiments had
  no objection to doing their share of a camp’s fatigues, but in many
  camps white units escaped fatigue duties by having their commanders
  (generally senior to the officers in black regiments) assign all fatigues
  to the African American regiments.
  White units rationalized passing fatigues to African American units on
  the grounds that these tasks were work appropriately assigned to ex-slaves,
  but as George W. Williams in his History of the Negro Troops observed:
  Fatigue duty had a very unhappy effect upon these troops. They
  had enlisted to fight, not to be hewers of wood. They were proud
  of their uniforms, and desired above all things to be led against
  their ancient and inveterate foes. It was natural, therefore, that
  they should feel disappointed, and in some instances doubt the
  Government that had broken faith with them.
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  Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant-
  General of the United States
  Army, was given the task of
  raising the USCT regiments. 
  Here he is pictured (top left) in
  Louisiana, addressing blacks on
  the responsibilities of freedom.
  (Library of Congress, Prints and
  Photographs Division)
  Excessive fatigue duties hurt readiness. “The
  large details required for picket and fatigue on
  the fort leave little opportunity for drills,” noted
  William H. Chenery, a lieutenant in the 14th
  Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored).
  As Sherman prepared to march against 
  Atlanta, the African American regiments were
  detailed to fortify Chattanooga. “This incessant
  labor interfered sadly with our drill, and at one
  time all drill was suspended by orders from
  headquarters,” remembered Thomas Morgan,
  “There seemed little prospect of our being ordered
  to the field, and as time wore on and arrangements
  began in earnest for the new campaign against
  Atlanta, we began to grow impatient of work, and
  anxious for opportunity for drill and preparations
  for field service.” 
  Fatigues allowed Sherman, who mistrusted the
  fighting abilities of African American troops, to march without African
  American regiments because they were unready for field service,
  circular reasoning that gave Sherman what he wanted: an all-white force
  to take to Atlanta. 
  Finally, Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant-General of the United States
  Army, issued Order No 21, in June 1864. It directed that “... the practice
  which has hitherto prevailed, no doubt from necessity, of requiring these
  [African American] troops to perform most of the labor on fortifications
  and the labor and fatigue duties of permanent stations and camps will
  cease, and they will only be required to take their fair share of fatigue
  duty with the white troops” (Official Records). The order came too late
  for Morgan’s 14th USCI to participate in Sherman’s Atlanta campaign,
  but permitted them to prepare for field service in the latter half of 1864.
  Even after Order No 21 African American regiments played supporting
  roles. Most of the 145 black regiments raised by the United States Army
  were assigned post or garrison duty. Only 60 saw action on the battlefield,
  including regiments protecting lines of communication against guerrillas
  and raids. Only a quarter were assigned to offensive field service.
  The duties these rear-echelon regiments performed were vital, but
  dull. The 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored), like many heavy
  artillery regiments, was assigned the task of providing security along the
  mouth of the Mississippi River. Lt Chenery wrote of the battalion
  garrisoning Ship Island, to monitor shipping to and from New Orleans:
  “Among the duties appertaining to the garrison were those of boarding
  all inward bound vessels and examining the papers of the captains. This
  duty necessitated the keeping of a boat’s crew constantly on the lookout,
  and made it less monotonous for the garrison, as every steamer and
  sailing craft was signaled to heave to by firing a blank cartridge from the
  water batteries.” The opportunity to burn gunpowder and participate in
  examining a ship made the artillerymen feel more like soldiers and less
  like laborers.
  Another group of this regiment stationed at English Turn suffered 
  from boredom and disease. Capt Joshua M. Addeman wrote in
  “Reminiscences of Two Years with the Colored Troops,” “Our men were
  27
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  Point Lookout, Maryland, was
  one of the largest prisoner of
  war camps run by the North. 
  All of the prison guards were
  African American troops. 
  (Library of Congress, Prints 
  and Photographs Division)
  dropping off from a species of putrid sore throat, which was very prevalent.
  The soil was so full of moisture that we had to use the levee for a burial
  ground. Elsewhere, a grave dug two feet deep would rapidly fill with water.” 
  Later, when his company was transferred to the healthier Plaquemine,
  they encountered a different goad. “The surrounding country was
  infected with guerrilla bands, and in the jail were a number of rebel
  prisoners who had been captured in recent raids. The latter received from
  the town’s people very gratifying evidences of sympathy.” It was a sympathy
  the occupied town lacked for its black garrison. “As we marched through
  the streets of the village to the site of our camp,” recalled Addeman, “the
  scowling looks of white spectators sufficiently indicated their sentiments,
  and especially their wrath at being guarded by ‘niggers.’” 
  Occupation duty could be dangerous, but it was more typically tedious.
  When time hung heavy officers and men found ways to make it pass. Jim
  Spikes, who served in the 55th USCI, told an interviewer, “When we was
  in Fort Pickens I remember they had a poll parrot – some of the officers
  had trained it to say, ‘Corporal of the guard, Jim Spikes, post no. 1.’
  Sometimes I would draw my gun like I was going to shoot, and the poll
  parrot would say, ‘Jim, don’t you shoot me’” (Spikes Narrative).
  African American troops were used to guard prisoners, a task which
  pleased freed slaves but not their former masters. “At Point Lookout the
  guards were all negroes; and it is well known that they improved every
  opportunity to testify their peculiar regard for their former masters,”
  wrote John Whipple, a white guard at Elmira, NY. “They would shoot
  down a rebel on the slightest provocation, or infringement of orders. A
  prisoner said to me: ‘If we got only one foot over the line of our camp
  we could not get back again too quick;’ for the guard had rather shoot
  them than not” (Post).
  Whipple added, “For the first nights after their arrival here [Elmira]
  the night-patrol was composed of negroes; and the universal
  exclamation [from the Confederate prisoners] was ‘Let white men
  guard us, and we shall be satisfied. We do not want them damned
  niggers over us.’” In Point Lookout Album John Jacob Omenhausser, held
  a prisoner at Point Lookout, described the black troops’ attitude
  towards this duty by quoting the African American guards: “The bottom
  rail’s on top now.”
  28
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  African American troops were
  often used to guard lines of
  communication against attack.
  Here soldiers from the 1st
  Louisiana Native Guard provide
  security for a railroad line.
  (Library of Congress, Prints 
  and Photographs Division)
  African American troops were often assigned
  the task of escorting supplies through guerrilla-
  infested or contested territory. Peter Bruner
  described how he and a small party from his
  regiment conducted one such journey from
  Bowling Green to Nashville, Tennessee, to guard
  a thousand head of cattle:
  Everything went well with us until we arrived at
  Franklin, Tennessee. After we had passed into
  Franklin the next night we went into camp,
  everything began to go wrong. The food gave
  out and the rebels fired in on us. The rebels
  had three men to our one but they did not get
  any of our men or cattle. All of this occurred
  after night. We managed the next day to go to
  the mill to get some flour and when we came
  back we made it up with water and put it on a board and held it
  up before the fire to bake it. That evening we found a hog that
  had five little pigs just about three days old and cleaned them and
  made soup of them. About that time that the soup was done the
  rebels fired in on us and made us go and forget all about our pig
  soup. So after this we did not have any more trouble until we
  reached Nashville with all of our cattle safe.
  Securing the captured portions of the Confederacy was a vital task
  frequently assigned to African American regiments, to free veteran
  regiments to mount offensives against the Confederate Army. The vital,
  but dreary, task of hunting down guerrillas was left to newly formed, but
  less experienced African American troops. Lt Anson S. Hemingway, of
  the 70th USCT, wrote home about one action: 
  There has been a party of guerrillas prowling about here, stealing
  horses and mules from the leased plantations. A scouting party was
  sent out from here in which was a company of colored cavalry
  commanded by the colonel of a colored regiment. After marching
  some distance they came upon the party of whom they were in
  pursuit. There were seventeen prisoners captured and shot by the
  colored soldiers. (Post)
  29
  The camp of the 10th USCI,
  stockaded huts with dog tent
  roofs were typical of camp
  accommodations for infantry,
  both white and African American.
  (Library of Congress, Prints and
  Photographs Division)
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  Whether African American troops occupied territory, guarded
  prisoners, fought guerrillas, or escorted supplies, the work they did was
  as vital to ultimate Union victory as fighting on the battlefield.
  Life in camp
  Most USCT soldiers were assigned to permanent camps. Camp life
  followed a routine similar to that of white soldiers. Often, the first task
  was to build the camp. Henry Romeyn described the process in the
  Army of the Cumberland, in Tennessee: 
  Shelter tents were put up on log sides four feet high, slabs were
  procured for building a dispensary, two log cabins about 14x20,
  and covered by shakes split from trees cut from the camp ground
  were erected, and material for bedding was found in the broom-
  sedge of an old field a mile away.
  Army of the Potomac quarters, as described by Joseph Califf, were
  similar: 
  The tents first issued were of the Sibley pattern, but these were
  soon replaced by the “A” or common tent. These were raised
  upon a stockade of rails or timber which was plastered with mud.
  The chimneys were made of sticks, laid up cob-house fashion, and
  treated to a coating of the same material, and surmounted by a
  barrel. But all the care that could be bestowed on these
  habitations failed to make them really comfortable, and after
  every rain the plastering process had to be repeated... [Then] the
  usual routine of camp duties began. Company or skirmish drill in
  the morning, and battalion drill in the afternoon, varied by an
  occasional brigade drill or target practice. Besides the ordinary
  camp-guard we furnished a picket detail, and fatigue details to the
  engineering officers for making slashings [brush used in
  fortifications], cutting timber, building earthworks, etc.
  Even on service, continued drill and training was vital to readiness.
  Meals served at camp were based on the rations described earlier. In
  the 1st South Carolina food quality was not a problem. According to
  Susie King Taylor: 
  We had fresh beef once in a while and we would have soup, and
  the vegetables they put in them were dried and pressed...
  Sometimes the men would have what we called slap-jacks. This
  was flour, made into bread and spread thin on the bottom of the
  mess-pan to cook. Each man had one of them with a pint of tea,
  for his supper, or a pint of tea, and five or six hard tacks.
  One key responsibility in camp was mounting guard. Thomas
  Morgan wrote that:
  Colored soldiers acted as pickets, and no citizen was allowed to
  pass our lines, either into the village or out, without a proper
  permit. Thus many proud southern slaveholders found themselves
  30
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  African American troops
  participated in the assault on
  Port Hudson and later formed
  much of its garrison. This is 
  one of the companies based
  there. (National Archives)
  marched through streets guarded by those who three months
  earlier had been slaves. The negroes often laughed over these
  changed relationships as they sat around their camp fires, or
  chatted together while off duty, but it was very rare that any
  southerner had reason to complain of any unkind or uncivil
  treatment from a colored soldier.
  Night guard duty was tedious, despite occasional excitements.
  “During the war some of us had to always stay up nights and watch for
  the rebels,” explained Albert Jones. “Plenty of nights I had watch, but
  the rebels never attacked us when I was on” (Jones Narrative). As James
  Gooding put it, “If a person were to ask me what I saw South, I should
  tell him stinkweed, sand, rattlesnakes and alligators. To tell the honest
  truth, our boys on picket look sharper for snakes than they do for
  rebels.” Charles H. Anderson, a private in the 122nd USCI, had a livelier
  night on picket duty: “It was pitch dark, and I heard something coming
  through the brushes, and I thought, ‘Let ’em come, whoever it is.’ I got
  my bayonet all ready and waited. I’s getting sorta nervous, and pretty
  soon the bushes opened, and what do you think it was? A great big old
  hog!” (Anderson Narrative)
  Soldiers in garrison had leisure, after dinner and before taps, or lights
  out. Thomas Higginson described a typical evening in his regiment:
  Beside some of these fires the men are cleaning their guns or
  rehearsing their drill, – beside others, smoking in silence their
  very scanty supply of the beloved tobacco, – beside others, telling
  stories and shouting with laughter over the broadest mimicry, in
  which they excel, and in which the officers come in for a full
  share... Then there are quieter prayer-meetings, with pious
  invocations and slow psalms, “deaconed out” from memory by the
  leader, two lines at a time, in a sort of wailing chant. Elsewhere,
  there are conversations around fires, with a woman for queen of
  the circle... By another fire there is an actual dance... And yonder
  is a stump-orator perched on his barrel, pouring out his
  exhortations to fidelity in war and in religion.
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  Officers in African American
  regiments tried to avoid
  punishments reminiscent 
  of their men’s lives as slaves 
  on the plantation. Riding the
  sawbuck – having a miscreant 
  sit on an elevated rail – was 
  a popular alternative used 
  for minor offenses. (Author’s
  collection)
  One pastime that absorbed African American troops, especially former
  slaves, was learning. For runaways in the Union Army, learning to read
  and write and mastering arithmetic were a pleasure and a way of defying
  their former owners. Esther Hill Hawks wrote, “they are all eager to go to
  school, books being the one thing denied them, they have a frantic desire
  to get possession of them; yesterday a couple of half-grown boys, came to
  see if I would teach them to read. The book they brought was a fine vol.
  of Virgil which they had rescued from the wreck of the Public Library!” 
  Most commanders took advantage of this desire to learn. Thomas
  Morgan “established in every company a regular school, teaching the men
  to read and write, and taking great pains to cultivate in them self-respect
  and all manly qualities.” Henry Romeyn noted that “Men went to fatigue
  duty with spelling books or alphabet cards in the pockets of their blouses,
  to be studied in the intervals of labor, and a book tucked in the belt of the
  sentry as he walked his beat, was a very common sight.” The illiteracy that
  Romeyn complained of when his regiment formed quickly disappeared,
  as his men conquered ignorance as surely as they fought tyranny. 
  Barney Stone profited by these efforts. “When I went into the army I
  could not read or write. The white soldiers took an interest in me, and
  taught me to write and read, and when the war was over I could write a
  very good letter” (Stone Narrative). It formed the basis for his formal
  education once the war ended.
  Maintaining discipline in African American regiments could be
  tricky. Overly harsh punishments demoralized the soldiers. Thomas
  Higginson observed:
  In dealing out punishments, we had carefully to avoid all that was
  brutal and arbitrary, all that savored of the overseer. Any such
  dealing found them obstinate and contemptuous. A system of
  light punishments, rigidly administered according to the
  prescribed military forms, had more weight with them than any
  amount of angry severity. To make them feel as remote as possible
  from the plantation, this was essential. By adhering to this, and
  constantly appealing to their pride as soldiers and their sense of
  duty, we were able to maintain a high standard of discipline – so,
  at least, the inspecting officers said – and to get rid, almost
  entirely, of the more degrading class of punishments.
  On campaign
  For the USCT regiments that served on campaign life was at times
  rougher and better than it was in a permanent camp. Except in a long,
  formal siege – such as the eight months before Petersburg – a soldier
  was limited to the comforts he could carry on his back. A night’s camp
  would be primitive, especially in cold weather, as Peter Bruner described
  in his memoirs: “We camped out in little dog tents all winter. The tents
  were just large enough for two men to stay in, they were about four feet
  high. Often when we awakened in the morning we would be covered
  with snow. It blew into the tents and our blankets would be frozen to the
  ground so we could hardly get up.”
  In a siege, at least the tents could be heated. On the lines at
  Petersburg, Alexander Newton was also living in a dog tent, but “We dug
  32
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  A
  Private, 54th Massachusetts, 1863
  1
  2
  3
  4
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  B
  Training vignettes
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  C
  An introduction to one’s kit
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  D
  Capture of Overton’s Hill
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  E
  Life in the USCT
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  F
  The battle of Honey Springs
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  G
  The Fort Pillow Massacre
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  H
  Garrison duty: USCT sergeant major at Charleston, 1865
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  holes about two feet wide extending from within outside the tent, and
  placed sheet iron over these, and in these small trenches started our fires.
  In this way we were able to have heat within, and force the smoke outside.”
  Hygiene was a problem on campaign. Alexander Newton told of the
  battle he fought to stay clean:
  We were greatly annoyed here as well as in other places with what
  the soldiers called greybacks, not the rebels, however; they were
  genuine creepers. They molested us no little. Whenever I could get
  off I would go to the creek and disrobe myself, and pick them out
  of my clothes, then wash my clothes and hang them on the bushes
  to dry. Then I would dress myself and feel like a king, because once
  again I was clean and free from these unearthly vermin.
  Getting adequate food was a challenge. The marching ration was
  smaller than the camp ration. John Billings described it as “one pound
  of hard bread, three-fourths of a pound of salt pork, and one fourth of
  a pound of fresh meat; sugar, coffee and salt. The beans, rice soap,
  candles etc were not issued to the soldier on the march.” Often soldiers
  on the march were issued three days’ marching rations – 30 pieces of
  hard tack, and three pieces of salt pork – at its beginning. Preparing
  meals on the march could be difficult, as Alexander Newton related:
  “We had for our dinner, breakfast, and supper, half-done salt-pork,
  which was placed on a stick and held over a blaze to warm it; hard tack,
  on which one could hardly make an impression with the teeth, and
  sometimes coffee, if it could be gotten.”
  Not all campaigning units suffered from bad rations. Newton’s 29th
  Connecticut was in a theater fought over for virtually the whole war.
  Foraging yielded little to eat. For the 14th USCI in Tennessee, as Henry
  Romeyn recounted, finding a good meal was much easier, especially as
  his unit was marching through the countryside during harvest season:
  As soon as camp was reached a systematic supply department was
  put in operation. Four men worked together – one got wood,
  another water, a third raided the nearest corn-field, the fourth
  searched for something which had blood in it and could be made to
  go into a frying-pan which he carried on his musket. It was said that
  twelve roasting ears, “with the etceteras,” could be eaten at one
  meal, but thirteen was an unlucky number and might make him ill.
  Whether gathering food was considered foraging or plundering
  depended upon the officer in charge. Attitudes varied maddeningly,
  even within a regiment or company, as Peter Bruner discovered:
  Once in a while we would go out and get a chicken and divide
  with our Captain but he did not care where we got them.
  Lieutenant Wallace would not allow the boys to take anything. He
  put one of the boys in the guard house for stealing a watermelon.
  So one day we thought we would go out and get some apples. We
  took a sack and got it full of apples. When I got back they took my
  apples and a revolver that cost twenty-five dollars and put me into
  the guard house.
  41
  A soldier’s life was recorded on a
  card maintained by the regiment
  in which he enlisted. In this
  case, John Henry Chase of the
  23rd USCI (Age: 21, Complexion:
  Dark) enlisted on February 24,
  1864, and was killed in action on
  July 3. (National Archives)
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  For runaway slaves, enlisting in
  the Army allowed them to stand
  up as men for the first time in
  their lives. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographic Division)
  Being on campaign, rather than in garrison, meant that a unit was
  getting ready to fight the Confederates. Thomas Higginson described
  the men of his regiment, “growing impatient of inaction. ‘Ought to 
  go to work, Sir – don’t believe in we lying in camp eating up the
  provisions.’” Work meant campaigning.
  BELIEF AND BELONGING
  Let me so live that when I die I shall have manners; that I shall know
  what to say when I see my heavenly Lord.
  Let me live with the musket in one hand, and the Bible in the other –
  that if I die at the muzzle of the musket, die in the water, die on the land,
  I may know that I have the blessed Jesus in my hand, and have no fear.
  I have left my wife in the land of bondage; my little ones they say every
  night “Where is my father?” But when I die, when the blessed morning rises,
  when I stand in the glory with one foot in the water and one foot on the
  land, then, O Lord! I shall see my wife and my little children once more.
  (Prayer of the 33rd USCI, quoted by Col Thomas W. Higginson)
  When an interviewer in the 1930s asked James Spikes why he enlisted in
  the Union Army the ex-slave replied, “Why did I enlist? I did not know no
  better. They told us the war was supposed to set the darkies free. My old
  master did not want me to go on – course not.” This reply captured the
  essence of the USCT soldier. He knew nothing of what he would find on
  the battlefield, but joined because he felt it was a way to gain his freedom.
  His master, like most slave-owners, did not want his property enlisting,
  but for the first time, Spikes could make his own decision about his life.
  Joining was as much an act of defiance as it was a bid for freedom.
  For men that joined the Northern regiments, whether free black, or
  prewar runaway, there was another dimension to the struggle – equality.
  James Henry Hall, a private in the 54th Massachusetts, wrote in a letter
  to a Northern newspaper, “We do not covet your wives nor your
  daughters, nor the position of political orator. All we ask is the proper
  enjoyment of the rights of citizenship, and a free title, and
  acknowledged share in our own noble birthplace” (Redkey). This was
  the reason that so many men from these regiments, as well as the first
  African American regiments raised in the Sea Islands, refused to take
  42
  Sleep provided a welcome rest
  from duties and the strains of
  war. This study was produced 
  by Edwin Forbes, a battlefield
  artist for one of the illustrated
  weeklies. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographs Division)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  A popular period lithograph
  shows a romanticized version 
  of the storming of Fort Wagner 
  at the instant when Col Robert
  Shaw is struck down. (Library 
  of Congress, Prints and
  Photographs Division)
  anything less than the same pay that whites received. James Gooding
  wrote, “Too many of our comrades’ bones lie bleaching near the walls of
  Fort Wagner to subtract even one cent from our hard earned pay.”
  Northern blacks enlisted to free their Southern brethren as well as to
  gain civil rights. Sgt Charles W. Singer, of the 107th USCI, wrote an
  appeal to a Northern black newspaper urging other free blacks to join
  the fight, in which he stated, “I have no ambition, unless it be to break
  the chain and exclaim: ‘Freedom to all!’ I will never be satisfied so long
  as the meanest slave in the south had a link of chain clinging to his leg.
  He may be naked, but he shall not be in irons” (Redkey).
  Religion was another motivation for the soldiers in the USCT. With
  little solace in a society that rejected them, most took comfort in the
  promise of an afterlife. Higginson has already shown us that many of the
  soldiers spent their hours in religious pursuits. The prayer opening this
  section was not just words to be recited – for the USCT solder it was a
  creed to live by. The war was a crusade.
  The view of the war as a crusade was also held by many white officers
  that joined African American regiments. Thomas Higginson, first
  colonel of the 33rd USCI, had helped finance John Brown in both
  Kansas and Maryland. He recalled his thought upon being offered
  command of what was then the 1st South Carolina: “it was a vast
  experiment ... one on which the result of the war and the destiny of the
  negro race might rest... I had been an abolitionist too long, and had
  known and loved John Brown too well, not to feel a thrill of joy at last
  on finding myself in the position where he only wished to be.” 
  Some white abolitionists behaved in a patronizing manner towards
  black troops under their command. David Hunter, rather than offering
  contrabands an opportunity to enlist, conscripted them, feeling that it
  was their duty – and that they had to be driven to it. This view of blacks
  as children, often mischievous and needing guidance, was common
  among the abolitionists who became officers in the USCT. It permeates
  many of their memoirs. The better among them soon viewed their
  subordinates as men, and the bonds between enlisted men and officers
  across racial divides were deep and very real. 
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  One of an African American
  soldier’s proudest moments
  would be when he was sworn 
  in to the United States Army.
  (Author’s collection)
  In part this was due to the shared dangers. The white officers were as
  much at risk in battle as their black men. Capture could lead to murder for
  both owing to the Confederate policy of treating all those affiliated to USCT
  units as rebellious slaves, rather than legal combatants. Henry Freeman
  reported three cases that he knew of where officers in his 12th USCI
  Regiment were murdered after surrendering. “Lieutenant W. L. Clark,
  captured on a train, was made to kneel down and shot in cold blood,
  because he belonged to this colored regiment.” Three other officers,
  captured after the battle of Nashville, “were led off, under pretense of being
  sent to General Forrest’s headquarters, and in a secluded ravine, without
  warning, were shot down like so many dogs. Two of them were instantly
  killed; the third ... left for dead, subsequently recovered to tell the story.” 
  The blacks also suffered if captured. George Sherman, of the 7th
  USCI, related the fate of the African American soldiers captured along
  with him:
  Some were claimed as slaves by men who had never known them;
  others denied fuel and shelter through the winter, and sometimes
  water with which to quench their thirst; the sick and dying
  neglected or maltreated and even murdered by incompetent and
  fiendish surgeons; without rations for days together; shot at
  without the slightest reason, or only to gratify the caprice of the
  guards – all of which harrowing details were fully corroborated by
  the few emaciated wrecks that survived.
  Deep bonds were formed. After a sniper killed Capt Charles Oren of
  the 22nd USCI, a sergeant in Oren’s company wrote to his widow, stating
  “If my brother had been shot, it would not of hurt me any worse than it
  did when he was shot. He was a good officer, not only that, but he had
  his men at heart. I dearly loved him. Any thing I could do for him, I
  would do it” (Washington, Eagles on their Buttons).
  These bonds lasted after the war’s end. Charles T. Trowbridge, who
  commanded the 33rd USCI after Higginson stepped down due to poor
  health, related an encounter with one of his men, Sgt Brown, two decades
  later in “Six Months in the Freedmen’s Bureau.” Trowbridge was “on a
  steamer returning from a trip to the sunny land of Florida by way of Port
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  Were these men born brothers 
  or did they become brothers-in-
  arms on the battlefield? Today
  we do not know. The bonds
  formed on the battlefield often
  transcended those of birth.
  (Library of Congress, Prints 
  and Photographs Division)
  Royal. From on the deck I saw among a gang of colored men who were
  loading cotton my little black hero. I hastened on shore, we recognized
  each other and in a moment he threw his arms around me, and the
  reunion was such as only old comrades can understand who have braved
  dangers together in days gone by.”
  THE SOLDIER IN BATTLE
  Personally I shrink from danger, and most decidedly prefer a safe corner at
  my own fireside to an exposed place in the face of the enemy on the
  battlefield, but so strongly was I persuaded of the importance of giving
  colored troops a fair field and full opportunity to show of what mettle they
  were made, that I lost no chance of insisting upon our right to be ordered
  into the field.
  (Lt Col Thomas J. Morgan, 14th USCI)
  One of the key questions whites had about black troops was their
  willingness to fight. Thomas Morgan’s first battle convinced his superiors
  that, given a chance, his black soldiers would fight. Morgan wrote about
  Gen George Thomas’s doubts, “He [Thomas] asked me one day, soon after
  my regiment was organized, if I thought my men would fight. I replied that
  they would. He said, ‘they might behind breastworks.’ I said that they
  would fight in the open field. He thought not.”
  But the black soldiers would not just fight, they would fight
  ferociously, even if half-trained. On June 7, 1863, at Milliken’s Bend, a
  supply depot that had been converted to a training camp for African
  American regiments, three understrength black regiments beginning
  the process of learning to be soldiers were attacked by a brigade of Texas
  infantry. The Confederates, acting on outdated information, thought
  the camp was still Grant’s main supply depot for the army besieging
  Vicksburg. Instead, they encountered black troops – the first that most
  Confederate soldiers would have met in battle. The resulting battle was
  a ferocious midnight brawl, with quarter neither asked nor given by
  either side fighting at the breastworks. 
  Capt M. M. Miller of the 9th Louisiana (African Descent) fought at
  the battle. Afterwards, he wrote a letter to a friend describing it:
  I never more wish to hear the expression, “The niggers won’t
  fight.” Come with me, a hundred yards from where I sit, and I can
  show you the wounds that cover the bodies of sixteen as brave,
  loyal, and patriotic soldiers as ever drew a bead on a rebel. 
  The enemy charged us so close that we fought with our
  bayonets, hand-to-hand. I have six broken bayonets, to show how
  bravely my men fought. It was a horrible fight, the worst I was ever
  engaged in, not excepting Shiloh.
  A boy I had cooking for me came and begged a gun when the
  rebels were advancing, and took his place with the company.
  When we retook the breastworks I found him badly wounded. A
  new recruit I had issued a gun to the day before the fight was
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  Milliken’s Bend probably saw 
  the most ferocious hand-to-hand
  fighting of the Civil War, with
  neither the Confederate Texans
  nor the USCT regiments willing
  to yield. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographs Division)
  found dead with a firm grasp on his gun, the bayonet of which
  was broken in three places. (Brown)
  The outnumbered African American troops at Milliken’s Bend
  yielded before the Confederate attack, but did not break. At daybreak,
  with artillery support from river gunboats, they counterattacked, and
  pushed the Confederates out of the camp. 
  The behavior at Milliken’s Bend was typical of the battlefield
  performance of black troops, who often proved the most reliable forces on
  the battlefield. William Eliot Furness, who commanded black troops in both
  the 3rd and 45th USCI regiments, observed in “The Negro as a Soldier,”
  “There was no occasion in which they were smitten as a body with a panic
  like the unreasoning panic of the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville, or
  that of the army in general at the first battle of Bull Run.”
  Milliken’s Bend was a defensive action. The blacks were fighting
  behind breastworks. Many, including George Thomas, felt them capable
  of that. The issue that remained was whether they could be relied upon
  in an open field battle, or in an assault on a fortified position. That
  question was decisively answered in May and later in July 1863, when
  pioneer black regiments led assaults against fortified positions at both
  Port Hudson, Louisiana, and Battery Wagner, off Charleston, South
  Carolina. In both cases the support they were to have received from
  white regiments came late. The 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guard
  regiments (as they were then titled) at Port Hudson, and the 54th
  Massachusetts (Colored) in Charleston Harbor, pressed the attack
  anyway. 
  James Gooding wrote to his hometown newspaper about the attack
  on Wagner. 
  You may all know Fort Wagner is the Sebastopol of the rebels; but
  we went at it, over the ditch and onto the parapet through a
  deadly fire; but we could not get into the fort. We met the foe on
  the parapet of Wagner with the bayonet – we were exposed to
  murderous fire from the batteries of the fort, from our Monitors
  and our land batteries, as they did not cease firing soon enough.
  Mortal man could not stand such a fire, and the assault on
  Wagner was a failure.
  At the first charge, the 54th rushed to within twenty yards of
  the ditches, and, as might be expected of raw recruits, wavered –
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  The 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native
  Guard regiments’ attack on Port
  Hudson on May 27, 1863, was
  repulsed at the parapet of the
  Confederate fort, but the bloody
  action showed that African
  American troops would fight.
  (Potter Collection)
  but at the second advance they gained the parapet. The color
  bearer of the State colors was killed on the parapet. Col. Shaw
  seized the staff when the standard bearer fell, and in less than a
  minute, the Colonel fell himself.
  Both assaults were crushed, but they were victories in the sense that
  they gave African American troops a fighting reputation. The officers
  leading them, Col Robert Shaw of the 54th Massachusetts and Capt
  André Callioux of the 1st Native Guards, were killed, becoming martyrs.
  Shaw, the scion of a prominent Boston family, was buried with his
  “niggers.” This attempt to shame the white officer instead became a
  symbol of the bond between the officers and men. Callioux was one of
  the few black officers in the Union Army. William Wells Brown stated
  that Callioux “prided himself on being the blackest man in the Crescent
  City.” Callioux demonstrated that blacks were capable not only of
  fighting, but of leading men into combat.
  In an anonymous battle in the Indian Territory, an African American
  regiment, the 1st Kansas Infantry (Colored), fought a mixed force of
  Confederate Indians and white Texans in a battle at Honey Springs. In an
  open field, the African American regiment anchored the center of the
  Union line. They repulsed a cavalry charge launched by a Confederate
  force so contemptuous of the blacks that they attacked with damp
  gunpowder, anticipating that cold steel would make the ex-slaves run.
  Instead, in the words of Gen James G. Blunt, commanding the 
  Union Army:
  The First Kansas (Colored) particularly distinguished itself; they
  fought like veterans and preserved their line unbroken throughout
  the engagement. Their coolness and bravery I have never seen
  surpassed; they were in the hottest of the fight, and opposed to
  Texas forces twice their number, whom they completely routed.
  (Official Records)
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  Although the 54th
  Massachusetts’ assault on 
  Fort Wagner brought it glory, 
  the price in blood was high, 
  as shown by this roll of missing
  soldiers. (National Archives)
  The problem often proved to be less that African American troops
  would not fight, but rather that they did not know when not to fight.
  Whatever odds faced them, African American regiments took them on
  – to prove that they were both men and warriors. Throughout the war,
  African American regiments continued to make assaults against odds
  that most soldiers would consider foolhardy. 
  Sometimes their zeal swept the Confederates before them. In
  “Fourteen Months’ Service with Colored Troops,” Solon A. Carter wrote
  of one such assault, on June 15, 1864, during the assault on Petersburg.
  A brigade made up of African American regiments was sent to clear a
  fieldwork commanding the City Point road.
  The line of battle advanced across the open field in splendid style,
  though the enemy’s artillery had perfect range, and their practice
  was good. 
  There was no giving way on any part of the line although
  progress through the wood was slow, owing to the undergrowth
  through which they were obliged to force their way.
  Emerging from the timber, the line charged with a rush, the
  enemy retreating before the furious onset, leaving one of their
  guns in the possession of the 22nd [African American] Regiment.
  General Hinks and his staff closely followed the line of battle,
  moving on a road, and upon reaching the
  work just captured, found a group of
  colored troops in extravagant demon-
  strations of delight at their victory.
  Addressing them, the general inquired:
  “What has become of the Johnnies?”
  “Well, sah, they jest done lit out; didn’t
  care to make close acquaintance. Reckon
  they must have smelled us.”
  More typical was the result of the 7th USCI
  attack on Fort Gilmer, on the Petersburg lines.
  As described by Joseph Califf, the courage of
  the black soldiers proved unequal to the task
  given them by foolish superiors:
  Captain Bailey, General Birney’s Adjutant-
  General, rode up to Col. Shaw with the
  order to send four companies deployed as
  skirmishers “to attack and take the work
  that is firing.” Colonel Shaw replied that he
  had orders to charge it with his regiment to
  which Captain Bailey answered, “Well, now
  the General directs you to send four
  companies, deployed as skirmishers, to take
  the work.”
  Captain Weiss, when he received the
  order to charge, replied, “What! Take a
  fort with a skirmish line?” and then added,
  “I will try, but it can’t be done.”
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  African American troops clear
  Confederate troops out of rifle
  pits at St. James Island in
  February 1865. Note the 
  white officers and NCOs.
  (Potter Collection)
  Capt Weiss, one of the 7th USCI’s officers who commanded
  Companies C, D, G, and K that day, described the attack in the 7th
  USCI’s memoirs:
  In a few minutes the ditch of the fort was reached. It was some six or
  seven feet deep and ten or twelve wide, with the excavated material
  sufficing for the embankments of the fort. Some 120 men and officers
  precipitated themselves into it, many losing their lives at its very edge.
  After a short breathing spell men were helped up the exterior slope
  of the parapet on the shoulders of others, and fifty or sixty being thus
  disposed an attempt was made to storm the fort. At the signal nearly
  all rose, but the enemy, lying securely sheltered behind the interior
  slope, the muzzles of their guns almost touching the storming party,
  received the latter with a crushing fire, sending many into the ditch
  below shot through the brain or breast. Several other attempts were
  made with like results, till at last forty or fifty of the assailants were
  writhing in the ditch or resting forever.
  The defense having been reinforced ... it was considered
  impolitic to attempt anther storm, with the now greatly reduced
  force on hand... [With] no signs of [reinforcements] appearing it
  was decided to surrender, especially as the rebels had now
  commenced to roll lighted shells among the stormers. Seven
  officers, and from seventy to eighty enlisted men, delivered up
  their arms.
  Union generals learned to value African American troops. Henry
  Freeman described his regiment’s first experience under fire, at the
  battle of Dalton, and his commanding general’s reaction to it: 
  The fire was not heavy, but men had fallen. As coolly as if on drill,
  the line pushed through the briars and brush, while the main line,
  farther to the right, became very much broken by passing among
  the huts, the rebel skirmishers falling back before it. After clearing
  the buildings it was halted for a moment for rectification. At the
  command guides sprang out with inverted muskets, and the broken
  ranks closed on the center, though at least two men fell dead from
  the enemy’s fire while the movement was going on. General
  Steedman, who commanded the Composite Division made up of
  units Sherman had left behind when he went to Atlanta, from his
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  Duncan’s Brigade of African
  American regiments attacks the
  Confederate line at Petersburg.
  (Potter Collection)
  position to the right, had sent his aide,
  Captain Davis, to, as he expressed it,
  “look after the niggers.” As he saw this
  formation he rode back to the General
  with the information: “General, you
  needn’t have any fears about the
  niggers; they’re holding dress-parade
  over there under fire.” 
  Steedman gained enough confidence
  in his African American brigades to
  entrust them with increasingly important
  tasks on the battlefield. At the battle of
  Nashville, Thomas and Steedman, initially
  doubters, pinned their battle plan on the
  steadiness of the African American troops, and were rewarded with a
  decisive victory.
  African American troops also gained the confidence of their white
  counterparts. Thomas Morgan recalled that “The Lieutenant Colonel
  commanding the Sixty-eighth Indiana Volunteer Infantry requested me 
  as a personal favor to ask for the assignment of his regiment to my
  command, giving as a reason that he would rather fight alongside of the
  Fourteenth Colored, than with any other regiment.”
  Respect for black troops was not limited to the Army of the
  Cumberland. In Virginia, a New York Herald correspondent reported, “An
  Ohio soldier said to me today, ‘I never saw men fight with such desperate
  gallantry as those negroes did. They advanced as grim and stern as death;
  and when within reach of the enemy, struck about them with a pitiless vigor
  that was almost fearful’” (Brown).
  Some whites viewed the African American troops as fearless
  automatons, unaware or uncaring of the odds against them. Yet most
  African American troops understood the dangers associated with battle.
  As Thomas Cole, an artilleryman who later served in the 2nd US
  Colored Light Artillery, and who served unofficially as a loader in a
  white artillery regiment at the battle of Chickamauga, put it, “I never did
  get to where I wasn’t scared when we goes into the battle” (Cole
  Narrative).
  Cole’s description of the battle of Chickamauga highlighted the
  confusion and danger of combat, and the reaction of a typical soldier –
  white or black: 
  I helps set them cannons on this Chickamauga Mountain in
  hiding places. I have to go with a man and wait on him and that
  cannon. First thing I knows, bang, bang, boom things has started
  and guns are shooting faster than you can think, and I looks
  round for the way to run. But them guns is shooting down the hill
  in front of me and shooting at me and over me and on both sides
  of me. I tries to dig a hole and get in it. All this happens right now,
  and first thing I knows, the man is kicking me and wanting me to
  help him keep that cannon loaded. Man, I didn’t want no
  cannon, but I has to help anyway. We fought till dark ... I done
  told Gen. Rosecran that I wants to fight the Rebels, and he sure
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  By 1864 attitudes towards
  African American troops had
  shifted dramatically since the
  war’s outbreak. Here white
  soldiers cheer their black
  comrades as they bring in a
  captured Confederate cannon.
  (Potter Collection)
  was letting me do it. He wasn’t just letting me
  do it; he was making me do it.
  Cole also provided a vivid account of his
  experience at Lookout Mountain and at
  Missionary Ridge:
  They starts climbing this steep mountain and
  when us gets three-fourths of the way up it was
  foggy and you could not see no place.
  Everything wet and the rocks are slick and they
  begin fighting. I expect some shoots their own
  men because you couldn’t see nothing, just
  men running and the guns roaring. Finally
  them Rebels fled and we gets on Lookout
  Mountain and takes it.
  There a long range of hills leading away
  from Lookout Mountain, nearly to Missionary Ridge. This ridge
  alongside the Chickamauga River, what in the Indian name
  meaning “River of Death.” I was in the Missionary Ridge battle. We
  has to come out the timber and run across a strip or opening up
  the hill. They sure killed lots our men when we runs across that
  opening. We runs for all we’s worth and uses guns or anything we
  could. The Rebels turns and runs off and our soldiers turns the
  cannons round that we’s capture and killed some the Rebels with
  their own guns.
  Alexander Newton, a less reluctant warrior, frankly admitted his fears:
  Many, such as myself, [were] almost afraid of my own shadow, ready
  to shoot at anything that made a threatening noise. I remember that
  I shot at the limb of a tree floating down the river, thinking it was a
  rebel skiff with spies. It was a sore and trying ordeal. Every soldier
  was in constant expectation of surprises from the Johnnies or rebels.
  Fear did not prevent him from doing his duty. Newton vividly
  described his participation in an assault on Confederate rifle pits,
  following Col W. L. Ward, temporarily commanding Newton’s
  regiment: 
  He brought us up double-quick to the rifle pits and the bugle
  sounded charge. We charged, firing, yelling, using our bayonets
  and our arms in the most cruel manner, but in accordance with
  the tactics of warfare. We were there to kill in every manner
  possible. We held the pits for twenty-four hours, brought the
  rebels to their knees, brought down their flag and unfurled the
  Stars and Stripes to the breezes.
  Most black troops faced the challenge offered by battle. Thomas
  Morgan related how his men reacted to the prospect of fighting Bedford
  Forrest, the commander of Confederate cavalry in Tennessee, who had
  led the Confederate forces at the Fort Pillow Massacre earlier in 1864: 
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  A regiment’s colors – its
  regimental flag – were a rallying
  point, and a symbol of the
  regiment. This flag, that of 
  the 6th USCI, shows Liberty 
  with a black soldier, and bears
  the motto “Freedom for All.”
  (Library of Congress, Prints 
  and Photographs Division)
  At length the enemy in strong force, with banners flying,
  bore down towards us in full sight, apparently bent on
  mischief. Pointing to the advancing column I said, as I
  passed along the line: “Boys, it looks very much like fight.
  Keep cool, do your duty.” They seemed full of glee, and
  replied with great enthusiasm: “Colonel, they can’t whip
  us; they never get the ole Fourteenth out of here, never.”
  “Never drives us away without a mighty lot of dead men.”
  Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest, in this case, proved to be
  more intimidated than Morgan’s men, “When Forrest
  learned that Rousseau was reinforced by infantry, he did
  not stop to ask about the color of skin, but after testing our
  line, and finding it unyielding, turned to the east,”
  concluded Morgan.
  Battle was not without risks. Chief among them were
  injury and capture. Civil War firearms produced devastating
  wounds. Despite this, African American soldiers often ignored injuries.
  Albert Jones described his reaction to being wounded: “One day when I
  was fighting, the rebels shot at me, and they sent a bullet through my
  hand. I was lucky not to be killed. But that didn’t stop me. I had it
  bandaged and kept on fighting” (Jones Narrative).
  Morgan related an incident involving a soldier wounded at Nashville:
  “One private soldier in Company B, who had taken a position in a tree
  as a sharpshooter, had his right arm broken by a ball. Captain Romeyn
  said to him: ‘You would better come down from there, go to the rear,
  and find the surgeon.’ ‘Oh, no, Captain,’ was his reply, ‘I can fire with
  my left arm,’ and so he did.”
  Those who did seek medical attention clung to their weapons
  tenaciously. Solon Carter told about a surgeon awakened at daybreak
  following a battle by a wounded soldier. 
  The caller was a colored soldier who had been shot through
  the right lung the previous afternoon, the bullet passing through
  his body. The man had followed the retreating column through
  mud and rain for ten miles, bringing his gun and equipments
  with him.
  Surgeon Barns dressed the wound and placed him in charge
  of the ambulance corps. Asked why he had brought his gun, the
  brave fellow replied that he “Didn’t care to be in those parts
  without something to protect hisself.”
  Many put their faith in God to protect them. “I never have been
  wounded. My clothes have been cut off me by bullets, but the Lord kept
  them off my back, I guess,” stated Richard Slaughter of the 19th USCI in
  an interview.
  Alexander Newton took a more personal view of Divine Intervention. 
  I remember a twenty-pound cannon ball coming towards me, I
  could see it distinctly through the smoke. I said quickly, “Lord,
  you promised that a thousand should fall at my side, but that it
  should not come nigh me.” It was quick praying, quick thinking,
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  Alexander H. Newton, in full
  dress uniform while he was
  quartermaster sergeant for 
  the 29th Connecticut Infantry
  (Colored). Note the tasseled 
  sash and NCO sword. Though 
  of poor quality, this is the only
  known picture of one of the
  black participants quoted in 
  this book. (Author’s collection)
  quick coming; but when the ball was within about three feet of me
  it struck the ground and bounded over my head.
  Another risk faced by African American troops was capture. The
  Confederacy never officially recognized them as legal combatants. At
  Milliken’s Bend captured blacks were killed out of hand or claimed as
  slaves, at the whim of their owners. Two white officers and NCOs
  captured there were executed for fomenting slave insurrection. Formal
  executions of captured USCT personnel ended after Grant threatened
  to hang captured Confederates in reprisal. Unsanctioned murders
  continued throughout the war, however, including a massacre of African
  American troops captured at Fort Pillow in April 1864. 
  As Alexander Newton related, threats failed to force blacks off 
  the battlefield. 
  We were told by the enemy that if we were captured our
  tongues would be cut out, or we would be starved to death; that
  there would be no exchange of prisoners in our case. So this
  was a rather fearful inspiration, but it served its purpose, of
  causing us to fight to the best of our ability; for we really feared
  that in case we were captured that such barbarities might be
  administered to us.
  Every battle left a fearful toll, whether the African American troops
  won or lost. Cole related the aftermath of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
  It was:
  the last one I was in and I was sure glad, for I never seed the like
  of dead and wounded men. We picks them up, the Rebels like the
  Unions, and doctors them the best we could. When I seed all that
  suffering, I hopes I never live to see another war... I just couldn’t
  stand to see all them men laying there dying and hollering, and
  begging for help and a drink of water, and blood everywheres you
  looks. Killing hogs back on the plantation didn’t bother me none,
  but this was different.
  Alexander Newton had a similar reaction after an assault at
  Petersburg: 
  I came on my rounds, bringing refreshments and stopped where
  the surgeons were at work. I shall never forget the fearful sight
  that met my eyes. There were arms and legs piled up like hogs’
  feet in a butcher shop. The dead and dying were strewn over the
  battlefield for five miles.
  Susie King Taylor told of the aftermath of a bloody action fought by
  the 33rd USCI: 
  About four o’clock, July 2, the charge was made. The firing could
  be plainly heard in camp. I hastened down to the landing and
  remained there until eight o’clock that morning. When the
  wounded arrived, or rather began to arrive the first one they
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  The battle of the Crater resulted
  in one of the Civil War’s biggest
  slaughters of African American
  troops. Here the African
  American regiments plunge 
  into the crater formed by an
  underground mine in an effort 
  to rescue the white regiments
  sent in with the first wave.
  (Author’s collection)
  brought in was Samuel Anderson of our company. He was badly
  wounded. Then others of our boys, some with their legs off, arm
  gone, foot off, and wounds of all kinds imaginable.
  Medical services were crude during the Civil War, more so for African
  American troops. Often, as Taylor explained, initial treatment for the
  wounded was little more than crude first aid:
  It seems strange how our aversion to seeing suffering is overcome
  in war, – how we are able to see the most sickening sights, such as
  men with their limbs blown off and mangled by the deadly shells,
  without a shudder; and instead of turning away, how we hurry to
  assist in alleviating their pain, bind up their wounds, and press
  cool water to their parched lips, with feelings only of sympathy
  and pity.
  Sometimes, as Esther Hill Hawks recorded in her diary, a flood of
  casualties overwhelmed available medical services, delaying medical
  treatment: 
  What a terrible sight it was! It was 36 hours since the awful
  struggle at Fort Wagner, and nothing had been done for them.
  We had no beds, and no means even of building a fire, but the
  colored people came promptly to our aid, and almost before we
  knew what we needed they brought us buckets full of nice broth
  and gruels, pitchers of lemonade, fruits, cakes, vegetables; indeed
  everything needed for the immediate wants of the men was
  furnished... Everything for our immediate wants was furnished,
  and in 24 hours the poor fellows were lying with clean clothes and
  dressed wounds in comfortable beds.
  Throughout the war, the Union expanded its hospital system. African
  American troops who reached a hospital received medical treatment on
  a par with that given to white troops, and were kept as long as was
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  required for their recovery. Charles Gabriel Anderson, who enlisted in
  the 56th USCI, spent over a year in a hospital, and was discharged the
  year after the war ended, in 1866.
  The staff sometimes had an uphill struggle to get former slaves to
  accept proper medical treatment. Hawks noted that a:
  great difficulty to be overcome was to get them to sleep between
  sheets. They stared aghast on being told to get in between such
  immaculate whiteness... when those who were able made their
  beds, the sheets of some were carefully folded and lain on the
  outside of their beds, while others spread them over the blankets,
  and got into bed upon the bare mattress.
  To these men, most former slaves, clean, white sheets were an
  unimaginable luxury. 
  AFTERMATH
  When the war ended, I goes back to my master, and he treated me like his
  brother. Guess he was scared of me, because I had so much ammunition
  with me.
  (Albert Jones, Co K, 1st Colored Cavalry [Jones Narrative])
  Was their service worth it for the blacks who fought in the United States
  Army during the Civil War? George Grant thought it was. Many times
  after the war he would tell his daughter, Omelia Thomas, “I am part of
  the cause that you are free” (Thomas Narrative). Charles H. Anderson
  was less impressed with freedom. “After the war I was free. But it didn’t
  make much difference to me. I had to work for myself instead of
  somebody else” (Anderson Narrative).
  55
  Two soldiers pose with rifles
  outside a deserted house.
  (Library of Congress, Prints 
  and Photographs Division)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  A USCT cavalry sergeant (third 
  in line), probably from the 
  4th USCC regiment, savors 
  one of the fruits of his efforts 
  in the USCT. He is about to cast
  his vote for the first time in his
  life. (Library of Congress, Prints
  and Photographs Division)
  Not every black soldier benefited from service. John Pope spoke
  bitterly about how his father, Gus Pope, was treated: “He served in the war
  three years and never came home. He served in the 63rd Regiment
  Infantry of the Yankee Army. He died right at the surrender... My father
  was promised $300.00 bounty and 160 acres of land... No he never got
  nary penny nor nary acre of land. We ain’t got nothing” (Pope Narrative).
  Some veterans of the USCT joined the Regular Army after the war,
  becoming part of the famed “Buffalo Soldiers.” There, they had once
  again to prove their worth, as the frontier posts were garrisoned by
  “galvanized Yankees” – Confederate prisoners of war who gained release
  by joining the Union Army to serve in the West. As to the fates of
  individual USCT soldiers quoted in this book: 
  Charles Gabriel Anderson (56th USCI) became a barber, a carriage
  driver, and a window washer.
  Charles H. Anderson (122nd USCI) worked for the C&O Railroad
  for 30 years, “bossing” a track gang. 
  Peter Bruner became one of the first black employees of Miami of
  Ohio University, eventually retiring with a pension.
  Henry H. Buttler went to college, became an engineer after the war,
  and later spent 22 years as an educator.
  William Baltimore (4th USCHA), Thomas Cole (1st USCLA), William
  Emmons (117th USCI), George Grant (78th USCI), Albert Jones (1st
  USCC), and James Spikes (55th USCI) returned to farming. All lived into
  their 80s and 90s.
  John Eubanks worked at a lumberyard after the war.
  James Henry Gooding (54th Massachusetts) was badly wounded and
  captured defending the colors at Olustee. He died at Andersonville
  Prison in 1864.
  Charles Hubbard (6th USCI) died at Petersburg.
  Alexander Newton (29th Connecticut Volunteers) was discharged in
  1865, returned to his store, felt the calling of religion, and became a
  minister. He wrote his memoirs in 1910.
  Prince Rivers (1st South Carolina and 33rd USCI) entered politics
  and was elected to South Carolina’s Reconstruction government.
  Richard Slaughter (19th USCI) survived the
  shambles at the Crater, and worked as an oysterman
  and fisherman in Hampton, Virginia, for over 40 years
  after his discharge.
  Isaac Stokeley’s fate is unknown.
  Susie King Taylor became a schoolteacher after the
  war, and later retired to Massachusetts, where, with the
  aid of the former officers of the 33rd USCI, she
  published her memoirs, now considered a classic of
  Civil War literature.
  As these black men in blue uniforms grew older,
  many wrote their memoirs, but memories of their
  accomplishments faded. Between 1925 and 1950, many
  historians ignored their contributions. 
  Despite this, the USCT veterans benefited from their
  service. Army service gave veterans both organizational
  and leadership skills. Moreover, as Albert Jones realized,
  it provided a nucleus of black men schooled in war.
  56
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Immediately after the Civil War, blacks had rights that they would not
  regain until after World War II. They could vote, and in many cases could
  and did run for public office. 
  There was some erosion of these rights in the 1870s, but not until
  Reconstruction ended and these veterans started growing old, in the
  1880s, did the South begin imposing large numbers of laws limiting the
  rights of blacks. 
  Even then, those who had served in the USCT did better than those
  who had not. Life was hard for all blacks at the end of the 19th century,
  but it was harder for non-veterans. Veterans were eligible for pensions.
  Henry Buttler and his wife, Lucia, retired on the $75/month pension he
  received. James Spikes was 91 when he told an interviewer, “The
  government gives me a pension now cause I was a soldier. It comes in
  right nice – it does that” (Spikes Narrative).
  Some veterans were cheated of their pensions, but many received
  them. As William Baltimore, who served in the 4th USCHA Regiment,
  related to an interviewer, “It was a lucky day when the Yankees gets me.
  If they hadn’t I don’t know what’d become of me. After I went blind, I
  had hard times. Some of my white friends dug up my record with the
  Yankees and got me a pension. Now I am sitting pretty for the rest of my
  life” (Baltimore Narrative).
  MUSEUMS AND REENACTMENT
  There are several museums on the black contribution to the Civil War.
  The African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and
  Museum at 1200 U Street N.W., Washington, DC 20009, is a national
  museum dedicated to the service of the USCT during the American
  Civil War. The museum is open Monday to Friday from 10am to 5pm,
  and Saturday 10am to 2pm. You can get more information at the
  museum’s website: http://www.afroamcivilwar.org.
  Another good African American military history museum is the
  Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, at 834 Southmore, Houston, TX
  57
  An infantry frock coat, now an
  exhibit at the Buffalo Soldiers
  National Museum, is typical of
  the uniforms issued to colored
  troops. (Author’s photograph)
  At the war’s end, most of the
  African American regiments were
  mustered out, and sent home.
  Here the troops of the 54th USCI
  greet their wives and children
  upon their discharge. USCT
  soldiers, like their white
  counterparts, were allowed to
  keep their personal weapons.
  (Library of Congress, Prints and
  Photographs Division)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  77004. Privately owned, it has a more general focus, covering the
  military activities of African Americans in the United States from
  the Revolution through to today’s “War on Terror.” This museum 
  is open Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday 10am to 4pm. Its
  website is http://www.buffalosoldiermuseum.com. 
  On the web, one really outstanding resource for those interested in the
  USCT is the United States Colored Troops’ website (http://www.lwfaam.
  net/cw), compiled by Bennie J. McRae, Jr.
  Several groups reenact the service of the USCT soldiers. The 
  United States Colored Troops Living History Association (http://
  www.usctlha.org) is a national organization with 13 different “regiments”
  throughout the United States. 
  The 54th Massachusetts and 1st South Carolina (later the 33rd
  USCI) are two units popular with reenactors. There are several groups
  of 54th Massachusetts reenactors. 54th. Mass. Volunteer Infantry, Co. I
  operates out of Charleston, SC. Its website is http://www.awod.
  com/cwchas/54ma.html. Co. B is in Washington DC. Its website is
  http://www.54thmass.org/54about.html. The 1st US South Carolina
  maintains a web page at http://www.awod.com/cwchas/1sc.html. 
  Several battlefield parks also have annual reenactments of battles
  involving black troops. The most notable is the Olustee Battlefield 
  in Florida, which annually reenacts that battle. Its web page is
  http://extlab1.entnem.ufl.edu/olustee/index.html.
  Another group of reenactors is associated with Camp Nelson,
  Kentucky, one of the main training camps for the US Colored Troops.
  Camp Nelson is now a Heritage Park, with reenacting groups
  representing the 12th United States Colored Heavy Artillery, 5th United
  States Colored Cavalry, and 5th United States Colored Infantry, all 
  units that trained at Camp Nelson. The Camp Nelson website is
  http://www.campnelson.org/home.htm. 
  58
  The band of the 107th USCI.
  Although the bandsmen are all
  black, the bandmaster (left) is a
  white NCO. (Library of Congress,
  Prints and Photographs Division)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  59
  BIBLIOGRAPHY
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  Cimprich, John, Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre,
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  Clark, Peter H., The Black Brigade of Cincinnati;
  Being a Report of its Labors and a Muster-roll of its
  Members; Together with Various Orders, Speeches, etc.,
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  Cornish, Dudley Taylor, The Sable Arm; Negro Troops
  in the Union Army, 1861–1865, Longmans,
  Green, New York (1956, rev. edn, University
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  –
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  Kansas Commission on Civil Rights, Topeka, KS
  (1969)
  Dyer, Frederick H., A Compendium of the War of the
  Rebellion, Compiled and Arranged from Official
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  Reports of the Adjutant Generals of the Several States,
  the Army Registers and Other Reliable Documents
  and Sources in 3 Volumes, Dyer Publishing Co.,
  Des Moines, IA (1908)
  Emilio, Luis F., History of the Fifty-fourth Regiment of
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  Boston 
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  Gladstone, William A., United States Colored Troops,
  1863–1867, Thomas Publications, Gettysburg,
  PA (1990)
  Gooding, James Henry (ed. Virginia M. Adams),
  On the Altar of Freedom: a Black Soldier’s Civil War
  Letters from the Front, Warner Books, New York
  (1992) 
  Hawks, Esther Hill, A Woman Doctor’s Civil War:
  Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary, Edited with a Foreword by
  Gerald Schwartz, University of South Carolina
  Press, Columbia, SC (1992) 
  Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Army Life in a Black
  Regiment, Fields, Osgood & Co., Boston (1870)
  Hollandsworth, James G. Jr., The Louisiana Native
  Guards: the Black Military Experience During the
  Civil War, Louisiana State University Press,
  Baton Rouge (1995)
  Knox, Thomas Wallace, Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field:
  Southern Adventure in Time of War, Blelock and
  Company, New York (1865)
  McMurray, John, Recollections of a Colored Troop, The
  McMurray Company, Brookville, PA (1994)
  Newton, Alexander H., Out of the Briars: an
  Autobiography and Sketch of the Twenty-ninth
  Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, The A.M.E.
  Book Concern, Philadelphia (1910) 
  Post, Lydia Minturn (ed.), Soldiers’ Letters from Camp,
  Battle-Field, and Prison, Bunce and Huntington,
  New York (1865)
  Redkey, Edwin S. (ed.), A Grand Army of Black Men:
  Letters from African American Soldiers in the Union
  Army, 1861–1865, Cambridge University Press,
  New York (1992)
  Shaffer, Donald R., After the Glory, The Struggles of
  Black Civil War Veterans, University Press of
  Kansas, Lawrence (2004)
  Smith, John David (ed.), Black Soldiers in Blue:
  African American Troops in the Civil War Era,
  University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill
  (2002)
  Taylor, Susie King, Reminiscences of my Life in Camp:
  a Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs, Boston,
  published by the author (1902, rev. edn,
  University of Georgia Press, 2006)
  Trudeau, Noah Andre, Like Men of War: Black Troops
  in the Civil War, 1862–1865, Little, Brown,
  Boston (1998)
  Urwin, Gregory A. W. (ed.), Black Flag over Dixie:
  Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War,
  Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale
  (2004)
  US Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of
  the War, Fort Pillow Massacre, Washington, DC
  (1864)
  US War Dept, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  60
  of the Official Records of the Union and 
  Confederate Armies. 128v. GPO, Washington, DC
  (1880–1901)
  Washington, Versalle F., Eagles on their Buttons,
  University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO
  (1984)
  Weaver, C. P. (ed.), Thank God my Regiment an
  African One: the Civil War Diary of Colonel Nathan
  W. Daniels, Louisiana State University Press,
  Baton Rouge (1998)
  Williams, George W., A History of the Negro Troops in
  the War of the Rebellion 1861–1865, Harper &
  Brothers, New York (1888)
  Wilson, Joseph T., The Black Phalanx, American
  Publishing Company, Hartford, CT (1890)
  Articles and pamphlets
  Addeman, J. M., Capt, “Reminiscences of Two
  Years with the Colored Troops,” Personal
  Narratives of the Events in the War of the Rebellion,
  Being Papers Read Before the Rhode Island Soldiers
  and Sailors Historical Society, Volume II, published
  by the Society, Providence, RI (1894)
  Armstrong, William H., Lt, “The Negro as a
  Soldier,” War Papers, Read Before the Indiana
  Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of
  the United States, Volume 1, The Commandery,
  Indianapolis (1898)
  Baird, J. M., Lt Col, 32nd USCT, “The 32nd
  Regiment U.S.C.T at the Battle of Honey Hill,”
  159 High Street, Boston, MA (1889)
  Carter, Solon A., Bvt Lt Col, USV, “Fourteen
  Months’ Service with Colored Troops,” Civil
  War Papers, Read Before the Commandery of the State
  of Massachusetts, Military Order of the Loyal Legion
  of the United States, Volume 1, The Commandery,
  Boston (1900)
  Connor, Selden, “The Colored Troops,” War
  Papers, Read Before the Commandery of the State of
  Maine, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the
  United States, Volume 1, Lefavor-Tower Company,
  Portland, ME (1908)
  Freeman, Henry V., Capt, 12th Inf. USCT, “A
  Colored Brigade in the Campaign and Battle of
  Nashville,” Military Essays and Recollections Volume
  II, A. C. McClurg and Co., Chicago (1894)
  Furness, William Eliot, Maj and Judge Advocate,
  USV, “The Negro as a Soldier,” Military Essays
  and Recollections, Volume II, A. C. McClurg and
  Co., Chicago (1894)
  Matson, Dan, “The Colored Man in the Civil War,”
  War Sketches and Incidents as Related by the
  Companions of the Iowa Commandery, Military
  Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States Volume
  II, Des Moines, IA (1898)
  Morgan, Thomas J., “Reminiscences of Service
  with the Colored Troops in the Army of the
  Cumberland, 1863–65,” Personal Narratives of the
  Events in the War of the Rebellion, Being Papers
  Read Before the Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors
  Historical Society, Volume V, published by the
  Society, Providence, RI (1885)
  Norton, Henry Allyn, Capt and Bvt Maj, 92nd
  Illinois USV, “Colored Troops In The War Of
  The Rebellion,” Glimpses of the Nation’s Struggle,
  Fifth Series, Review Publishing Co., St Paul, MN
  (1903)
  Parker, W. Thornton, MD, “The Evolution of the
  Colored Soldier,” The North American Review,
  Vol. CLXVIII, New York (1899)
  Perkins, Frances Beecher, “Two Years with a
  Colored Regiment, a Woman’s Experience,”
  New England Magazine, Boston, MA, vol. 17
  (September 1897–February 1898) 
  Rickard, James H., “Services with Colored Troops
  in Burnside’s Corps,” Personal Narratives of the
  Events in the War of the Rebellion, Being Papers
  Read Before the Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors
  Historical Society, Volume VIII, published by the
  Society, Providence, RI (1894)
  Romeyn, Henry, “With Colored Troops in the
  Army of the Cumberland,” War Papers No 51,
  MOLLUS, Commandery of the District of
  Columbia (January 6, 1904)
  Sherman, George R., “The Negro as a Soldier,”
  Personal Narratives of the Events in the War of the
  Rebellion, Being Papers Read Before the Rhode Island
  Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society, Volume X,
  published by the Society, Providence, RI (1913)
  Simonton, Edwin, Capt, 1st US Colored Infantry,
  Bvt Lt Col, USV, “The Campaign up the James
  River to Petersburg,” Glimpses of the Nation’s
  Struggle, Fifth Series, Review Publishing Co., St
  Paul, MN (1903)
  Sutherland, George E., Capt, 13th USCT, “The
  Negro in the Late War,” War Papers, Being
  Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of
  Wisconsin, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the
  United States, Volume 1 (April 4, 1888)
  Trowbridge, Charles Tyler, Lt Col, 33rd USCI, “Six
  Months in the Freedmen’s Bureau with a
  Colored Regiment,” Glimpses of the Nation’s
  Struggle, Sixth Series, Aug. Davis, Publisher,
  Minneapolis, MN (1909)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  61
  Web resources
  Bruner, Jacob, Jacob Bruner Letters (unpublished
  collection, 1863)http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
  award97/ohshtml/aaeohome.html, keywords “Jacob
  Bruner”
  Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, http://
  www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/index.html, National Park
  Service – lists information about units,
  individual soldiers, and battles 
  Omenhausser, John Jacob, Point Lookout Album
  (unpublished collection of sketches made at
  Point Lookout, MD, by a POW, 1864), now in
  the New York Historical Society, http://
  memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/nhihtml/cwnyhsh
  ome.html, 
  keywords: 
  “Omenausser, 
  Point
  Lookout Album”
  Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC),
  http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html, United
  States Library of Congress
  Slave 
  Narratives, 
  Federal 
  Writers’ 
  Project,
  Multiformat 1936–1938, United States Library
  of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
  snhtml/snhome.html)
  COLOR PLATE COMMENTARY
  A: PRIVATE, 54TH MASSACHUSETTS, 1863
  The 54th Massachusetts (Colored) was one of the first
  African American regiments raised, and one of only four
  African American regiments which remained in commission
  until the end of the Civil War to retain a state designation 
  (the 55th Massachusetts and 29th Connecticut Infantry
  regiments and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry were
  the others). Famed for its attack on Battery Wagner in July
  1863, it fought at other major battles including Olustee. It has
  been the subject of many books, and the movie Glory.
  An elite unit, it was made up of free, mostly educated
  blacks from throughout the Northern states. Among those
  enlisting were both sons of Frederick Douglass, James
  Gooding (a whaler who was also a published author), and
  George Stephens, a reporter and rights activist. Many
  enlisted not just seeking freedom for their enslaved brethren,
  but as a first step in achieving legal equality with whites. 
  This plate shows the appearance of a typical private of the
  regiment, prior to its departure to Charleston (1). Like most
  African American regiments, the 54th was well equipped.
  The clothing was of good quality, the equipment excellent,
  and the weapons issued – in this case the 1853 Enfield (2) –
  first class. Typical of USCT – when not overloaded with
  fatigue duties – this soldier maintains his kit and uniform in
  top condition as a matter of pride. Shown here are external
  (3) and internal (4) views of a cartridge.
  B: TRAINING VIGNETTES
  Camp Nelson, Kentucky, was a major training post for USCT
  soldiers, serving as a depot for blacks from Kentucky,
  Tennessee, and Ohio. Only Camp William Penn, in
  Philadelphia, exceeded its output of regiments. This plate
  shows the cycle experienced by USCT soldiers as they
  trained. A recruiter, usually one of the officers in a regiment
  under formation, would come to camp with his latest crop of
  volunteers. Peter Bruner wrote in his memoirs of the party-
  like atmosphere in his group: “The next morning about five
  o’clock I got up and started for Camp Nelson... I came upon
  sixteen colored fellows who were on their way to Camp
  Nelson and of course I did not get lonesome.” 
  At the camp, recruits were formed into companies.
  “Immediately upon our arrival here on Wednesday afternoon,
  we marched to the barracks, where we found a nice warm fire
  and a good supper in readiness for us. During the evening the
  Blacks often served as teamsters and pioneers for the
  Union Army. Although these men were not armed, they
  shared the same risks as African American soldiers. (Potter
  Collection)
  Two black soldiers sit by a bombproof shelter at Dutch Gap
  during the siege of Petersburg. (Library of Congress, Prints
  and Photographs Division)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  men were all supplied with uniforms, and now they are looking
  quite like soldiers,” wrote James Gooding of his arrival at a
  training camp. Initially, as shown in the top scene, drill would
  be pretty rough, as the men practiced in the yard in front of the
  barracks at Camp Nelson, but soon the men would come
  together, and work as a team, as shown at the bottom. At that
  point, they would be ready to fight.
  C: AN INTRODUCTION TO ONE’S KIT 
  It must have seemed miraculous that the Army gave a man in
  the USCT the clothes and tools to be a soldier for free. A
  soldier’s kit was worth $70 to $100 – a fortune to a man who
  previously had not even owned the clothes on his back. Being
  told it was his to keep engendered pride of possession and 
  a desire to maintain his property in top condition. Henry
  Freeman, a white officer in an African American regiment,
  noted that his men “were pleased with their guns, pleased
  with their uniforms, and impressed with their own importance
  as soldiers.” 
  The men in his company would often introduce a new
  recruit in an established unit to his kit. Often, in addition to his
  NCO, in this case a corporal, he would be assigned an
  experienced private, with the willingness to work with the new
  recruit. He would be shown what the kit consisted of, and
  how to pack and store the elements that made it up. In this
  case, our new private has joined one of the 13 heavy artillery
  regiments in the USCT. These units generally garrisoned a
  fort, such as those controlling travel on the Mississippi. They
  lived in permanent barracks, and tended to have more lavish
  kits than troops in campaigning infantry or cavalry regiments.
  Our soldier has a shell jacket, as well as the sack coat and
  frock, an additional blanket, and more spare clothes.
  D: CAPTURE OF OVERTON’S HILL
  African American troops played a key role in the critical
  Union victory at Nashville in December 1864. They were
  assigned to Steedman’s Division, a provisional force of units
  left behind when Sherman marched from Atlanta, which was
  stationed on the Union left. On the morning of battle,
  December 15, the African American troops were to make 
  a demonstration against the Confederates fortified on
  Overton’s Hill. The troops let their enthusiasm run away with
  them. Instead of feigning an attack, they charged and almost
  carried the hill. The attack convinced the Confederates to
  shift their reserves to that flank. They were caught flat-footed
  when the main Union attack hit their right in the early
  afternoon. 
  Hearing word that the army was attacking, the previously
  repulsed African American regiments launched a second
  attack on the reinforced Overton’s Hill. Confederate troops,
  shaken by word that their left was folding, broke and ran just
  before the wave of black soldiers reached the breastworks.
  They left several stands of regimental colors and the artillery
  emplaced there.
  It was bitterly cold. Union troops fought wearing their
  greatcoats, carrying cartridge boxes and canteens. Packs
  and haversacks were left behind. The enemy defenses, built
  in the freezing weather of the previous days, consisted of
  felled trees and piled rock. The Confederates holding the hill
  were cold, ill fed, and poorly clothed. Rather than the smart
  uniforms of the Union soldiers, they were clad in the rags
  that had been their issue clothing and whatever they could
  scavenge from the battlefield.
  E: LIFE IN THE USCT
  Off duty, African American troops tended to be a temperate
  lot. Capt George Sutherland observed there “was less
  drunkenness, and less profanity ... than among white troops”
  (Sutherland, “The Negro in the Late War”). Instead, these
  soldiers tended to spend their free time tending their
  equipment or learning. Literate soldiers, generally the
  sergeants, would teach others to read. George O’Meally
  wrote, “In one corner you would see a grown-up man trying to
  teach a drummer-boy to write; in another you would see a man
  about thirty, trying to learn his letters without a teacher” (Post).
  A major pastime was religion. “A Negro soldiers’ camp at
  night was sure to be the scene of some religious observance,”
  stated Capt Sutherland. Religion was one of the few comforts
  allowed slaves, and they carried their belief into camp.
  Services were performed out in the open air, with a self-
  appointed lay preacher leading them, often mixing military
  allusions into a sermon. Sutherland described how “... the
  preacher rises and pours forth his wild exhortation, ‘You must
  follow the heavenly flag, and shoot with the heavenly gun.’”
  Black troops also took their responsibilities seriously when
  on duty. One task many black troops were used for was
  guarding Confederate prisoners. The soldier in the inset is
  shown on guard duty at Elmira Prison in New York, beginning
  a long night shift. John Whipple, a white guard at Elmira,
  noted that “the most trustworthy and reliable guards we have
  at this place are negroes” (Post).
  Blacks flock to a recruiting office. (Author’s collection)
  An African American soldier posting guard at an artillery
  park. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
  62
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  63
  F: THE BATTLE OF HONEY SPRINGS
  On the same day that the 54th Massachusetts was being
  repulsed at Battery Wagner, another African American
  regiment, the 1st Kansas Infantry (Colored), was contributing
  to the greatest Union victory of the Trans-Mississippi Theater,
  at Honey Springs in the Indian Territory. The 1st Kansas
  (Colored) was probably the best-trained unit on either side.
  Raised in late 1862 from runaway slaves from Missouri, owing
  to politics and a mistrust of the reliability of blacks it trained
  until committed to service in early summer 1863. 
  In the center of the Union line, exposed to enemy fire, the
  men were ordered to lie down in the tall grass. The officers
  remained standing to direct the battle. Several were injured.
  When a Union Indian Cavalry regiment in reserve behind their
  line began redeploying, the Confederates assumed the
  Union was retreating. Anxious to destroy the Yankees, the
  Confederates, a mixed force of Texas and Confederate
  Indian cavalry regiments, charged. 
  As the charge began, the 1st Kansas, on orders from their
  officers, stood. They fired three volleys in quick succession,
  shredding the charging cavalry. The plate depicts the 1st
  Kansas (Colored) as they rose from the grass. The color
  guard, a picked force of NCOs that guarded the regimental
  colors, can be seen to the left. The flags shown still exist and
  are on display in the Kansas State Capitol, with many more
  battle honors than they had on July 17, 1863.
  G: THE FORT PILLOW MASSACRE
  African American troops faced the same hazards of disease
  or battlefield injury as the white troops, but they recognized
  the reality that Confederate troops hated taking black troops
  prisoner. A Confederate force led by Bedford Forrest took the
  weakly held Fort Pillow, manned by a white cavalry regiment
  and a black artillery regiment, both under strength. After the
  fort surrendered, the Confederates entered the main part of
  the fort and slaughtered individual members of the garrison
  as they attempted to surrender. Of 262 African Americans in
  the garrison only 62 survived. 
  One survivor, Jacob Thompson, a black cook, testified
  before a Congressional committee that investigated the
  massacre. He testified that Confederate soldiers “just called
  them [garrison members] out like dogs, and shot them
  down... They nailed some black sergeants to the logs and
  set the logs on fire” (Joint Committee on the Conduct of the
  War, Fort Pillow Massacre).
  The Union soldiers fled downhill to the river. Some, like
  Thompson – as shown in the plate – found boats and
  escaped downriver. The rest? In Thompson’s words, the
  Confederates “called them out from under the hill, and shot
  them down. They would call out a white man and shoot him
  down, and call out a colored man and shoot him down; do it
  just as fast as they could make their guns go off” (Joint
  Committee).
  Forrest abandoned Fort Pillow the next morning. The
  Union retook the fort. The relieving force, a white infantry
  unit, buried the dead – white and black – in a mass grave
  using the dry moat next to the earthen fort’s parapet, as
  shown in the inset. As a warning of what could happen if
  African American troops surrendered, and as a call for
  vengeance, “Remember Fort Pillow!” was the rallying cry for
  the USCT for the rest of the Civil War.
  H: GARRISON DUTY: USCT SERGEANT
  MAJOR AT CHARLESTON, 1865
  USCT units provided occupation troops after the war’s end.
  It was not duty that sprang from the love of the local
  population. Lt Col Charles Trowbridge described a typical
  reception when the 33rd USCI occupied a town in South
  Carolina: “When we came in sight of the town where we were
  to make our headquarters we were met by a committee of
  the citizens who implored me ‘not to bring them niggers into
  their town.’ ... I told them that these men were not ‘niggers’
  but United States soldiers, and I should march into the town
  and quarter my troops in the Court House, the length of time
  they would to depend entirely upon the conduct of the
  townspeople towards the men and their officers.” 
  For the occupation troops, it was an opportunity to show
  that they could carry out their duties as smartly as any white
  Confederate unit. This was especially true for units like the
  35th USCI Regiment, which had been formed from escaped
  slaves in North Carolina. The sergeant major, shown here in a
  brief pause from walking his rounds in Charleston Harbor, can
  be seen to take great satisfaction from his uniform and from
  his status as the senior NCO in a combat regiment, but most
  of all from an opportunity to garrison the rebellion’s cradle.
  Four years ago he may have been another slave carting goods
  on Battery Street. Four years from now, he may be another
  black laborer in Charleston. But today, the “bottom rail” is 
  on top.
  Charleston was considered by the Union to be the cradle 
  of the revolution. The 55th Massachusetts is pictured
  marching through the city after its capture. (Library 
  of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
  Benjamin Butler issued this medal to the African American
  troops under his command in the Army of the James. It was
  the only medal exclusively issued to blacks.
  (Author’s collection)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  INDEX
  64
  References to illustrations are shown in bold.
  Plates are shown with page and caption
  locators in brackets.
  Addeman, Capt Joshua M.  27–28
  Anderson, Charles Gabriel  55, 56
  Anderson, Charles H.  31, 55, 56
  Ayers, James  11–12
  Baltimore, William  56, 57
  Billings, John  25, 41
  Blunt, Gen James G.  47
  Boone, Arthur  20
  Brown, William Wells  6, 47
  Bruner, Jacob  16, 20
  Bruner, Peter  12, 29, 32, 41, 56, 61
  Butler, Gen Benjamin  4, 5, 5
  Buttler, Henry H.  11, 56, 57
  Califf, Joseph M.  10, 19, 30, 48
  Callioux, Capt André  47
  Camp William Penn  18
  camps and camp life  29, 30–42, 62, E (37, 62)
  Carter, Solon A.  48, 52
  Charleston  63, 63, H (40, 63)
  Chase, John Henry: record card  41
  Chenery, William H.  27
  Chickamauga, battle of (1863)  50–51
  Cole, Thomas  50–51, 56
  colors, regimental  18–19, 18, 52
  Confederate Army
  blacks in  4, 5
  treatment of captured USCT affiliates  6, 44,
  53, 63, G (39, 63)
  conscription  6, 13, 13
  contrabands  4–5, 7
  Crater, battle of the (1864)  54
  Dalton, battle of (1864)  49–50
  Douglass, Frederick  21
  drummer boys  22
  Dumas, Francis  5
  duties  26–30, 26, 30–31, 62, 62, E (37, 62)
  Emmons, William  11, 56
  enlistment  9–14, 62
  bounties  25
  Eubanks, John  10–11, 56
  Forbes, Edwin: illustration by  42
  Forrest, Gen Nathan Bedford  51–52, 63
  Fort Gilmer, attack on (1864)  48–49
  Fort Pillow Massacre (1864)  53, 63, G (39, 63)
  Fort Wagner, storming of (1863)  43, 46–47, 48
  Freeman, Henry V.  16, 44, 49–50, 62
  Fry, Capt Thomas W.  22
  Furness, William Eliot  46
  garrison duty  63, H (40, 63)
  Gooding, James H.
  death  56
  enlistment  10
  letters by  23
  wartime experiences  16, 22, 23, 31, 43, 
  46–47, 61–62
  Grant, George  55, 56
  Grant, Ulysses S.  6, 53
  Hall, James Henry  42
  Hawks, Esther Hill  13, 32, 54, 55
  Hemingway, Lt Anson S.  29
  Higgerson, Joe  15
  Higginson, Col Thomas W.
  and abolition  6, 43
  experiences with black soldiers  17–18, 22, 
  24, 31, 32
  retirement from active service  44
  Honey Springs, battle of (1863)  47, 63, F (38,
  63)
  Hubbard, Charles  21–22, 56
  Hunter, Gen David  5, 6, 43
  injuries  52–53, 53–55
  Jones, Albert  20, 31, 52, 55, 56
  kit  21–22, 62, C (35, 62)
  learning and literacy  17–18, 32, 62, E (37, 62)
  Lookout Mountain, assault on (1863)  51
  McMurray, John  21–22
  medals  63
  medical inspections  12–13, 14
  medical treatment  54–55
  Miller, Capt M. M.  45–56
  Milliken’s Bend, battle of (1863)  45–46, 46, 53
  Missionary Ridge, battle of (1863)  51, 53
  Morgan, Thomas J.
  attitude to battle  45
  experiences with black soldiers  12–13, 18, 
  20, 27, 30–31, 50, 51–52
  innovations as officer  16, 32
  names, former slaves’ selection of  13–14
  Nashville, battle of (1864)  50, 62, D (36, 62)
  NCOs  17–18, 63, F (38, 63), G (39, 63)
  Newton, Alexander H.  4, 53
  after the war  56
  background and enlistment  4, 9–10, 17
  wartime experiences  17, 23, 32–41, 51, 
  52–53
  officers  6, 15, 47
  O’Meally, George  62
  Omenhausser, John Jacob  28
  pay  5, 22–25
  Petersburg, siege of (1864–65)  48–49, 53, 54, 61
  Pope, Gus  56
  Port Hudson
  attack on (1863)  46, 47, 47
  black garrison  31
  Presentation of Colors  18–19, 18
  prisoners of war: guarding  28, 28, 62, E (38, 62)
  punishments  32, 32
  racial prejudice  6, 43
  rations  25–26, 25, 30, 41
  regiments
  1st Kansas Infantry  47, 63, F (38, 63)
  1st South Carolina (Hunter’s Regiment; 
  33rd USCI)  8
  establishment and composition  6, 13
  NCOs  17–18
  operations  53–54
  prayer  42
  service conditions  19, 20, 30, 63
  1st USCC  20
  4th USCC  56
  6th USCI: colors  52
  7th USCI  19, 25, 48–49
  9th Louisiana (later 63rd USCI)  16, 45–46
  10th USCI: camp  29
  12th USCI  16, 44
  14th Rhode Island HA  16, 22, 27–28
  14th USCI  27, 41
  22nd USCI  18, 48
  29th Connecticut  17, 41
  31st USCI  10
  32nd USCI  25–26
  35th USCI  63, H (40, 63)
  54th Massachusetts  57, 61, A (33, 61)
  enlistment and service conditions  10, 16,
  17, 19, 23–24
  operations  46–47, 48
  55th Massachusetts  23–24, 63
  104th USCI  21
  107th USCI: band  58
  127th USCI  18
  Native Guards (later Corps d’Afrique)  20
  1st Louisiana  29, 46–47, 47
  3rd Louisiana  46–47, 47
  organization  15–16
  religion  31, 43, 62, E (37, 62)
  Rivers, Prince  17–18, 56
  Romeyn, Henry  13–14, 17, 32, 41
  St. James Island  49
  Shaw, Col Robert  43, 47
  Sherman, George R.  15, 44
  Sherman, Gen William T.  27
  Singer, Sgt Charles W.  43
  Slaughter, Richard  56
  Spikes, James  28, 42, 56, 57
  Steedman, Gen  49–50, 62
  Stokeley, Isaac  9–10, 56
  Stone, Barney  11, 32
  Sutherland, Capt George  62
  swearing in  44
  Taylor, Susie King  19, 30, 53–54, 56
  Thomas, Gen George H.  17, 45, 46, 50
  Thomas, Omelia  14, 55
  Thompson, Jacob  63
  training  14–19, 15, 17, 61–62, B (34, 61–62)
  Trowbridge, Lt Col Charles T.  44–45, 63
  uniforms and clothing  19–22, 20–21, 57
  Union Army
  black teamsters and pioneers  61
  numbers of blacks in  6, 9
  Viall, Lt Col Nelson  16
  weapons  22, 61, A (33, 61)
  Weiss, Capt  48–49
  Whipple, John  28, 62
  Williams, Benjamin  26
  Williams, George W.  26
  Young, John  11
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
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  First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Osprey Publishing,
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  Page layout by Mark Holt
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  Author’s dedication
  To my new sister-in-law, Christala Lardas. Welcome to the family.
  Author’s acknowledgments
  I would like to thank Paul J. Matthews of the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston, TX, and Michael Knight of the National
  Archives, for assisting me in the collection of some of the illustrations that appear in this book. I also wish to thank my father-in-law,
  William Potter, for helping obtain illustrations and source material. The illustrations marked “Potter Collection” were supplied by him.
  Author’s note
  The quotations in this book are rendered accurately from the contemporary sources. I have preserved the epithets, grammatical
  errors, and language used; the quotes do not reflect my own views, but rather those of the participants.
  Many of the quotations in this book come from Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938.
  This collection contains interviews of 2,300 former slaves who were still living in the late 1930s. The collection is available online
  (see the references). Quotations from these interviews are cited in the following format: [interviewee’s last name] Narrative
  (e.g. Cole Narrative).
  Artist’s note
  Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the color plates in this book were prepared are available for
  private sale. All reproduction copyright whatsoever is retained by the Publisher. Enquiries should be addressed to:
  Peter Dennis, Fieldhead, The Park, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, NG18 2AT, UK
  The Publishers regret that they can enter into no correspondence upon this matter.
  Glossary
  contraband
  a runaway slave owned by a master in rebellion against the United States;
  the name is due to such slaves being declared “contraband of war.”
  Corps d’Afrique
  name applied to early black regiments raised by the Union in Louisiana
  Free Men of Color
  free blacks, especially propertied blacks, in Louisiana
  Native Guard
  name applied to first three black Union regiments in Louisiana
  (these were the only black regiments raised with black officers)
  NCO
  non-commissioned officer (sergeants and corporals)
  USCC
  United States Colored Cavalry
  USCHA
  United States Colored Heavy Artillery
  USCI
  United States Colored Infantry
  USCLA
  United States Colored Light Artillery
  USCT
  United States Colored Troops
  USV
  United States Army Volunteers
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