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Black
Soldiers in the War Between The States: by John Bernhard Thuersam We know that black soldiers have served in North American wars before the War Between the States with black soldiers serving in 1740 both the Spanish and British in Florida, in 1742 when South Carolina utilized armed free blacks to subdue the Stono Rebellion, the French and Indian War from 1756-1763 with blacks fighting for both sides, and then the American Revolution which will be covered in more detail below. The apparent innovation of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation fades when we realize that arming black slaves in exchange for eventual freedom wasn’t new in 1863. In the book “Slave and Soldier, The Military Impact of Blacks in the Colonial America’s”, author Peter M. Voelz describes well how necessity and desperation drew Europeans to arm their black slaves in the Americas and use them against their enemies, white, black and red. Well before British officials like Lord Dunmore and General Clinton proclaimed emancipation for those escaped slaves who would be loyal to the Crown against the American rebels, slaves were being armed and formed into military units in exchange for their freedom throughout the Americas then claimed by Europeans. As the activity of blacks, free and slave during the American Revolution is not well known or publicized, we begin this essay by briefly sketching their participation in that conflict.
America’s First War of Independence: The British Emancipation Proclamations
Historians tend to lionize black patriots like Crispus Attucks, slain at the Boston Massacre in 1770, when the evidence suggests that those blacks who took action in that conflict were more likely to join the British side. For the most part, blacks who joined the British army performed noncombatant duties although those who entered service in 1775-76 saw fighting in northern colonies prior to 1778. Free blacks appeared to have a greater inclination to join the Continental army while slaves preferred the British forces, in part due to the colonist’s misgivings about arming them and partly due to the promise of freedom from the British.
An Act of John Murray, or Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia on November 7, 1775, emancipated all slaves who would leave their masters and fight for the British side. This of course enticed many blacks to fight against American independence and the reaction in the black communities of Virginia and North Carolina to emancipation was electric. One delegate to the Continental Convention, Edward Rutledge, claimed Dunmore’s action did more than anything else to separate the colonies from Britain. Washington reacted strongly against it, and Jefferson apparently referred to it in his draft of the Declaration of Independence. In New York, British General Clinton proclaimed on July 3, 1779 that any slaves who fled from the rebels belong “to the public”, and if they serve (the Crown) faithfully, they would be set free at the war’s end.
Almost immediately some three hundred Negroes joined Dunmore’s forces and other bondsmen rushed toward Norfolk to fight for the British. By December, 1775, the Royal Governor had dubbed his recruits “Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment” with the legend “Liberty to Slaves” emblazoned across their chests. With nearly two thousand men under his command, of whom half were black, Lord Dunmore posed a serious threat to the revolutionary movements in Virginia and North Carolina. Robert Howe with his Continental unit and Minutemen from Edenton, North Carolina was immediately dispatched to Norfolk with a dual purpose; to block any move by Dunmore toward North Carolina, and to prevent Negroes from Pasquotank, Currituck and adjacent counties from joining the British liberator.
In light of these alarming trends, the North Carolina patriots moved quickly to interdict the mass defection of blacks to the British. Since the British were in May, 1776 raiding the lower Cape Fear region, a provincial committee recommended that all slaveholders “on the south side of the Cape Fear River…remove such male slaves as are capable of bearing arms, or otherwise assisting the enemy, into the country remote from the sea.” Overpowering anxieties gripped Wilmington in the summer of 1775 as the colonial revolutionaries charged that John Collett, the British commander at Fort Johnston, “had given encouragement to Negroes to elope from their masters & they (the British) promised to protect them.” The Wilmington Safety Committee in July, 1775 insisted that all blacks be disarmed so as to keep the “Negroes in order” and it instituted patrols to search for, and take from Negroes all kinds of arms.” After Lord Dunmore’s proclamation in 1775, Washington moved to enlist free blacks to forestall them from joining the British, though the American colonists were generally against such a move. One, they were afraid to arm them, and two, they were reluctant to take them from their owners.
Wherever the British appeared, the slaves ran to them. As Lord Dunmore’s proclamation inflamed blacks desire for liberty, the slaves came to believe that emancipation was a British war policy. Writing to John Hancock in 1777, Robert Howe bemoaned the South’s defensive posture; “how various and extensive the necessary lines of defense are, how numerous the black domestics who would undoubtedly flock in multitudes to the banners of the enemy whenever the opportunity offered….”
In North Carolina when the British burned Brunswick Town, one rumor held that Howe’s slaves had helped torch the village. As soon as the British fleet dropped anchor off the Cape Fear in early 1776, North Carolina slaves began to desert their masters. In Wilmington, Cornwallis left Major James Craig in command where he launched several attacks as far north as New Bern. Craig utilized black coopers and sawyers “in the public works” and seized rebel’s slaves who had not fled to the British with one slaveholder complaining that he lost “60 prime slaves”. When Craig evacuated Wilmington in November, 1781, many slaves escaped with the British while others remained with their masters by choice. In the last desperate days of the struggle the British turned to blacks for additional manpower along the battle lines. Black troops fought with the British at Savannah in 1779, Congarees in 1781 and Green Spring near Jamestown, Virginia in 1781. A British black cavalry unit clashed with patriot forces outside Charleston in April 1782 with two black horsemen losing their lives there. Black contributions to the war effort were aptly summed up by British General William Phillips, who said…”these Negroes have undoubtedly been of the greatest use”. One black messenger and spy for the British was Benjamin Whitecuff, a free Negro from New York who reportedly saved from capture 2,000 troops under General Clinton in New Jersey. In 1778 near Savannah, a “confidential slave” guided an English invasion force through a swamp to surprise American rebels, and a pilot slave, Sampson, guided British General Prevost’s army through rivers in Georgia and South Carolina. General Clinton’s army invading South Carolina looked for slaves to act as spies, guides and laborers when it landed, much the same as the northern American army would do many years later. Other blacks fought with loyalist militia under such Tory leaders as Samuel Bryan in Rowan County. Samuel Burke, a black loyalist, was credited with killing 10 patriots at Hanging Rock in August, 1780, and still other blacks served on privateers that clashed with patriot vessels and took them as prizes.
With the slave manpower pool to draw from, there were more blacks in English regiments in the South, and by 1779 the British had armed about 200 blacks at Savannah. More black infantrymen were added in that city until one out of every two British troops there was black. Altogether it is estimated that about 5000 black soldiers fought for the rebels, while the British had the service of at least 20,000 black soldiers, pioneers and laborers. Most of these left with them at the end of the war, going to the West Indies or Nova Scotia. Those carried to Nova Scotia were not given the land promised by the Crown after their arrival, and eventually they founded the colony of British and American Negroes in Sierra Leone.
The only Southern colony to officially enlist slaves was Maryland, and subjected free blacks to the draft, though many free blacks enlisted in the army or navy in Virginia, North Carolina and other States. Perhaps as many as three-quarters of Rhode Island’s continental troops were slaves who had been offered freedom in exchange for their service, and its “black battalion” fought in battles in New York and Virginia, eventually being wiped out by Tories in a battle at Point Bridge, New York on May 14th, 1781. Connecticut considered recruiting slaves in May, 1777 but only if they could buy themselves from their masters. As would be done again 86 years later in order to avoid military service for its white citizens, Connecticut approved the substitution of slaves for whites in the army, and owners were encouraged to free such slaves that were interested. New York also passed a Negro substitute law in 1776.
Beyond the participation of black soldiers on both sides during the American Revolution, the US was aided in 1815 by a free black militia in New Orleans to defeat the British once again, though the British used their West India Regiments in the battles. Those latter named regiments were manned by the descendants of American slaves carried off to their freedom by the British in 1783.
The War Between the States: Black Soldiers North and South
By 1861, there were approximately 4 million blacks, both free and slave, in the Southern States and the vast majority either fought for, or supported the American Confederacy with labor and raising crops, with the eventual number of opposing US Colored Troops amounting to only a little over 186,000 men. And of the latter it is questionable whether they were freely recruited or were impressed into service to replace northern white soldiers. This will be a topic further investigated in this essay. A most intriguing question to pose to those who dismiss black service in support of the American Confederacy is this: what were the other 3.8 million black people doing if less than 200,000 were in the northern military? An answer in part, and little known fact as well, is that the South enlisted black soldiers in New Orleans as the Louisiana Native Guards nearly a year in advance of the northern States. In contrast, the exact day or week that Lincoln decided to support the recruiting of blacks is not easily pinpointed, but his last positive refusal to arm blacks was in early August 1862, and we know too from abolitionist Wendell Phillips that Lincoln was forced into the emancipation issue. Lincoln did not go to emancipation and black military service willingly.
Black abolitionist Frederick Douglas reported his concern early in the war that “there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers having muskets on their shoulders and bullets in their pockets.” Even federal General Grant knew of the black support for the Confederacy, and he instructed his officers late in the war to capture as many blacks as possible to avoid having them carry arms for the South or support it in any way. The inland raids conducted by northern forces from Virginia to Florida after 1863 were aimed at “liberating” slaves on Southern plantations and impressing them into northern service. This would also deny the Southern States of a military manpower pool as well as damage food supplies by draining off the farm workers. The latter was a main reason why President Davis opposed using blacks in the military before January, 1865.
Lincoln’s Dilemma: Dwindling Northern Enlistments
While black companies and regiments were raised in Southern cities and offered to the Confederate army, mob violence was threatened against black citizens in Cincinnati when they sought to organize a militia unit. Enthusiastic blacks in New York City rented a hall to practice military drill but had to abandon their activity in the face of a police order and a similar threat of mob violence. The Draft Riots of July 1863 speak volumes regarding northern labor hostility against blacks, free or slave. Offers by blacks across the north to defend the government met with indifference at best. Even the staunch abolitionist William Garrison admitted that “technically, the war is to restore the old order of things…and of the great body of soldiers who have enlisted at the north, comparatively few have any intention or wish to break down the slave system…” But emancipation and employment of black troops soon became a matter of vital military importance as by December, 1861 Lincoln was showing signs of frustration with the lack of progress in subjugating the South. By mid 1862, Lincoln admitted “we had about played our last card and must change our tactics or lose the war”. Congressional action actually preceded Lincoln’s proclamation on 17 July 1862 with its alteration of the 70-year-old militia act that barred blacks from military participation. Secretary of State William Seward agreed with the substance of Lincoln’s January 1863 “preliminary emancipation proclamation” but questioned the timing of its release. Issued now, in the shadow of major federal military defeats, the declaration might appear to be a desperate act by a government on the verge of defeat and he urged a delay in its issuance until a federal victory was in hand. Lincoln also clearly understood that Europeans would see the proclamation for what it was…nothing but “an attempt to incite servile and insurrection” to imitate the horrors of Haiti and Santo Domingo. A lesser-known provision of the emancipation proclamation officially authorized the implementation of the Militia Act of 1862, the raising and using of black federal troops. This pronouncement in January 1863 sanctioned a practice that several maverick federal officers had already attempted. But at the same time, the Proclamation was so unpopular in the north that the fall 1863 elections in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin went against the Republicans. Enlistments to fill the deserted union ranks came in slowly and blacks, who had gone within federal lines or had been kidnapped, were driven into the army. This is a significant fact.
Manpower Problems in the North: Setting the Stage for United States Colored Troops
Faced with the necessity of drafting their own constituents in an unpopular war, the northern governors looked for another source of troops and they took up the abolitionist demand that black soldiers should be used. Under great pressure from the governors who feared losing the next election due to a voter backlash from the unpopular draft, and the radicals like Charles Sumner who demanded a war for emancipation, Lincoln issued the preliminary emancipation proclamation and permitted the enlistment of black troops. The day after the proclamation, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and ordered the governors to force men into the militia.
An act of Congress, passed on 4 July 1864 authorized northern Governors to send recruiting agents into the South to recruit blacks who shall be credited to the State which may procure the enlistment. The occupied Southern States were soon swarming with northern recruiting agents competing with each other over who could enlist the most black recruits to save white northern citizens from serving. These agents found the pickings very meager, enlisting fewer than 6000 former slaves. The reason for this low number were twofold: one, the northern generals were hostile to anyone tampering with their captured black laborers, and two, the rivalry of the national government itself which launched its own program in March 1863 to raise an army of blacks, the US Colored Troops. It is most important to understand the motivation of northern leaders toward using black troops and the inherent political expediency of the plan. Lincoln, Radicals in congress, and the Republican governors all saw black troops as the political answer to the extreme resistance to conscription by white northerners who would not fight for black emancipation. The black refugees and captured slaves from burned Southern plantations could not vote or retaliate politically to being conscripted into service. And, white northerners were content to see black mercenaries die in a war started by the despised abolitionists. And, they would contribute generously to furnish State bounties to entice and purchase the mercenaries who would face the Southern cannons. In August 1864, Massachusetts Governor Andrew and Boston Mayor Alexander were concerned over the number of draft age male citizens leaving the State to avoid the draft and their inability to meet the State’s quota of troops. They both encouraged Lincoln to obtain recruits from abroad to go as volunteers. Andrew wrote to Secretary Stanton on 1 April 1863 that “if the United States is not prepared to organize a brigade in North Carolina, I would gladly take those black men who may choose to come, receive our State bounty, and be mustered in.” Neighboring New York is credited with providing 4125 black soldiers to the union army ranks and it is doubtful that any were citizens of that State either. It is revealing that Governor Andrew was one who pressed for Negro line officers as he saw black regiments as an effective way to avoid drafting his constituents as well as extend his stay in the executive mansion. In March, 1864, Andrew commissioned as a second lieutenant Stephen Atkins Swails, the First Sergeant of Company F of the 54th Massachusetts, a unit without the benefit of Massachusetts native sons. True to form, Swails was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, but at the time of his enlistment in April, 1863, was a boatman living in Elmira, New York.
On 19 July 1864, General Halleck wrote Grant;: “we are now receiving one half as many (men) as we are discharging. Volunteering has virtually ceased.” And he further says that about the middle of June, 1864, after Grant crossed the James River and was attacking Petersburg…” reinforcements were constantly sent to Grant, but they were for the most part mercenaries, many of whom were diseased, immoral or cowardly.” Rhodes says in his History of the United States, to justify the conscription act of Congress approved 3 March 1863, “volunteering had practically ceased….and only a pretty vigorous conscription could furnish the soldiers needed.” Emancipation was far from being universally popular in the north and Grant’s casualty lists were endless and heartbreaking. The draft was hated most as victory was most certain and the draft dragnet for the insatiable demands of the generals caused fears among Lincoln’s friends in many States who pleaded for its suspension. This is why nearly 200,000 federal soldiers were furloughed in November 1864 to go home and vote. Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A. Dana reported that “all the power and influence of the War Dept. was employed to secure the reelection of Lincoln”. Even with the soldier vote, Lincoln still managed to lose his home county in Illinois and every county surrounding it. It should be remembered too, that by the end of the War, 1 out of 3 northern soldiers were of German extraction. The Homestead Act of 20 May 1862 offered extraordinary inducements for foreigners to flock to the shores of the northern States, and another Act was passed on 4 July 1864 providing that foreigners might enter into contracts for the payment of their passage money out of their post-arrival earnings. This was done at the time of dwindling enlistments in Mr. Lincoln’s armies when white volunteers were scarce.
US Colored Troops: Federal Enlistment and Conscription Policies For Blacks, 1861-1865 Approximately 160 regiments and 10 batteries of light artillery were organized by northern authorities as State militia or redesignated as US Colored Troops after the establishment of the Bureau of Colored Troops on 22 May 1863. Only the 29th Connecticut, 54th & 55th Massachusetts and 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry maintained State designations throughout the war.
There were 186,017 colored enlisted men who served under the Bureau of Colored Troops, with 104,387 being ex-slaves taken from the Confederate States. Another 44,000 were from the border States and the remainder recruited in the northern States, Colorado Territory, and Canada. Tennessee alone produced 20,133 colored troops. Walter Fleming, in his book “Civil War & Reconstruction in Alabama”, claims that many Negroes who enlisted in northern Alabama were credited to northern States. Instead of the official figure of 4969, he states that a conservative estimate of the Negroes actually enlisted from Alabama would be near 10,000.
In Tom Brooks “All Men Are Brothers”, the author states that the largest source of “free men of color” came from the six British colonies in North America (Canada) with a black population of about 40,000 in 1860, a majority of them living in Canada West, which is present day Ontario. Much of this population were recently freed slaves and were therefore American born. The blacks from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were free blacks whose ancestors fled the South in 1783 as loyalists.
The well-publicized 54th Massachusetts regiment was formed in May, 1863, and became the second black regiment raised in a northern State, recruiting heavily in Canada West. Many “Canadian” blacks went South for the bounty but did not count as Canadians so the numbers from Canada are probably low. At least 18 of the regiment were Canadian and the 57th Massachusetts had 99 Canadian blacks in the ranks. Fourteen Canadian blacks served in the 3rd USCT with half of them being hired as substitutes for American blacks who did not want to serve, and the 18th USCT had 24 Canadian blacks on the roster, all substitutes. George Washington was a Canadian hired substitute who deserted on 16 September 1864, one month after his enlistment. The primary enticement for Canadian blacks was the $100. Bounty paid upon enlistment. The State of Massachusetts lacked a black population sufficient to raise 2000 black enlistments and Governor John Andrew quickly targeted Philadelphia, the city with the largest black population in the free States. Black Philadelphians composed most of the 54th’s “B” Company and nearly all of that regiments ten companies included black Pennsylvania recruits.
Philadelphia was described by Frederick Douglas as “a city in which prejudice against color is…rampant” and recruiting blacks had to be done clandestinely and gathering places held in secret. It should be noted that in 1838, the Philadelphia headquarters of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society had been burned by an anti-black mob.
In James Paradis’s “Strike the Blow For Freedom” an excellent history of the 6th USCT, he states that “the black troops raised in that city (Philadelphia) had to drill eight miles from town in order to quell the concerns of the white population and to keep black recruits out of the city. It was named Camp William Penn, which insulted the local Quakers who objected to naming a military camp after one of their pacifist founders. In September 1863, the 3rd USCT marched off to war through Philadelphia with the Mayor compelling the troops to march unarmed and in civilian clothes so as to not infuriate the white citizens. When the 6th USCT marched the following month, only the white officers were armed though the troops carried muskets but not trusted with ammunition. The 6th US Colored Troops also presents an interesting cross section of enlistments and policies as it consisted of 43% volunteers, 31% conscripted and 26% substitutes. In this unit as an example, 57% of the troops were not volunteers and lays to rest the notion that blacks flocked to the military in order to free their brethren. The recruits came from 23 different States, both north and South as well as DC and over 36% claimed Pennsylvania as their birthplace. Twenty-two recruits were from Canada, and all were enticed by the cash bounties.
The white officers who served in colored regiments were usually more abolitionist and anti slavery in their political beliefs than most northern whites, and the non-coms were mostly white northerners. At first it was difficult to obtain white officers for the USCT as regular army men were generally opposed to blacks in the service. West Pointers were especially adverse to the idea of commanding black troops and ostracized their fellow officers who undertook the task.”
Abolitionist Radicals and the Federal Military: Replacing Democrats With Radical Republicans
The abolitionist influence was felt during the war as radical governors and congressmen favored their own kind for appointments to military positions and worked very hard to cleanse the US military of Democrats who they thought of as Southern sympathizers. What they perceived as Democratic domination of the army infuriated them.
While the radicals pressured Lincoln for a purge of the military to ferret out Democrats in high command, they accomplished their goal by the end his first term and weakened as well the conservatives in his Cabinet positions. The first military Democrat to feel the radical sting was West Pointer George B. McClellan who had all sorts of charges, ranging from treason to incompetence, leveled at him by the radical Congress and press. George W. Julian of Indiana, a rabid abolitionist, sincerely believed McClellan to be a traitor and leaned on Stanton to purge him from leadership. Concerned over the heavy losses sustained by the Republicans in the fall 1861 elections, Lincoln yielded to radical pressure to relieve McClellan. McClellan was stripped of command after several military failures to the cheers of the radicals who wanted their favorite John Pope installed as commander of the Army of the Potomac, which occurred in late 1862. With Pope’s failure at the hands of Lee and Jackson, Lincoln reappointed McClellan to command which lasted until his lack of success once again at Sharpsburg. On November 5th, 1862, one day after the fall elections, he removed McClellan and was criticized for playing politics to please the radicals and planning to purge the army of every general who was not a Republican.
Only a few days prior to McClellan’s dismissal, General Don Carlos Buell of the Department of the Ohio was fired by Lincoln. Being a Democrat and brother in law of Southern general David Twiggs, he was from the first suspected in the minds of the radicals. General Ambrose Burnside, Democrat and West Pointer, saved himself from scorn by going over to the radical camp and escaping the “traitor” label. Grant, who the radicals initially thought of as only a drunkard and incompetent, was more of a politician than most give him credit for being. After gauging the political winds in 1863 and their relation to military promotions, he became a radical and was soon advocating the use of black soldiers. The radical Jacobins were jubilant, Sumner viewed him as a genius, and in December 1863 a bill was presented in Congress to give Grant the new rank of Lt. General…held previously by none other than Washington himself.
As the purge of Democrat West Pointers continued, Fitz John Porter was arrested by Stanton after Second Manassas and tried before a radical dominated courts martial, found guilty and dismissed. Irwin McDowell, an early favorite of the radicals was accused of being a convert to McClellanism and harassed, and Lincoln was under constant pressure to fire Henry Halleck though he managed to keep his General in Chief post to the end of the war. Even Sherman received radical abuse as he endeavored to carry out Lincoln’s directives and atrocities. His dim view toward blacks in the military kept him under suspicion by the Jacobin’s though they applauded his ruthless policies in the South.
It is worth mentioning too that officers with abolitionist sympathies were the ones recruited to lead black units, as West Point graduates and conservative officers avoided such duty. In Joel Williamson’s “After Slavery”, the author mentions Colonel Samuel A. Duncan of the 4th USCT and “his New England abolitionism, his liberal education, and his activist spirit combined to make him a champion of minority rights. Yet, although he was sincerely concerned with the welfare of black Americans, some of Duncan’s attitudes marked him as a product of his time. He believed in racial equality as an abstract principle, but he also believed in the cultural and intellectual superiority of white society. As he wrote (friend) Miss Jones, his interest in a USCT regiment notwithstanding, “as you suggest, I would choose whites for my associates.” He also ventured the opinion that commanding African-Americans was a worthy endeavor for any officer, but only as long as “he does it successfully, as a white man.”
Recruiting Colored Soldiers: Bounties and Unequal Pay
The black soldiers were to be paid a $75. enlistment bounty in addition to $10. per month pay, with $3. deducted for food and clothing allowance, which was less than half of what the white northern soldiers were paid. In New York, relief funds for the families of black recruits was to be paid by the City as was done with white, but the Supervisors in many towns and in the City refused to support the wives of colored men. The Union League in New York City discovered that many black recruits were defrauded of their bounties, and in some cases had every reason to suppose that the black men had been drugged before enlisting. Others had been deceived as to the service expected of them, and the New York Herald printed editorials in which it claimed that those methods of recruitment were the only way to fill the State quota. While some black recruits never received their bounties, others enlisted on the promise of a 30 day furlough that was never granted, at the end of which they would receive their bounty. It is also reported that the 54th Massachusetts served for a year without pay to protest the discriminatory pay policies.
Northern General Milton Littlefield, recruiting for his Florida expedition, called attention to the federal bounty each black recruit would receive and another bounty from the State where he will be accredited. There was a gap between the $300. Bounty Littlefield promised, and the $700. Bounty Jefferson County (New York) actually paid, as it is possible that some of the money stuck to the hands of his friends and associates who took part in the recruiting. During the war, northern States paid nearly $300,000,000 in bounties for recruits to fight their war against the Southern States. One wonders here what direction events would have taken had the northern abolitionists backed their desire for emancipation with the money eventually spent on mercenaries, both white and black. Black soldiers built fortifications along the coasts and up the various rivers as the war progressed. They were engaged in so many menial tasks, instead of fighting, that their officers made numerous complaints, as they would not ascend in rank without combat service. It wasn’t till 1864 that General Lorenzo Thomas issued an order in his department to end “excessive impositions on Negro troops…and that they will only be required to take their fair share of fatigue duty with white troops.” The USCT serving in Vicksburg in 1864 complained bitterly that their wives had been taken away from them and sent to camps or plantations unknown to them. Many of the problems of black desertions can be traced to concern for their families. Laura Haviland, a northern relief worker among black soldiers in 1864 Vicksburg overheard one ex-slave say that “we are concluding to leave our regiment and build something to shelter and house our children.”
The book “After Slavery” by Joel Williamson offers an interesting perspective on the way black soldiers were enlisted by northern States. Williamson mentions that the 150 Negroes mustered into Major General David Hunter’s First South Carolina Regiment of Volunteers were simply unemployed refugees from the inland plantations ravaged and looted by northern raids. He states that “those (blacks) who remained on the plantations and were engaged in planting their crops were far from enthusiastic” about joining the regiment. “ On St. Helena (island), it was reported that only one man volunteered and the missionaries generally agreed that the Negroes were afraid of “being made to fight.” Many slaves were afraid too that the enlistment was a trap to get the able-bodied and send them to Cuba to sell, certainly the slaves knew about the New England slave traders and were wary of them.
Williamson further states “whereas many Negroes volunteered “willingly” in the first few days of General Rufus Saxton’s recruiting campaign, some offered themselves with “dismal forlornness” and others not at all.” Confronted with the reluctance of the Negroes, Saxton intensified his recruiting efforts. Early in November (1863) he organized the first company of Negro soldiers and paraded it ostentatiously in Beaufort.” His efforts attracted little attention, so Saxton was forced to go to refugee-crowded outposts in Florida and Georgetown in order to find bodies to impress into “volunteering.” And, apparently to impress northern civilians with his efforts to reduce the need for white recruits, Hunter had a soldier from the “First South Carolina Volunteers”, Prince Rivers, accompany him on a trip to New York in the spring of 1862. On Broadway, Rivers was attacked by a mod infuriated by the sight of his chevrons, but held his assailants at bay until the police arrived. From his headquarters at Hilton Head, SC, Hunter issued the following order on 16 August 1864: “All able bodied colored men between the ages of 18 and 50 within the military lines of the Department of the South, who have had an opportunity to enlist voluntarily and refused to do so, shall be drafted into the military service of the United States, to serve as non-commissioned officers and soldiers in the various regiments and batteries now being organized in the department”. Confronted with this draft, many blacks volunteered as they really had no alternative and those who refused “were seized in the night by squads of Negro soldiers. On one plantation on St. Helena, Betsy’s husband was thus taken, leaving her with ten children and a “heart most broke.” Those blacks who resisted the draft were roughly treated, and “Josh, who had fled into the marshes, was tracked to his hiding place, and when he again tried to elude his pursuers was shot down and captured. Negro civilians suffered under the draft and resented the manner of its enforcement; yet it was effective. Said one of the superintendents at the end of March, 1863, “the draft is either taking or frightening off most of the men.” Desertion was a continuing problem in black units and was excused usually on the grounds of ignorance. For instance January, a black draftee in the “First South Carolina Volunteers” had to be pulled down from the inside of his chimney by a deserter-hunting squad after leaving his unit.
During his destructive march through Georgia in 1864, General Sherman states that “when we reached Savannah we were beset by ravenous State agents from Hilton Head…who enticed and carried away our servants and the corps of Pioneers…we had organized. On one occasion, my aide de camp found at least one hundred poor Negroes shut up in a house and pen waiting for the night, to be conveyed stealthily to Hilton Head. They appealed to him for protection alleging that they had been told that they must be soldiers, that Mr. Lincoln wanted them….I knew that the State agents were more influenced by the profit they derived from the large bounties than by any love of country or of the colored race. In the words of Mr. Frazier, the enlistment of every black man “did not strengthen the army, but took away one white man from the ranks.”
And this from the Diary of James T. Ayers, Civil War Recruiter…Private James T. Ayers received his appointment as recruiting agent for USCT on 25 December 1863 and he began his duties in northern Alabama. He raised black troops for the 17th USCT and his diary is one of the best first hand accounts of enlisting blacks during the war. Though at times naïve and bungling in his attempts to convince blacks to join the army, Ayers nevertheless was reasonably successful, especially when he had armed black soldiers to assist him. After a town had been taken by northern forces, Ayers would move in and proceed to enlist Negro recruits. He would nail up attractive posters provide by the Adjutant General’s office and announce a meeting at which he would speak. If he succeeded in assembling a number of Negroes, he would appeal to them along two lines; one would be to impress upon his hearers the importance of getting into the fight in order to extend the blessings of liberty to their more unfortunate brothers still enslaved, then he would say that the ten dollars a month would give them security and independence. He further assured the recruits that their families would be protected from Southerners if they enlisted.
While opposition by white Southerners was to be expected, Ayers found surprising the initial reluctance and lack of enthusiasm by the slaves and ex-slaves to join the USCT, complaining frequently that the blacks offered all manner of excuses not to enlist. He gradually became disappointed and disillusioned by the slow recruiting process and wrote in September 1864 that he was heartily sick of coaxing black soldiers to enlist, as they are so trifling and don’t deserve to be free. He had encountered, to his surprise, many blacks who were not interested in fighting for freedom. As a result of his devotion to recruiting, Ayers was arrested in September 1864 on charges of kidnapping blacks and was sent under guard to Huntsville, Alabama by order of a General Granger.
To further underscore the questionable methods used to recruit black soldiers, General John Logan wrote in a letter to Grant that “a major of colored troops is here with his party capturing Negroes, with or without their consent”. General Palmer reported from Virginia to General Benjamin Butler that “the Negroes will not go voluntarily, so I am obliged to force them ….The matter of collecting the colored men for laborers has been one of some difficulty…they must be forced to go”. In the words of General Rufus Saxton, “men have been forced to enlist who had large families”, and on one occasion “three boys, one only 14 years of age were seized in a field where they worked and sent to a regiment”.
From Peter Maslowski’s “Treason Must Be Made Odious”…Reconstruction in Wartime Tennessee. “a third major impressment took place in August and September of 1863 when Union authorities needed 2500 men to work on the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad, which was being built under Andrew Johnson’s direction. By now the military had developed sophisticated impressments techniques. For instance, the patrols would wait until Sunday morning and then raid the crowded black churches. And the troopers did not hesitate to use violence and threats. During one church raid, they shot and killed a black man and threatened others with a similar fate if they tried to escape.” Surely black laborers for the north had good reason to be demoralized: It seemed that they had fled their old masters only to be re-enslaved by new ones, the northern army officers.
In a letter of Lincoln to a Lt. Colonel Glenn in command in Henderson, Kentucky, 7 February 1865….”complaint is made to me that you are forcing Negroes into the military service and even torturing them” and Lincoln reproves this, though not too severely, and then forbids it. Remember, at this point white northern enlistments had dwindled and all Lincoln had left were impressed USCT and foreign mercenaries acquired through bounties and Homestead Acts.
There is certainly no doubt that some black northern soldiers had a desire to fight, but poor and indifferent leadership often led to USCT being perceived as incompetent. After the disastrous July 1864 Battle for The Crater in Petersburg, (Edward A. Miller’s “Black Soldiers of Illinois”) the unanswered question was whether USCT were better used in major combat operations or on fatigue duty---meaning hard labor on fortifications for white troops. The 29th USCT at The Crater experienced the true depth of abolitionist empathy for their race as white northern officers trapped in the Crater with their black troops and surrender imminent, removed their shoulder rank so as not to appear to be in charge of black troops. When captured, white officers said “they had been forced in; they could not avoid commanding blacks.” or they bayoneted their black troops so they could not identify their officers. The white northern officers then boasted that the blacks had been disposed of before the Confederates captured northern positions, hoping this would save their lives. At the same battle, the white 13th Indiana Regiment deliberately shot down retreating black troops. Wounded black troops from the Crater were treated at a depot for the wounded, not a hospital as white troops had been. It was said that “Mortality was frightfully large” among the black troops. The post-battle reports of the Crater nearly without exception, said that black misconduct or simply the presence of black regiments on the field was responsible for the (Crater) disaster.” A newspaper reported that the battle went well, “till the colored division was ordered to carry the hill”. The blacks became “disordered and disorganized” and twice “recoiled before the destructive fire of the enemy.”
Roanoke Island, NC in Federal Hands: Northern Social Experiment in North Carolina
There is much reported about the noble experiment in emancipation at Roanoke Island, North Carolina after northern troops occupied the northeastern part of the State early in the war. But the glowing stories of success are blunted by the 1864 Annual Report of the Superintendent General of Negro Affairs, Department of Virginia & North Carolina, Major George J. Carney, US Army.
He states, “colored soldiers were first recruited on Roanoke Island by Brig. General E. A. Wild on 19 June 1863, a total of 100 having enlisted despite not having been paid for previous labor.” (the bill to enlist colored soldiers did not pass Congress till 16 July 1863)
“After the passage by Congress of the Bill permitting the enlistment in rebel States of soldiers to be counted upon the quota of the loyal States enlisting them, the City of New Bern was flooded with recruiting agents and able bodied Negroes were in great demand. But of the 250 who were enlisted from this District, and who were said to have received heavy (enlistment) bounties, few presented any appearance of having been thus furnished. Their families are nearly as dependent on the government for food as if no bounty had been offered or paid, suggesting the suspicion that the money found its way into the wrong pocket. While some of the recruiting agents in North Carolina were persons of integrity and honor…it is not too much to say that others were scoundrels of the deepest dye, who left the District enriched with ill-gotten gains.”
Major Carney continues: “the colored population of the island would have been much less dependent upon the government if the government had met its engagements with them. Immediately upon the occupancy of Roanoke Island by the Union troops, the Negroes began to be employed by the Quartermasters, Surgeons, Engineers and other government officers upon verbal promises to pay at rates varying from $8. to $25. per month. Oftentimes, the freedmen were never paid and the laborer was deliberately swindled out of his earnings by some officer leaving the service. The Report Roll embraced unsettled accounts amounting to over $18,500. Major Carney concluded his report with “fearing that it will never be repaid, I have exhorted the freedmen to consider this loss as one of the sacrifices for freedom; as something that they should willingly bear for the country’s good.”
Conclusion:
Of the over 186,000 USCT who served in the northern army, 68,000 died. Of that number, only 2000 died in battle with the remaining 66,000 dying of sickness and disease. The infamous army camp of Riker’s Island, New York probably had much to do with this as well as the forced labor by northern army commanders. A very sad testament to the small, but well publicized contribution of blacks to northern war effort is this: “During the Washington Grand Review parade of northern troops in May 1865, most obvious was the exclusion of the black regiments, some of which had served a good deal longer than the white units on parade. The few blacks in the review marched as parts of pick and shovel brigades or were included as comic relief. Two large black soldiers with Sherman’s army were displayed riding on very small mules, their feet nearly touching the ground. Neither the black former slave nor the free black soldier was to be the hero of this national pageant.”
On a final note, author Dr. Edward Smith tells us that the first military monument in the US Capitol that honors a black soldier is the Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemetery. It was designed in 1914 by Jewish Confederate Moses Ezekiel, who wanted to accurately portray the make-up of Southern forces. It shows a black soldier marching in step with white soldiers, and a white soldier giving his child to a black woman for protection.
Bibliography and Recommended Reading:
Glorious Contentment, The GAR Stuart McConnell 1992 UNC Press
After Slavery Joel Williamson 1965 UNC Press
Slave and Soldier Peter M. Voelz 1993 Garland Publishing, Inc
America’s Caesar Greg Loren Durand 2001 Crown Rights Book Company
Lincoln And The Negro Benjamin Quarles 1962/1990 Da Capo Press
The Real Lincoln Charles L.C. Minor 1992 Sprinkle Publications
Strike the Blow for Freedom James M. Paradis 1998 White Mane Books
The Diary of James T. Ayers 1947/1999 LSU Press
Treason Must Be Made Odious Peter Maslowski 1978 KTO Press
Black Soldiers of Illinois, The 29th USCT Edward A. Miller 1998 University of South Carolina Press
Strike The Blow For Freedom, The 6th USCT James m. Paradis 1998 White Mane Books
Army of Amateurs, Army of the James Edward G. Longacre 1997 Stackpole Books
Lincoln and the Radicals T. Harry Williams 1965 University of Wisconsin Press
Black Southerners in Confederate Forces J.H. Seegars, Charles Barrow 2001 Southern Lion Books
Black Southerners in Grey Richard Rollins, Editor 1994 Rank & File Publications
Forgotten Confederates J.H. Seegars, Charles Barrow, R.B. Rosenburg 1995 Southern Heritage Press
The Afro-American Slaves: Community or Chaos? Randall M. Miller 1981 Robert E. Kreiger Publishing Company
The Louisiana Native Guards J.G. Hollandsworth 1995 LSU Press
The Prince of Carpetbaggers Jonathan Daniels 1958 J.B. Lippincott Company
Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas John G. Barrett 1956 UNC Press
Slave and Soldier Peter M. Voelz 1993 Garland Publishing
The Black Experience in Revolutionary North Carolina Jeffrey J. Crow 1977 NC Dept. of Cultural Resources
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men Jeffrey Hummel 1996 Open Court Publishing
The Free Negro In North Carolina John Hope Franklin 1943/1995 UNC Press
From Slavery To Freedom, A History of Negro Americans John Hope Franklin 1988 Alfred A. Knopf |