Freedmen as Soldiers


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Despite the fact that African-Americans had served in both the American Revolution and the War of 1812, they were turned away when they tried to enlist in the Union army at the beginning of the Civil War. During the same period, the South was using the labor of slaves to support its war effort. When Generals Fremont and Hunter attempted to train slaves as soldiers, Lincoln quickly ordered them to stop. Their experiments did, however, intensify the debate over the use of African-Americans in the military. Finally, with Congress's adoption of the Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862 and Lincoln's pronouncement of the Emancipation Proclamation, the way became clear for the enlistment of black troops.

In 1862, the 1st Regiment, Louisiana Native Guards and the First South Carolina (African-American) Volunteers received close scrutiny from the press when they became two of the first African-American regiments to be officially mustered into the Union army. However, while black soldiers quickly proved their worth, they received lower pay than white soldiers, were generally commanded by white officers, and were often assigned to menial roles as cooks, or "washerwomen," and teamsters.

Representations of African-American soldiers in the press reflected the complex, conflicting, and shifting racial attitudes of those in the North. Northern newspapers such as Frank Leslie's and Harper's Weekly included reports praising the exploits of individual slaves who managed to control of Southern ships or land and the performance of black troops in key battles. Some of the most positive depicitions of African-American soldiers came in the reports of Southern atrocities at the battles of Fort Pillow and Milliken Bend, probably both because of the sympathy those events provoked and the way they appealed to anti-Southern feelings in the North. And yet, these positive accounts appear virtually side-by side with racist jokes and cartoons, a state of affairs that probably reflects the conflicted opinions of Northern readers on the subject of race. Benjamin Butler and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, white men who commanded African-American regiments, were outspoken in their praise of the men who served with them. And the letters of Freedmen's teachers allow us to see yet another side of African-American soldiers: their love of learning.

You can find a Timeline of African-American Participation in the Civil War at the bottom of this page.

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The Response to General Fremont's Attempt to Free and Enlist Slaves


In August of 1861, John Charles Fremont, the general in command of the Department of the West, issued a proclamation declaring:

All persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within these lines shall be tried by court martial, and, if found guility, will be shot. The property, real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri, who shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use, and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men.

When Fremont refused the president's request to modify his order, Lincoln rescinded Fremont's proclamation and removed him from command.

 


“Sorry to Have to Drop You, Sambo, But This Concern Won't Carry Us Both,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, October 12, 1861, 352.

 

Comments on Fremont's Declaration

The direct consequences of [Fremont's] decree, so far as slavery in Missouri is concerned, can not be of much importance. Missouri does not contain 125,000 slaves, and of these considerably more than one half are believed to be held by loyal men. Moreover, under the terms of Fremont's proclamation, no slave can be emancipated until it is proved that his owner has been actually in arms, or laboring actively in aid of those who are in arms against the Government: a large number of slaves may thus be defrauded of emancipation through the want of evidence to establish the treason of their masters. It is doubtful whether 25,000 human beings will exchange slavery for freedom under the proclamation of General Fremont.

But its moral effect must be signal. It is a solemn warning to the inhabitants of the rebel States, that wherever the armies of the United States are resisted in the interests of slavery, the cause of the resistance will be removed. It is a pregnant hint that the rebels who have falsely accused us of being abolitionists may, if they choose, make their accusation true. It is a notification to Kentucky, which seems to be on the eve of explosion, that open treason will necessarily involve the extirpation of slavery. This rebellion has more than once recalled the old adage, " Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first render mad:" we shall now see how far the madness extends. The cost of rebellion is abolition. Those who choose may purchase.

Another important result of General Fremont's proclamation has been the discovery of the fact that the people of the North are much more solidly united on the question of slavery than was imagined. It had been generally supposed that the first utterance of the cry of emancipation would divide the North into two hostile camps. How this strange delusion came to be entertained it is difficult to discover; the least reflection should have satisfied every one that it was impossible to build up at the North a party based on protection to slavery any where. But, however the notion originated, there is no doubt it did exist, and that leading men and journals in the confidence of the Administration were so thoroughly imbued with it, that they indignantly repudiated the imputation of being friendly to freedom under any circumstances. It seems, from the temper in which the public receive General Fremont's proclamation, that they are not so tender on the subject. They seem very well satisfied with the prospect. We hear no complaints, no lamentations over the downfall of slavery in Missouri. The respectable Democrats of this part of the country express themselves rather pleased than otherwise. Of course, it must be expected that the lottery-policy dealers and the profligate vagabonds who pretend to represent the Democracy in convention will testify their sorrow at the event, as they will do at every success of the National arms: but neither in this nor in any other particular do they express the sense of the rank and file of the Democracy.

What people want now is decided, startling, effective successes on the part of the United States. If these are achieved, no one will complain of what they may cost. Our Generals may emancipate every slave in the country, and lay waste every field from the Potomac to the Rio Grande-the people will sustain them, provided they crush out the enemy and restore the supremacy of the Government. But there will be no mercy for the general who, for fear of breaking a law or dividing a party, suffers the rebels to progress from victory to victory, and the Stars and Stripes to endure defeat after defeat, and disgrace after disgrace.

--"The Beginning of the End," Harper's Weekly, September 14, 1861, 578

It has been intimated that the government would disapprove of General Fremont's proclamation. We discredit the report. Considerations of policy, or false notions of conciliation, may have hitherto induced the Administration to treat certain "delicate questions" --for it is in this dainty way that a portion of the press speak of the atrocity of Slavery--with great circumspection, and to affect a desire to keep them entirely out of the contest, just as if the whole world does not know that Slavery is at the beginning and the end, is the very essence and body, the motive and sustaining power of the present struggle on the part of the rebel States. But we hope the stern teachings of the past five months have taught it the folly of masking a purpose which must sooner or later be avowed, and through the execution of which alone can the country be restored and its peace and prosperity secured.

--"General Fremont's Proclamation--Emancipation," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 21, 1861, 290

Two methods of treating these newcomers seemed equally logical to opposite sorts of minds. Ben Butler, in Virginia, quickly declared slave property contraband of war, and put the fugitives to work; while Fremont, in Missouri, declared the slaves free under martial law. Butler's action was approved, but Fremont's was hastily countermanded, and his successor, Halleck, saw things differently. "Hereafter," he commanded, "no slaves should be allowed to come into your lines at all; if any come without your knowledge, when owners call for them deliver them." Such a policy was difficult to enforce; some of the black refugees declared themselves freemen, others showed that their masters had deserted them, and still others were captured with forts and plantations. Evidently, too, slaves were a source of strength to the Confederacy, and were being used as laborers and producers. "They constitute a military resource," wrote Secretary Cameron, late in 1861; "and being such, that they should not be turned over to the enemy is too plain to discuss." So gradually the tone of the army chiefs changed; Congress forbade the rendition of fugitives, and Butler's "contrabands" were welcomed as military laborers. This complicated rather than solved the problem, for now the scattering fugitives became a steady stream, which flowed faster as the armies marched.

--W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903.

 

The Response to General Hunter's Attempt to Free and Enlist Slaves


In May, 1862, General David Hunter, Union commander in the South Carolina Sea Islands, issued "Order No. 11" emancipating all slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Hunter also attempted to organize an African-American regiment, the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry at Beaufort.

General Orders No 11.—The three States of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, comprising the military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States—Georgia, Florida and South Carolina—heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.

(Official) David Hunter,
Major General Commanding

When Congressman Wickliffe of Kentucky introduced a measure in Congress demanding to know whether Hunter had organized black troops, Hunter replied:


General David Hunter,
New-York Illustrated News, June 7, 1862, 76

No regiment of "fugitive slaves" has been or is organized in this department. There is, however, a fine regiment of persons whose late masters are "fugitive rebels," men who everywhere fly before the appearance of the national flag, leaving their servants behind them to shift as best they can for themselves.

--General Hunter to Edwin M. Stanton, Port Royal, June 23, 1862

Hunter went on to say concerning his African-American troops:

The experiment of arming the blacks, so far as I have made it, has been a complete and even marvelous success. They are sober, docile, attentive, and enthusiastic, displaying great natural capacities in acquiring the duties of the soldier.

Fearing that the border states would join the rebellion if the status of slavery was challenged, and hoping to institute a system of compensated emancipation, Lincoln firmly rejected Hunter's position. No funds were provided for the black troops, the forces were disbanded, and Hunter's proclamation was revoked by the president himself.

 

The President Responds to Hunter's Orders

All persons of color lately held to involuntary service by enemies of the United States in Fort Pulaski and on Cockspur Island, Georgia, are hereby confiscated and declared free, in conformity with the law, and shall here after receive the fruits of their own labor." 

--General Order 7, April, 1862  

Washington [D.C.] this nineteenth day of May,
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.

Whereas there appears in the public prints, what purports to be a proclamation, of Major General Hunter, in the words and figures following, to wit:

Head Quarters Department of the South,
Hilton Head, S.C. May 9, 1862.

General Orders No 11.—The three States of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, comprising the military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States—Georgia, Florida and South Carolina—heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.

(Official) David Hunter,
Major General Commanding.

Ed. W. Smith,
Acting Assistant Adjutant General.

And whereas the same is producing some excitement, and misunderstanding; therefore

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim and declare, that the government of the United States, had no knowledge, information, or belief, of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a proclamation; nor has it yet, any authentic information that the document is genuine— And further, that neither General Hunter, nor any other commander, or person, has been authorized by the Government of the United States, to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any State free; and that the supposed proclamation, now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.

I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States, free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.

On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows:

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested in the subject matter. To the people of those States I now earnestly appeal— I do not argue, I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves— You can not if you would, be blind to the signs of the times— I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partizan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any— It acts not the pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done, by one effort, in all past time, as, in the providence of God, it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Abraham Lincoln


The response to Lincoln's order revoking Hunter's emancipation directive was mixed. Harper's Weekly praised Lincon's words as a potentially effective "threat and warning" to the south. Horace Greeley used the New York Tribune to denounce Lincoln's "mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery," and complain to the president: "Why these traitors should be treated with tenderness by you, to the prejudice of the dearest rights of loyal men, we cannot conceive." Frank Leslie's celebrated Lincoln's appeal to the border States for being in the spirit of the statement "a father might make to his children."

Sometimes the commentary was mixed even within the pages of a single paper--or a single article. One response in Frank Leslie's chiding Hunter for taking unnecessary actions while admitting that he was working at a disadvantage caused by the fact that the confederates used slave labor. And in items such as the one below on "The Negro Minstrel Military" Frank Leslie's also drew upon familiar racial stereotypes in order to depict the recruitment of African-Americans as a source of comedy.

 

The Press Responds to Lincoln's Orders

We publish in another column the President's Proclamation rescinding the General Order of General Hunter, by which the slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida were freed. The President takes the ground that the right of emancipating negroes under the war power belongs to him, and that he does not choose to delegate it to commanders in the field.

This message will satisfy the conservative people in the Northern States. So grave a question as the abolition of slavery in the States can not be left to the discretion of military officers. A uniform policy must be adopted by the Government, and carried out in every case. The only person who can determine that policy is the President, and he only does his duty when be refuses to share the privilege and the responsibility.

The closing paragraph of the Proclamation indicates clearly enough to which side the President's sympathies and inclinations lean. Indeed, it may be regarded somewhat in the light of a threat and a warning. He appeals to the people of the slaveholding States to accept the generous offer made to them by Congress while it is yet time. The "signs of the times," he warns them, point to the abolition of an institution which is not in harmony with the spirit of the age or reconcilable with the peace of the country. It is for the Slave States to decide whether they will run the risk of having it abolished under the war power, with suddenness and disaster, and without compensation, or whether they will have the sagacity to anticipate necessity, and avail themselves of a Congressional subsidy. The country pauses to hear Maryland's answer.

--"The President's Proclamation, Harper's Weekly, May 31, 1862, 338

While it is true that Gen. Hunter has the right, if he thinks military emergencies require his exercise, to "free for ever" every slave within his jurisdiction, yet he is an officer amenable to the Government, and must conform to the instructions imposed by it. There was no great military emergency in his case, requiring him to enter upon sweeping confiscation, before being able to consult with his superiors. In doing so he committed a gross blunder, which the President has been called on to set right and remedy by the present proclamation. We can understand that Gen. Hunter, finding himself hemmed in and his advance in every direction, except by sea, checked and circumscribed by fortifications erected by slaves working under compulsion, may have thought it expedient to attempt to nullify and paralyze this hostile element and energy. A man withdrawn from the trenches is a man withdrawn from the field. The rebel force with which we have to contend is made up of two classes, white men bearing arms, and black men building fortifications, driving army trains, and doing the heavy and often menial work, which in our army devolves upon our volunteers in detriment of their capacity and efficiency as soldiers. To withdraw the black men from the rebel ranks is to subtract almost half the effective force of the rebel army. If Gen. hunter's proclamation would do this, or even the President's proclamation, it would be the plain duty of each to issue it. But there may be Union men whose slaves have not been so employed. Any measure resulting from military necessities cannot and should not apply to them.

The President's proclamation is Abraham Lincoln's own--rugged, direct, simple and earnest. It is pervaded by a spirit sympathetic and paternal, and the appeal to the border States is such as a father might make to his children.

To ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
President of the United States

DEAR SIR: I do not intrude to tell you--for you must know already--that a great proportion of those who triumphed in you election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain. . . .

On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile--that the Rebellion, if crushed out tomorrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor--that Army officers who remain to this day devoted to Slavery can at best be but half-way loyal to the Union--and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union, I appeal to the testimony of your Ambassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not at mine. Ask them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slaveholding, slavery-upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair of statesmen of all parties, and be admonished by the general answer.

IX. I close as I began with the statement that what an immense majority of the Loyal Millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act. That Act gives freedom to the slaves of Rebels coming within our lines, or whom those lines may at any time inclose--we ask you to render it due obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognize and obey it. The rebels are everywhere using the late anti-negro riots in the North, as they have long used your officers' treatment of negroes in the South, to convince the slaves that they have nothing to hope from a Union success-that we mean in that case to sell them into a bitter bondage to defray the cost of war. Let them impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and credulous bondsmen, and the Union will never be restored-never. We cannot conquer Ten Millions of People united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by the Northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers and choppers from the Blacks of the South, whether we allow them to fight for us or not, or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that Principle and Honor, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is dispensable not only to the existence of our country to the well being of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.

Yours,
Horace Greeley
New York, August 19, 1862

--Horace Greeley, "A Prayer for Twenty Millions," New York Tribune, August 20, 1862

 


"The War in South Carolina--Recruiting for the Contranband Brigade, Near Beaufort, By Order of Major-General Hunter, May 13," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 7, 1862, 145

 


"Carrying the War into Africa!"--A Portion of the First Carolina Contraband Brigade Leaves for Hilton Head on Board the Steamer Mattano--From a Sketch by Our Special Artist, W. C. Crane--See Page 147," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 7, 1862, 145

 

In the Northern popular mind every contraband is associated with a white row of ivory, "yah! yah!" and a banjo. That, like an Englishman's h's, an Irishman's jokes, a Yankee's whittling, or a Southerner's whip, is supposed to be "the make-up" of that "sable race" which forms the "peculiar institution" of our Republic. As all our readers are aware, Gen. Hunter has ordered the formation of a Negro Brigade, as a set-off to the Slave Regiments of the South. Not to degrade the Anglo-Saxon race by putting the sons of Ham beside the sons of Alfred and the countrymen of Washington and Shakespeare, but to warn the rebels of the danger they run in bringing that peculiar element into play-for it requires no prophet to tell us what would be the result of a National Negro Brigade marching through the Cotton States. The torch tied to the fox's tail among the cornfields of the Philistines would be faintly significant of the terrible results, and for which the rebels would alone have themselves to thank. Our Artist declares that nothing could exceed the grotesque mixture of tragedy and comedy exhibited by the dusky recruits and their relatives; some, forgetting that they were always exposed to be torn apart by a merciless Legree, howled over a temporary and profitable absence, undergone at the option of the chief party concerned. So unreasoning has oppression made this race! Others were as proud as though their beloved contrabands were going to be made commanders-in-chief, with no fighting to do, double pay, and extra rum and repose. As a significant phase of the war, our Artist sends us the two sketches we have engraved for the present number.

--"Carrying the War Into Africa: The Black Brigade, or the Darkey Division--Contraband Conquerors--The Sable Sharpshooters--The Negro Minstrel Military," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 7, 1862, 147.

 

 

The Debate Over Using African-Americans in the Military


Although Fremont's and Hunter's experiments in transforming slaves into soldiers were rejected by Lincoln, they prompted a national discussion of the idea of African-Americans in the military. On one side of the argument were the people who insisted that blacks were unfit for the military; on the other side were those who believed that savageness and the desire for revenge would make African-Americans particularly effective in battle. (See "The Great Remedy" as one example of a depiction of black soldiers as animalistic.) People also debated how the use of African-American troops would affect the meaning of the war. Some argued that arming African-Americans would wrongly suggest that the purpose of the war was to abolish slavery, others maintained that the arming of African-Americans should be seen as a military necessity that had nothing to do with the war's significance, and still others insisted that redefining the war as a fight against slavery would intensify patriotic spirit in the North.

 

Arguments Against Enlisting Black Troops Summarized
by the New York Times

1) That the negro will not fight; 2) It is said that whites will not fight with them, - that the prejudice against them is so strong that our own citizens will not enlist, or will quit the service, if compelled to fight by their side, - and that we shall thus lose two white soldiers for every black one that we gain; 3) It is said we shall get no negroes;or not enough to prove of any service; 4) The use of negroes will exasperate the South: and some of our Peace Democrats make that an objection to the measure.

--New York Times, February 16, 1863

 

Arguments in the Press in Favor of Enlisting Black Troops

The Need for More Troops

[Note: On August 4, 1862 Lincoln had issued an executive order calling for an additional 300,000 troops, which would be drafted if a sufficient number of volunteers did not step forward.]

We're coming, Father Abraäm, we're coming all along,
But don't you think you're coming it yourself a little strong?
Three hundred thousand might be called a pretty tidy figure,
We've nearly sent you white enough, why don't you take the nigger?

. . . As the matter stands, Old Abe, we've this opinion, some,
If you say Come, as citizens of course we're bound to come,
But then we want to win, you see: if Strategy prevents,
We wish you'd use the nigger for these here experiments.

Hereditary bondsman, he should just be made to know
He'd convenience us uncommon if he'd take and strike a blow.
The man as will not fight for freedom isn't worth a cuss,
And it's better using niggers up than citizens like us.

So, Father Abraäm, if you please, in this here game of chess,
You'd better take the black men against the white, I guess,
And if you work the niggers off before rebellion's slain,
Which surely ain't expectable--apply to us again.--Punch

--"To Abraham Lincoln, On His Demand for Three Hundred Thousand Men," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (reprinted from Punch), September 20, 1862, 406

The Need to Offset the Use of African-Americans by the South
--And to Control African-Americans

The South is using her black people against us. She puts spades, axes, and hammers into the hands of some, and arms, it is said, into the hands of others. Thus strongly does she invite us to use our black people against her. Unless the war shall be ended very soon, black regiments wil be seen marching Southward. God forbid that we should arm the slaves unless it be such of them as come into military organizations and under intelligent and merciful guidance. Certainly, so long as they can be made free otherwise, it would be great wickedness to arm them and leave them to their own ignorant, wild, and revengeful impulses. I would commend General Butler for restraining the slaves from falling upon their masters and mistresses. But I would have him either put them into his ranks and subject them to military rule, or send them where they can be harmless as well as free. The South is, however, provoking servile insurrections, and the provoked North is on the eve of welcoming them.

--“More About the War for the Union,”Gerrit Smith, Boston Journal, June 1, 1862

Historical Precedent

Colored men were good enough to fight under Washington. They are not good enough to fight under McClellan. They were good enough to fight under Andrew Jackson. They are not good enough to fight under Gen. Halleck. They were good enough to help win American Independence but they are not good enough to help preserve that independence against treason and rebellion. They were good enough to defend New Orleans but not good enough to defend our poor beleaguered Capital.

--Frederick Douglass, "The Black Man's Future in the Southern States," February 5, 1862

Is the present war so much higher and holier than the war of the Revolution, that the employment of black soldiers would lower its character or debase its purposes? Are our Generals so much better than Washington, and Jefferson, and Jackson, that they may be contaminated by the apparition of negro regiments in their camps? Are we so strong that we need no assistance in the field?

--"What Our Fathers Did," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 20, 1862, 403

The Need for More Troops AND
the Belief that Freedmen Should Have to Earn Their Keep

The problem how to employ the contrabands will necessarily be solved by the war. Necessity will compel us to use them as soldiers. We shall require, to garrison the strategic points in the enormous country which we have undertaken to overrun, more troops than even the populous North can provide. It is clear that even a million of men will be found too few to attack and defeat the rebel armies, storm the rebel forts, and at the same time hold and occupy each point we take. A quarter of a million troops, in detached forts, may not prove too many to hold the line of the Mississippi River, after it has been reopened by our armies and our flotilla. For this service the negroes are well adapted, and whatever scruples may be entertained by individual generals, the logic of events compels us to assign them to it at several points. The work has already been successfully begun. We have a negro regiment at Hilton Head, and a negro brigade at New Orleans. A bill is pending before Congress for the equipment of 200 negro regiments of 1000 men each, and the feeling among loyal men is in favor of its passage. We shall have to feed and clothe the emancipated negroes, and there is no present way of making them earn their living except by making them garrison our forts. The rebels, as the cut on the preceding page shows plainly, have no scruples against arming them. We can safely follow their example.

--"Negro Emancipation," Harpers Weekly, January 10, 1863

The Need for African-Americans to Win Public Respect and Rights

Two questions are concerned in the social problem of our time. One is, ‘Will the people of African descent work for a living? and the other is, Will they fight for their freedom? An affirmative answer to these must be put beyond any fair dispute before they will receive permanent security in law or opinion.

--Edward Pierce, "The Freedmen at Port Royal," The Atlantic Monthly, 12, 71, September, 1863, 291

 


Vanity Fair lampooned Horace Greeley for his enthusiasm for the use of black troops in a satirical piece on the "War Notions of a Lay Brigadier," February, 1863, 30.

 

Congress & the President Authorize the Recruitment of African-American Soldiers


Laws prohibiting African-Americans from serving in the military have usually been overlooked when troops were needed. Blacks served on both sides in the American Revolution, and although the Uniform Militia Act of 1792 had specified that the militia was to be composed of "free, able-bodied white male citizen(s) between the ages of eighteen and forty-five," African-Americans also served in the war of 1812. During the Civil War, Congress the Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862, to give the President the authority to:

receive into the service of the United States, for the purpose of constructing intrenchments, or performing camp service or any other labor, or any military or naval service for which they may be found competent, persons of African descent, and such persons shall be enrolled and organized under such regulations, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws, as the President may prescribe.

(The same act authorized the president to "make provision for the transportation, colonization, and settlement, in some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States, of such persons of the African race, made free by the provisions of this act, as may be willing to emigrate.")

Lincoln exercised his authority to enlist black troops when he announced in the Emancipation Proclamation that

persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

--The Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863

In fact, the mounting pressure to procure more troops was an important factor in motivating Lincoln to put the Emancipation Proclamation into effect on January 1, 1863, simultaneously freeing slaves in particular territories and declaring them eligible to serve in the military.

 


"The War on the Mississippi--Negro Recruits Taking the Cars for Murfreesboro--From a Sketch By Our Special Artist, C.E. Hillen, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, May 7, 1864, 109

 

The First African-American Regiments and Their Reception


Many of the soldiers of the first African-American regiments to fight for the North enlisted long before they were officially mustered into the Union army. The Louisiana Native Guard started out in the service of the confederacy. The soldiers recruited in South Carolina by General Hunter in May of 1862 and then disbanded under orders from Lincoln ultimately became the First South Carolina (African-American) Volunteers under Thomas Wentworth Higginson in November, 1862, and the First Kansas Colored Volunteers were recruited against Lincoln's orders by an abolitionist senator beginning in July ,1862 and were only accepted into the army in January, 1863, two and a half months after their first battle.

 

The Louisiana Native Guard

In 1861, a group of free African-Americans living in New Orleans offered their services to the Confederate Army and became the Louisiana Native Guard. Never fully accepted, they were officially disbanded in 1862. However, when he needed reinforcements after capturing New Orleans, Union General Benjamin Butler issued General Orders No. 63 appealing to the Native Guard:

Now, therefore, the Commanding General, believing that a large portion of this militia force of the State of Louisiana are willing to take service in the Volunteer forces of the United States. . . . Appreciating their motives, relying upon their "well-known loyalty and patriotism," and with "praise and respect" for these brave men, it is ordered that all the members of the "Native Guards" aforesaid, and all other free colored citizens recognized by the first and late Governor and Authorities of the State of Louisiana as a portion of the Militia of the State, who shall enlist in the Volunteer Service of the United States, shall be duly organized by the appointment of proper officers, and accepted, paid, equipped, armed, and rationed as are other Volunteer Troops of the United States, subject to the approval of the President of the United States. 26

On September 27, 1862, the 1st Louisiana Native Guard became the first black regiment officially mustered into the Union army.

 

The Origins of the First Black Regiment in the Union Army:
African-American Soldiers in the Confederate Army

The New Orleans Picayune, of Jan. 10th, gives an account of a grand review of the rebel troops in that city on the previous day, from which we copy the following significant paragraph:

“We must also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very well drilled and comfortably uniformed. Most of these companies, quite unaided by the Administration, have supplied themselves with arms without regard to cost or trouble. One of these presented, a little before the parade, with a fine war flag of the new style. This interesting ceremony took place at Mr. Cushing’s store, on Camp, near Common street. The presentation was made by Mr. Bigney, and Jordan made, on this occasion, one of his most felicitous speeches.}

—"Negro Soldiers in New Orleans," Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, March 8, 1862, 243

 

 

INTERESTING OCCASION--Several gentlemen in Boston extended a complimentary dinner, Tuesday, to two colored gentlemen from New Orleans, named John Baptiste Roudanez and captain Arnold Bertonneau. These gentlemen are men of property in New Orleans, Mr. Roundanez being a machinist and engineer, and captain Bertonneau a wine merchant. The latter was commissioned a captain in the first colored regiment that was formed in Louisiana. The fathers of these gentlemen were both French and their mothers African. Messrs. Roudanez and Bertonneau left New Orleans on a mission to the president, asking that the privilege of voting might be given to the colored people of Louisiana. Gov. Andrew presided, and eloquent speeches were made by the guests of the evening, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, John G. Palfrey, Frederick Douglass, and several other anti-slavery men. We quote from the Advertiser the following sketch of the remarks of captain Bertoneau:--

He said that before the outbreak of the rebellion there were 43,000 colored people in Louisiana and 312,000 held in slavery. In the city of New Orleans there were 30,000 free colored people; of these only 1000 could read or write. They always have been on the side of good order, peaceful, always loyal. They were taxed to support the schools, and yet their children were not allowed the privilege of attending these schools; their property has been taxed for the support of the state, yet they have always been prohibited from exercising the elective franchise. When the first shot was fired in this rebellion, Louisiana joined the rebels. With no arms, and educated to the belief that the colored man had no rights which the white man would respect, the condition of the colored people were truly perilous. Situated as we were, asked the speaker, could we do otherwise than volunteer in the rebel army, could we have adopted a better policy? In the city of New Orleans the colored people raised a regiment, and when Gen. Butler captured the city and drove the rebels from the state, the colored people were most loyal; he knew upon whom he could rely, in whose fidelity he could safely trust. The colored people of Louisiana venerate his name, with them it is a household word, they bless his memory and will always hold it in grateful remembrance. The speaker said, we were animated by new hopes and desires and felt as if there was a new life before us, and gave our imagination full play. The tyrant who punished the slave was before the general and received proper attention. When Gen. Butler was removed, the colored people were much disappointed, they regretted the removal of a general who was determined to bring Louisiana back into the Union as free as the state of Massachusetts. The speaker referred to the rebels, and to the raising of a colored regiment in forty-eight hours. He said the colored soldiers were promised the same pay as white soldiers, but it was cut down, and they were charged for their uniforms, making them indebted to the United States for $6 each. He spoke of the elective franchise, and said that to secure those rights which belong to every citizen the colored people ask the aid of every true loyal man all over the country. Slavery, the cause of this rebellion, he said, can never again exist in Louisiana, but with slavery abolished must vanish every prestige of oppression: the colored man must be allowed to vote, the doors of the public schools must be open to their children so they may study together.

--"Interesting Occasion," The Massachusetts Spy, April 20, 1864

 


"The Man Who Won the Elephant at the Rafle. Gen. Weitzel--"BUT THE QUESTION IS, WHAT AM I TO DO WITH THE CREATURE?" (See Gen. Weitzel's Report to Gen. Butler on Capturing Several Hundred Wagon-Loads of Niggers," Civil War Cartoon Collection, American Antiquarian Society, January, 1863


The cartoon above refers to the African-Americans as "Niggers" and represents them as a large and unwieldy problem for the Union army and particularly for General Weitzel.

In November of 1862, Brig. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel threatened to resign rather than command African-American soldiers of the Louisiana Native Guard. Weitzel complained to General Butler that the presence of black troops in an area where blacks outnumbered whites might inspire a slave rebellion. Butler impatiently responded that Weitzel was not charged with protecting the enemies of the Union "from the consequences of their own rebellious wickedness."

Ironically, only six months later, African-American troops under Weitzel's command would win wide respect by capturing Port Hudson despite overwhelming odds, and when Richmond was captured in the fall of 1865, it was Weitzel's African-American cavalrymen of the Twenty-fifth Corps who first entered the city. Here is how the situation was described by Oswald Garrison Villard in his 1903 Atlantic Monthly essay, "The Negro in the Regular Army, "

General Weitzel tendered his resignation the instant General B. F. Butler assigned black soldiers to his brigade, and was with difficulty induced to serve on. His change of mind was a wise one, and not only because these colored soldiers covered him with glory at Port Hudson. It was his good fortune to be the central figure in one of the dramatic incidents of a war that must ever rank among the most thrilling and tragic the world has seen. The black cavalrymen who rode into Richmond, the first of the Northern troops to enter the Southern capital, went in waving their sabres and crying to the negroes on the sidewalks, "We have come to set you free!" They were from the division of Godfrey Weitzel, and American history has no more stirring moment.

 
 

While the illustration below seems to depict the members of the Louisiana National Guard as men whose elaborate uniforms, military bearing, and attention to duty distinguishes them as serious soldiers, the accompanying article caricatures them as "nigger soldiers" who enjoy spending time in "the home of the coon, the possum and the copperhead."

 

"In this swamp in the wilderness the 'nigger soldiers' are eminently useful. The melancholy solitude, with the speectral cypress trees, which seem to stand in silent despair, like nature's sentinels waving in the air wreaths of gray funereal moss, to warn all human beings of the latent pestilence around, though unendurable to our soldiers of the North, seems an elysium to these sable soldiers, for the swampy forest has no horrors to them. Impervious to miasma, they see only the home of the coon, the possum and the coperhead, so that with 'de gun dat Massa Sam gib'em," they have around them all the essential elements of colored happiness, except ladies' society."

--excerpt from "Scenes in Louisiana," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 7, 1863

 

First South Carolina (African-American) Volunteers

In November of 1862, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was given command of the First South Carolina Volunteers, which he described as "the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late civil war." Higginson explained in his memoir:

It was, indeed, the first colored regiment of any kind so mustered, except a portion of the troops raised by Major-General Butler at New Orleans. These scarcely belonged to the same class, however, being recruited from the free colored population of that city, a comparatively self-reliant and educated race. "The darkest of them," said General Butler, "were about the complexion of the late Mr. Webster."

The First South Carolina, on the other hand, contained scarcely a freeman, had not one mulatto in ten, and a far smaller proportion who could read or write when enlisted. The only contemporary regiment of a similar character was the "First Kansas Colored," which began recruiting a little earlier, though it was not mustered in the usual basis of military seniority till later. . . These were the only colored regiments recruited during the year 1862. The Second South Carolina and the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts followed early in 1863.

--Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Introduction" Army Life in a Black Regiment, 1869

Higginson, an abolitionist, was extremely pleased with his assignment, regarding it as "a vast experiment of indirect philanthropy, and one on which the result of the war and the destiny of the negro race might rest." He was aware, however, that his troops were subject to the most extreme scrutiny by the press.

Those who look back to the newspaper correspondence of that period will see that this particular regiment lived for months in a glare of publicity, such as tests any regiment severely, and certainly prevents all subsequent romancing in its historian. As the scene of the only effort on the Atlantic coast to arm the negro, our camp attracted a continuous stream of visitors, military and civil. A battalion of black soldiers, a spectacle since so common, seemed then the most daring of innovations, and the whole demeanor of this particular regiment was watched with microscopic scrutiny by friends and foes. I felt sometimes as if we were a plant trying to take root, but constantly pulled up to see if we were growing. The slightest camp incidents sometimes came back to us, magnified and distorted, in letters of anxious inquiry from remote parts of the Union. It was no pleasant thing to live under such constant surveillance; but it guaranteed the honesty of any success, while fearfully multiplying the penalties had there been a failure. A single mutiny, such as has happened in the infancy of a hundred regiments, a single miniature Bull Run, a stampede of desertions, and it would have been all over with us; the party of distrust would have got the upper hand, and there might not have been, during the whole contest, another effort to arm the negro.

 

The First South Carolina Volunteeers Described in the Atlantic Monthly

The first regiment, as raised by General Saxton, numbered four hundred and ninety-nine men when Colonel Higginson took command of it on the 1st of December and on the 19th of January, 1863, it had increased to eight hundred and forty-nine. It has made three expeditions to Florida and Georgia, — one before Colonel Higginson assumed the command, described in Mrs. Stowe’s letter to the women of England, and two under Colonel Higginson, one of which was made in January up the St. Mary’s, and the other in March to Jacksonville, which it occupied for a few days until an evacuation was ordered from head quarters. The men are volunteers, having been led to enlist by duty to their race, to their kindred still in bonds, and to us, their allies. Their drill is good, and their time excellent. They have borne themselves well in their expeditions, quite equalling the white regiments in skirmishing. In morale they seemed very much like white men, and with about the same proportion of good and indifferent soldiers. Some I saw of the finest metal, like Robert Sutton, whom Higginson describes in his report as “the real conductor of the whole expedition at the St. Mary’s,” and Sergeant Hodges, a master carpenter, capable of directing the labors of numerous journeymen. Another said, addressing a meeting at Beaufort, that he had been restless, nights, thinking of the war and of his people, — that, when he heard of the regiment being formed, he felt that his time to act had come, and that it was his duty to enlist, — that he did not fight for his rations and pay, but for wife, children, and people.

These men, as already intimated, are very much like other men, easily depressed, and as easily reanimated by words of encouragement. Many have been reluctant to engage in military service, — their imagination investing it with the terrors of instant and certain death. But this reluctance has passed away with participation in active service, with the adventure and inspiration of a soldier’s life, and the latent manhood has recovered its rightful sway. Said a superintendent who was of the first delegation to Port Royal in March, 1862,— a truthful man, and not given to rose-colored views, — “I did not have faith. in arming negroes, when I visited the North last autumn, but I have now. They will be not mere machines, but real tigers, aroused; and I should not wish to face them.”

--Edward L. Pierce, "The Freedmen at Port Royal," Atlantic Monthly, September,1863, 291-315

 

The African-American 1st South Carolina Volunteers were featured in a story about the celebration of emancipation in South Carolina published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Interestingly, a second account of the same event survives in the memoir of their white commander, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and a third in "Life in the Sea Islands," an autobiographical essay published in The Atlantic Monthly by African-American freedmen's teacher, Charlotte Forten.

Although the three narratives share many of the same details, they speak from very different perspectives. For example, while the Frank Leslie's reporter comments that "one of the chief rejoicers on the occasion was our old acquaintance Sambo, who, generally speaking, is always accompanied by the inevitable banjo," Higginson dryly notes that "the white ladies & dignitaries usurped the platform." The reporter's description of the soldiers's participation in the events as limited to applauding the white speakers contrasts sharply with Higginson's account of the spontaneous singing of the soldiers, which "made all other words cheap, it seemed the choked voice of a race, at last unloosed," and Charlotte Forten's comment on the short speech made by African-American Sergeant Robert Sutton as "simple, eloquent, and forcible." And yet, perhaps echoes of racism can even be found in the words of Forten, who describes the red pantaloons of the soldiers as giving them a "semi-barbaric splendor."

 


“’Emancipation Day in South Carolina’—The Color-Sergeant of the 1st South Carolina (Colored) Volunteers Addressingg the Reiment, After Having Been Presented with the Stars and Stripes at Smith’s Plantation, Port Royal Island, January 1.—From a Sketch by our Special Artist.—See Page 275.” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 24, 1863, 276

 

Compare and/or contrast the three different accounts of the same event provided below. In what ways are their representations of African-Americans similar or different? In what ways does each one reenforce or contradict racial stereotypes?

 

Three Different Accounts of the Emancipation Day Among
the 1st South Carolina Volunteers

Whatever our readers' politics may be, they cannot fail to feel a stern satisfaction in the simple fact that within a few miles of that "most erring of sisters," Charleston, Emancipation-day, as it is called, was celebrated with great pomp, and that one of the chief rejoicers on the occasion was our old acquaintance, Sambo, who, generally speaking, is always accompanied by the inevitable banjo. Thousands take their notion of Indians from Cooper's imaginary Uncas, and other impossible Redskins, and just as many build their ideal of a colored person on George Christy's inimitable caricature. Two-thirds of our boarding-school misses believe that a contraband is a dark gentleman with a triangular collar of some two feet high, in new pumps and broadcloth, a set of white ivory, a fine tenor voice, a rather handsome banjo and a remarkably bad hat. But we must return to our sketches of some of their doings on January 1, when, accompanied by the correspondent of the New York Herald, and other notable persons, our Artist embarked at Hilton Head on board the Boston, for Camp Saxton and Smith's Plantation, which are about ten miles distant; but we will tell the story in his own words:

"The object of my visiting the above place was to witness the scenes and incidents relative to the celebration of 'Emancipation-day' in South Carolina by all the contrabands in this Department, under the auspices of Gen. Saxton and the 'Freedman's Association.' We had for passengers, on this occasion, what a rebel would esteem his fortune—being no less than scores of colored individuals of all stripes, sizes, modes of dress and hue. Upon our arrival at our destination we landed our sable freight in boats, noticing also the arrival of the steamer Flora from Beaufort, which was literally jammed with niggers, who grinned and chatted like so many monkeys. "After landing, the blacks were assembled en masse. on the river bank, where the 'invited guests,' preceded by the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, headed by the 8th Maine volunteers' band, wended their way to the grove in the rear of the mansion, where a dinner, speechifying, etc., awaited them. Of course, Gen. Saxton, Rev. Mr. French, Mr. Gage, and Col, Higginson, of the lst South Carolina Volunteers, were early on hand.

"Upon my arrival at the grove I found a large, platform erected, upon which were many ladies and gentlemen (white) who were interested in ' the movement.' Around this platform were large numbers of the darker race sitting and standing.male and female, ad lib., while encircling these stood a double file of negroes belonging: to the 1st South Carolina volunteers, who listened with great attention to the remarks addressed to them, frequently testifying their pleasure by repeated cheers and rounds of applause. Especially when their colors were presented them,and particularly as their color-bearers on the stand, with the Stars and Stripes in their dark fists, addressed them, their manifestations of pleasure made the welkin ring. They were then addressed by Gen. Saxton, Col. Higginson, Mr. Gage, Rev. Mr. French and others. They next dined upon fresh beef and other 'goodies.'

"All seemed to enjoy themselves, and nothing occurred, so far as I can learn, to prevent other than a very agreeable time. The weather was very fine."

--“Emancipation Day in South Carolina," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 24, 1863, 275

January 1. A happy new year to civilized people—mere white folks. Our festival has come & gone with perfect success, and our good Gen. Saxton has been altogether satisfied. . . .

My companies were marched to the neighborhood of the platform & collected sitting or standing, as they are at Sunday meeting; the band of the 8th Me regiment was here & they & the white ladies & dignitaries usurped the platform—the colored people from abroad filled up all the gaps, & a cordon of officers & cavalry visitors surrounded the circle. Overhead, the great live oak trees & their trailing moss & beyond, a glimpse of the blue river.

The services begun at 11 ½—prayer by our chaplain—President's proclamation read by Dr W H Brisbane, 21 a thing infinitely appropriate, a South Carolinian addressing South Carolinians—he was reared on this very soil, and emancipated his own slaves here, years ago. Then the colors were presented to me by Rev Mr French . . . .There followed an incident so simple, so touching, so utterly unexpected & startling that I can scarcely believe it when I recall it, though it gave the key note to the whole day. The very moment Mr French had ceased speaking & just as I took & waved the flag, which now for the first time meant anything to these poor people, there suddenly arose, close beside the platform, a strong but rather cracked & elderly male voice, into which two women's voices immediately blended, singing as if by an impulse that can no more be quenched than the morning note of the song sparrow—the hymn

"My country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of Liberty

People looked at each other & then at the stage to see whence came this interruption, not down in the bills firmly & irrepressibly the quavering voices sang on, verse after verse; others around them joined; some on the platform sung, but I motioned them to silence. I never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap, it seemed the choked voice of a race, at last unloosed; nothing could be more wonderfully unconscious; art could not have dreamed of a tribute to the day of jubilee that should be so affecting; history will not believe it; & when I came to speak of it, after it was silent, tears were everywhere. If you could have heard how quaint & innocent it was! Old Tiff & his children might have sung it; & close before me was a little slave boy, almost white, who seemed to belong to the party, & even he must join in. Just think of it; the first day they had ever had a country, the first flag they had ever seen which promised anything to their people,—& here while others stood in silence, waiting for my stupid words these simple souls burst out in their lay, as if they were squatting by their own hearths at home. When they stopped there was nothing to do for it but to speak, & I went on; but the life of the whole day was in those unknown people's song.

—Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Camp Diary," Army Life in a Black Regiment, 1869

New-Year’s-Day— Emancipation-Day — was a glorious one to us. The morning was quite cold, the coldest we had experienced; but we were determined to go to the celebration at Camp Saxton,— the camp of the First Regiment South- Carolina Volunteers—whither the General and Colonel Higginson had bidden us, on this, “the greatest day in the nation’s history.” We enjoyed perfectly the exciting scene on board the Flora. There was an eager, wondering crowd of the freed people in their holiday-attire, with the gayest of head-handkerchiefs, the whitest of aprons, and the happiest of faces. The band was playing, the flags streaming, everybody talking merrily and feeling strangely happy. The sun shone brightly, the very waves seemed to partake of’ the universal gayety, and danced and sparkled more joyously than ever before. Long before we reached Camp Saxton we could see the beautiful grove, and the ruins of the old Huguenot fort near it. Some companies of the First Regiment were drawn up in line under the trees, near the landing, to receive us. A fine, soldierly-looking set of men; their brilliant dress against the trees (they were then wearing red pantaloons) invested them with a semi-barbaric splendor. It was my good fortune to find among the officers an old friend, — and what it was to meet a friend from the North, in our isolated Southern life, no one can imagine who has not experienced the pleasure. Letters were an unspeakable luxury, — we hungered for them, we could never get enough; but to meet old friends, — that was “too much, too much,” as the people here say, when they are very much in earnest. Our friend took us over the camp, and showed us all the arrangements. Everything looked clean and comfortable, much neater, we were told, than in most of the white camps. An officer told us that he had never seen a regiment in which the men were so honest. “In many other camps,” said he, “the colonel and the rest of us would find it necessary to place a guard before our tents. We never do it here. They are left entirely unguarded. Yet nothing has ever been touched.” We were glad to know that. It is a remarkable fact, when we consider that these men have all their lives been slaves; and we know what the teachings of Slavery are.

The celebration took place in the beautiful grove of live-oaks adjoining the camp. It was the largest grove we had seen. I wish it were possible to describe fitly the scene which met our eyes as we sat upon the stand, and looked down on the crowd before us. There were the black soldiers in their blue coats and scarlet pantaloons, the officers of this and other regiments in their handsome uniforms, and crowds of lookers-on, — men, women, and children, of every complexion, grouped in various attitudes under the moss-hung trees. The faces of all wore a happy, interested look. The exercises commenced with a prayer by the chaplain of the regiment. An ode, written for the occasion by Professor Zachos, was read by him, and then sung. Colonel Higginson then introduced Dr. Brisbane, who read the President’s Proclamation, which was enthusiastically cheered. Rev. Mr. French presented to the Colonel two very elegant flags, a gift to the regiment from the Church of the Puritans, accompanying them by an appropriate and enthusiastic speech. At its conclusion, before Colonel Higginson could reply, and while he still stood holding the flags in his hand, some of the colored people, of their own accord, commenced singing, “My Country, ‘t is of thee.” It was a touching and beautiful incident, and sent a thrill through all our hearts. The Colonel was deeply moved by it. He said that that reply was far more effective than any speech he could make. But he did make one of those stirring speeches which are “half battles.” All hearts swelled with emotion as we listened to his glorious words,—” stirring the soul like the sound of a trumpet.”

His soldiers are warmly attached to him, and he evidently feels towards them all as if they were his children. The people speak of him as “the officer who never leaves his regiment for pleasure,” but devotes himself with all his rich gifts of mind and heart, to their interests. It is not strange that his judicious kindness, ready sympathy, and rare fascination of manner should attach them to him strongly. He is one’s ideal of an officer. There is in him much of the grand, knightly spirit of the olden time, — scorn of all that. is mean and ignoble, pity for the weak, chivalrous devotion to the cause of the oppressed.

General Saxton spoke also, and was received with great enthusiasm. Throughout the morning, repeated cheers were given for him by the regiment, and joined in heartily by all the people. They know him to be one of the best and noblest men in the world. His Proclamation for Emancipation-Day we thought, if possible, even more beautiful than the Thanksgiving Proclamation.

At the close of Colonel Higginson’s speech he presented the flags to the color bearers, Sergeant Rivers and Sergeant Sutton, with an earnest charge, to which they made appropriate replies. We were particularly pleased with Robert Sutton, who is a man of great natural intelligence, and whose remarks were simple, eloquent, and forcible.

Mrs. Gage also uttered some earnest words and then the regiment sang “John Brown” with much spirit. After the meeting we saw the dress-parade, a brilliant and beautiful sight. An officer told us that the men went through the drill remarkably well, —that the ease and rapidity with which they learned the movements were wonderful. To us it seemed strange as a miracle, — this black regiment, the first mustered into the service of the United States, doing itself honor in the sight of the officers of other regiments, many of whom, doubtless, “came to scoff.” The men afterwards had a great feast, ten oxen having been roasted whole for their especial benefit.

We went to the landing, intending to take the next boat for Beaufort; but finding it very much crowded, waited for another. It was the softest, loveliest moonlight; we seated ourselves on the ruined wall of the old fort; and when the boat had got a short distance from the shore the band in it commenced playing “Sweet Home.” The moonlight on the water, the perfect stillness around, the wildness and solitude of the ruins, all seemed to give new pathos to that ever dear and beautiful old song. It came very near to all of us, —strangers in that strange Southern land. After a while we retired to one of the tents, — for the night-air, as usual, grew dangerously damp, — and, sitting around the bright wood-fire, enjoyed the brilliant and entertaining conversation. Very unwilling were we to go home; for, besides the attractive society, we knew that the soldiers were to have grand shouts and a general jubilee that night. But the Flora was coming, and we were obliged to say a reluctant farewell to Camp Saxton and the hospitable dwellers therein, and hasten to the landing. We promenaded the deck of the steamer, sang patriotic songs, and agreed that moonlight and water had never looked so beautiful as on that night. At Beaufort we took the row-boat for St. Helena; and the boatmen, as they rowed, sang some of their sweetest, wildest hymns. It was a fitting close to such a day. Our hearts were filled with an exceeding great gladness; for, although the Government had left much undone, we knew that Freedom was surely born in our land that day. It seemed too glorious a good to realize,—this beginning of the great work we had so longed and prayed for.

--Charlotte Forten, "Life on the Sea Islands" The Atlantic Monthly, May and June, 1864

 

The Status and Treatment of African-American Troops in the Union Army


THEIR PAY

Although African-Americans were mustered into the army in 1862, they did not receive the same status or treatment as their white comrades. The same Militia Act that declared African-Americans eligible for service also specified that they would receive lower compensation for their work. While Union privates at that time were earning $13 per month and received $3.50 for clothing, in Section 15 of Congress specified

That persons of African descent, who under this law shall be employed, shall receive ten dollars per month and one ration, three dollars of which monthly pay may be in clothing.

That means, in practical terms, that African-American soldiers received only a little more than half as much as white soldiers, once the cost of their uniforms was deducted.

Finally, in June 1864, a law was passed awarding equal pay to all African-American soldiers who had enlisted as free men, and that change was retroactive to the beginning of that year.

 

The Debate Over Pay

There is one gross injustice to our soldiers which Congress should not lose a week in correcting, and that is the pay of the colored troops. If colored men are apes, don't enlist them. If the prejudice of race and color is insuperable, yield to it. But why should the American people do an unpardonably mean thing? If we are ashamed to acknowledge the heroism of the colored troops at Milliken's Bend, at Port Hudson, at Fort Wagner—upon every field, in fact, and in every battle where they have been tried—let us at least be manly enough to say to them, "We can not treat you honorably, so go home!"

--"A Gross Injustice," Harper's Weekly, February 13, 1863, 98

The Senate has at length done its duty in providing for the equal payment of the colored troops, and for the fulfillment of the promises made by authority to those already enlisted. The House ought not to delay for a day to agree to the bill. For nothing is clearer than that the policy of employing colored troops should be renounced altogether, or that we should treat them honorably. Professor PECK, of Oberlin College, who has investigated the condition of these troops on the Atlantic coast, reports that the difference of pay between them and white soldiers is rapidly demoralizing them. Chaplain CONWAY writes to the same effect. At Fort Esperenza, in Texas, a colored battalion of the Fourteenth Rhode Island Artillery refused to receive their pay, and declared themselves out of the service; and the sad case of Sergeant WALKER in Florida, who was shot because he would not submit to be cheated by the authority of the United States, is fresh in our memories, and will always be shameful for our name. And while we refuse to treat these brave men honorably the rebels massacre them like dogs. The rebel conduct is fiendish, but at least it is consistent. If men, because they are of a certain color, may justly be deprived of liberty and all the other rights of human nature, they may certainly be deprived of life at the will of their captors. Massacre, barbarism, the most shocking inhumanity, are to be expected in a people who have been unfortunately bred under the slave system. But we have the right to require manliness and honor and justice of those who have been more fortunate. Shall we sacrifice the good name of our native land to the indulgence of a wretched prejudice?

--from "Reluctant Justice," Harper's Weekly, May 7, 1864, 290

Our soldiers are constantly twitted by their families and friends with their prospect of risking their lives in the service, and being paid nothing; and it is in vain that we read them the instructions of the Secretary of War to General Saxton, promising them the full pay of soldiers. They only half believe it.*

*With what utter humiliation were we, their officers, obliged to confess to them, eighteen months afterwards, that it was their distrust which was wise, and our faith in the pledges of the United States Government which was foolishness!

--Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Camp Diary," Army Life in a Black Regiment, 1869

 

THEIR RANK

Segregated into their own regiments, black troopswere typically led by white officers, as is suggested by the illustration below.


"The Presentation of Colors to the 20th U.S. Colored Infantry, Colonel Bartram, at the Union League House, N.Y. March 5--page 7," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 26, 1864, 4

 

While the rank-and-file members of the company shown in the picture above are black, their officers are white.

 

 

Similarly, while many of the people in the cheering crowd are African-American, the people who have been given pride of place on and in front of the reviewing stand are white.

 

 

 

Unlike most other black regiments, the 1st Louisiana Native Guards had African-American officers. This may have been due, at least in part, to the fact that many members of the regiment had been free before the war, and in some cases had enjoyed positions of standing within the free black community of New Orleans. The fact that many of the men were mulattoes also may have made it easier for Northerners to accept them in leadership positions.

"I understood you, Colonel," said I, " that all your line officers were colored men: there goes one, at any rate, who is white." The Colonel turned to me with a sarcastic smile:

"And do you really think him white? Well you may, Sir; but that man is a 'negro'—one who carries the so-called curse of African blood in his veins." I was literally amazed. Often as my senses had been deceived in this matter, they never had been so completely before. This officer, Captain E. Davis, of Company A [his portrait is given in our group.—Ed.], was a fine-looking young man, not unlike General M'Clellan in mould of features, with light blue eyes, ruddy complexion, soft, silky hair, and a splendid mustache, of a sandy color, nearly approaching red. I would have defied the most consummate expert in Niggerology, by the aid of the moat powerful microscope, to discover the one drop of African blood in that man's veins. Still there it was upon the record against him.

 

THE ROLES THEY WERE ASSIGNED