United States Colored Troops

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USCT
United States Colored Troops
USCT recruiting poster
Unidentified private
24th US Colored Troops banner
U.S. Colored Troops medal[a]
Captain Meriam[b]
ActiveMay 22, 1863 – Oct 1865
DisbandedOctober 1865
AllegianceUnion
BranchArmy
Typeinfantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering
Size175 regiments; 178,000 men
Motto(s)Sic semper tyrannis
"Thus always to tyrants"
EngagementsAmerican Civil War

United States Colored Troops (USCT) were Union Army regiments during the American Civil War that primarily comprised African Americans, with soldiers from other ethnic groups also serving in USCT units. Established in response to a demand for more units from Union Army commanders, by the end of the war in 1865 USCT regiments, which numbered 175 in total, constituted about one-tenth of the manpower of the army. Approximately 20 percent of USCT soldiers were killed in action or died of disease and other causes, a rate about 35 percent higher than that of white Union troops. Numerous USCT soldiers fought with distinction, with 16 receiving the Medal of Honor. The USCT regiments were precursors to the Buffalo Soldier units which fought in the American Indian Wars.[1]

The courage displayed by colored troops during the Civil War played an important role in African Americans gaining new rights. As Frederick Douglass said in an 1863 speech:

Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.[2]

Background

The Confiscation Act

Printed broadside, calling all men of color to arms, 1863

The

African-American soldiers, although he accepted the Army using them as paid workers. In September 1862, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, announcing that all slaves in rebellious states would be free as of January 1. Recruitment of colored regiments began in full force following the Proclamation in January 1863.[4]

Formation

The

freedmen
served during the last two years of the war. Their service bolstered the Union war effort at a critical time.

Initially, the USCT were relegated to menial jobs such as that of laborers, teamsters, cooks, and other supports duties. However, even these duties were essential to the war effort.

Charles City, Virginia.[7]
Eventually USCT were sent into combat.

The USCT suffered 2,751 combat casualties during the war, and 68,178 losses from all causes. Disease caused the most fatalities for all troops, both black and white.[8] In the last year-and-a-half and from all reported casualties, approximately 20% of all African Americans enrolled in the military died.[9] Notably, their mortality rate was significantly higher than white soldiers:

[We] find, according to the revised official data, that of the slightly over two millions troops in the United States Volunteers, over 316,000 died (from all causes), or 15.2%. Of the 67,000 Regular Army (white) troops, 8.6%, or not quite 6,000, died. Of the approximately 180,000 United States Colored Troops, however, over 36,000 died, or 20.5%. In other words, the mortality rate amongst the United States Colored Troops in the Civil War was thirty-five percent greater than that among other troops, notwithstanding the fact that the former were not enrolled until some eighteen months after the fighting began.[9]

Gordon
(also called "Whipped Peter"), in USCT uniform

USCT regiments were led by white Union officers, while rank advancement was limited for Black soldiers, who could only rise to the rank of

non-commissioned officers. Approximately 110 blacks did become commissioned officers before the end of the war, primarily as surgeons or chaplains.[10] The Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia opened the Free Military Academy for Applicants for the Command of Colored Troops at the end of 1863.[11] For a time, black soldiers received less pay than their white counterparts, but they and their supporters lobbied and eventually gained equal pay.[12] Notable members of USCT regiments included Martin Robinson Delany and the sons of abolitionist Frederick Douglass
.

The process for white officers aiming to lead USCT was considered more protracted and perhaps rigorous than for ordinary Union officers. This was because it was assumed that leading black soldiers would require a better officer than those leading white troops. At the end of their studies, those men who wished to lead black troops had to pass an examination administered by Brig. Gen. Silas Casey's staff in Washington. After a short period of examinations in mid-1863, only half of the men who had taken the exam passed.[13]

Volunteer regiments

Sgt. Samuel Smith of the 119th USCT, in uniform, with his family

Before the USCT was formed, several volunteer regiments were raised from

First North Carolina Colored Volunteers. He became a sergeant in the 35th USCT. Freedmen from the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, established in 1863 on the island, also formed part of the Free North Carolina Colored Volunteers (FNCCV) and subsequently the 35th.[14]
Nearly all of the volunteer regiments were converted into USCT units.

In 1922 Singleton published his memoir (in a slave narrative) of his journey from slavery to freedom and becoming a Union soldier. Glad to participate in reunions, years later at the age of 95, he marched in a Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) event in 1938.

State volunteers

Four regiments were considered regular units, rather than auxiliaries. Their veteran status allowed them to get federal government jobs after the war, from which African Americans had usually been excluded in earlier years. However, the men received no formal recognition for combat honors and awards until the turn of the 20th century. These units were:

1st Louisiana Native Guard (Corps d'Afrique)

Dutch Gap
, Virginia, 1864

The

of the same name, which had been made up of property-owning free people of color (gens de couleur libres).[15] These men had wanted to prove their bravery and loyalty to the Confederacy like other Southern property owners by joining the Confederate blacks, but the Confederacy did not allow them to serve and confiscated their arms
.

For the new unit, the Union also recruited

freedmen
from the refugee camps. Liberated from nearby plantations, they and their families had no means to earn a living and no place to go. Local commanders, starved for replacements, started equipping volunteer units with cast-off uniforms and obsolete or captured firearms. The men were treated and paid as auxiliaries, performing guard or picket duties to free up white soldiers for maneuver units. In exchange their families were fed, clothed and housed for free at the Army camps; often schools were set up for them and their children.

Despite class differences between free people of color and freedmen, the troops of the new guard served with distinction, including under Captain

Battle of Port Hudson
and throughout the South. Its units included:

Right Wing, XVI Corps (1864)

Colored Troops singing "John Brown's Body" as they marched into Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1865. Note the attitude of the local population, and the white officers.

Colored troops served as laborers in the 16th Army Corps' Quartermaster's Department and Pioneer Corps.

USCT Regiments

  • 6 Regiments of Cavalry [1st–6th USC Cavalry]
  • 1 Regiment of Light Artillery [2nd USC (Light) Artillery]
  • 1 Independent USC (Heavy) Artillery Battery
  • 13 Heavy Artillery Regiments [1st and 3rd–14th USC (Heavy) Artillery]
  • 1 unassigned Company of Infantry [Company A, US Colored Infantry]
  • 1 Independent USC Company of Infantry (Southard's Independent Company, Pennsylvania (Colored) Infantry)
  • 1 Independent USC Regiment of Infantry [Powell's Regiment, US Colored Infantry]
  • 135 Regiments of Infantry [1st–138th USC Infantry] (The 94th, 105th, and 126th USC Infantry regiments were never fully formed)
Details
  • The 2nd USC (Light) Artillery Regiment (2nd USCA) was made up of nine separate batteries grouped into three nominal battalions of three batteries each. The batteries were usually detached.
    • I Battalion: A,B & C Batteries.
    • II Battalion: D, E & F Batteries.
    • III Battalion: G, H & I Batteries.
  • The second raising of the 11th USC Infantry (USCI) was created by converting the 7th USC (Heavy) Artillery into an infantry unit.
  • The second raising of the 79th USC Infantry (USCI) was formed from the
    1st Kansas Colored Infantry
    .
  • The second raising of the 83rd USC Infantry (USCI) was formed from the
    2nd Kansas Colored Infantry
    .
  • The second raising of the 87th USCI was formed from merging the first raisings of the 87th and 96th USCI.
  • The second raising of the 113th USCI was formed by merging the first raisings of the 11th, 112th, and 113th USCI.

Gallery

  • Select USCT Regimental Banners
  • 3rd US Colored Troops banner {obverse}
    3rd US Colored Troops banner {obverse}
  • 22th US Colored Troops banner
    22th US Colored Troops banner
  • 26th US Colored Troops banner
    26th US Colored Troops banner
  • 27th US Colored Troops banner
    27th US Colored Troops banner
  • 45th US Colored Troops banner
    45th US Colored Troops banner

Notable actions

George N. Barnard's photograph of a slave trader's business on Whitehall Street Atlanta, Georgia, 1864. A United States Colored Troop Infantry corporal is sitting by the door.

The first engagement by African-American soldiers against Confederate forces during the Civil War was at the

guerrilla activities based out of Hog Island near Butler, Missouri. Although outnumbered, the African-American soldiers fought valiantly, and the Union forces won the engagement. The conflict was reported by The New York Times and Harper's Weekly.[16][17] In 2012 the state established the Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site to preserve this area; the eight Union men killed were buried near the battleground.[18]

USCT regiments fought in all theaters of the war, but mainly served as garrison troops in rear areas. The most famous USCT action took place at the Battle of the Crater during the Siege of Petersburg. Regiments of USCT suffered heavy casualties attempting to break through Confederate lines. Other notable engagements include Fort Wagner, one of their first major tests, and the Battle of Nashville.[19]

Colored Troop soldiers were among the first Union forces to enter Richmond, Virginia, after its fall in April 1865. The 41st USCT regiment was among those present at the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Following the war, USCT regiments served among the occupation troops in former Confederate states.

U.S. Army General Ulysses S. Grant praised the competent performance and bearing of the USCT, saying at Vicksburg that:

Negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among than our white troops ... All that have been tried have fought bravely.

— Ulysses S. Grant, at Vicksburg (July 24, 1863).[20]

Prisoners of war

African-American corporal (United States Colored Troops) outside 8 Whitehall Street, Atlanta, a slave auction house; Fall 1864

USCT soldiers suffered extra violence at the hands of Confederate soldiers, who singled them out for mistreatment. They were often the victims of battlefield massacres and atrocities by Confederates, most notably at Fort Pillow in Tennessee, at the Battle of the Crater in Virginia,[21] and at the Battle of Olustee in Florida. They were often murdered when captured by Confederate soldiers, as the Confederacy announced that former slaves fighting for the Union were traitors and would be immediately executed.[19]

The prisoner exchange protocol based on the

Congress of the Confederate States of America had passed a law on May 1, 1863, stating that white officers commanding black soldiers and blacks captured in uniform would be tried as rebellious slave insurrectionists in civil courts — a capital offense with automatic sentence of death.[22][23] In practice, USCT soldiers were often murdered by Confederate troops without being taken to court. This law became a stumbling block for prisoner exchange, as the U.S. government in the Lieber Code objected to such discriminatory mistreatment of prisoners of war on basis of ethnicity. The Republican Party's platform during the 1864 presidential election also condemned the Confederacy's mistreatment of black U.S. soldiers.[24] In response to such mistreatment, General Ulysses S. Grant, in a letter to Confederate officer Richard Taylor, urged the Confederates to treat captured black U.S. soldiers humanely and professionally, and not to murder them. He stated the U.S. government's official position, that black U.S. soldiers were sworn military men. The Confederacy had said they were escaped slaves who deserved no better treatment.[25]

Numbers of colored troops by state, North and South

The soldiers are classified by the state where they were enrolled; Northern states often sent agents to enroll formerly enslaved from the South. Many soldiers from Delaware, D.C., Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia were formerly enslaved as well. Most of the troops credited to West Virginia, however, were not actually from that state.[26]

North[27] Number South[27] Number
Connecticut 1,764     Alabama 4,969  
Colorado Territory 95     Arkansas 5,526  
Delaware 954     Florida 1,044  
District of Columbia 3,269     Georgia 3,486  
Illinois 1,811     Louisiana 24,502  
Indiana 1,597     Mississippi 17,869  
Iowa 440     North Carolina 5,035  
Kansas 2,080     South Carolina 5,462  
Kentucky 23,703     Tennessee 20,133  
Maine 104     Texas 47  
Maryland 8,718     Virginia 5,723  
Massachusetts 3,966  
Michigan 1,387   Total from the South 93,796 
Minnesota 104  
Missouri 8,344   At large 733  
New Hampshire 125   Not accounted for 5,083  
New Jersey 1,185  
New York 4,125  
Ohio 5,092  
Pennsylvania 8,612  
Rhode Island 1,837  
Vermont 120  
West Virginia 196  
Wisconsin 155  
Total from the North 79,283  
Total 178,895  

Postwar

Harriet Tubman with family and ex-slaves; sitting at left is Tubman's second husband, Nelson Davis (8th USCT veteran)

The USCT was disbanded in the fall of 1865. In 1867, the Regular Army was set at ten regiments of cavalry and 45 regiments of infantry. The Army was authorized to raise two regiments of black cavalry (the 9th and 10th (Colored) Cavalry) and four regiments of black infantry (the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st (Colored) Infantry), who were mostly drawn from USCT veterans. The first draft of the bill that the House Committee on Military Affairs sent to the full chamber on March 7, 1866, did not include a provision for regiments of black cavalry; however, this provision was added by Senator Benjamin Wade prior to the bill's passing.[28] In 1869 the Regular Army was kept at ten regiments of cavalry but cut to 25 regiments of Infantry, reducing the black complement to two regiments (the 24th and 25th (Colored) Infantry).

The two black infantry regiments represented 10 percent of the size of all twenty-five infantry regiments. Similarly, the black cavalry units represented 20 percent of the size of all ten cavalry regiments.[28]

From 1870 to 1898 the strength of the US Army totaled 25,000 service members with black soldiers maintaining their 10 percent representation.

Buffalo Soldiers, thus nicknamed by Native Americans who compared their hair to the curly fur of bison.[29]

Awards

Christian Fleetwood
. Civil War, Medal of Honor recipient

US Medal of Honor

Sixteen African-American USCT soldiers earned the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award, for service in the war:[30]

The Butler Award

Soldiers who fought in the

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Butler informed him that since Virginia claimed to have left the Union
, the Fugitive Slave Law no longer applied, declaring the slaves to be contraband of war.

Legacy and modern views

The historian Steven Hahn proposes that when slaves organized themselves and worked with the Union Army during the American Civil War, including as some regiments of the USCT, their actions comprised a slave rebellion that dwarfed all other slave revolts.[31] The African American Civil War Memorial Museum helps to preserve pertinent information from the period.[32]

U.S. Colored Troops
Sgt. William Harvey Carney Medal of Honor recipient
Company E, 4th US Colored Troops at Fort Lincoln, November 17, 1865 (from Library of Congress)[33]
Marker dedicated to the 26th Regiment of U.S. Colored Infantry in Ithaca, New York
USCT Graves near Piqua Ohio

Tributes

Other

The motion picture

second assault on Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Although the 54th was not a USCT regiment, but a state volunteer regiment originally raised from free blacks in Boston, similar to the 1st and 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry, the film portrays the experiences and hardships of African-American troops during the Civil War.[36] Richard Walter Thomas, black scholar of race relations, observed that the relationship between white and black soldiers in the Civil War was an instance of what he calls "the other tradition": "… after sharing the horrors of war with their black comrades in arms, many white officers experienced deep and dramatic transformations in their attitudes toward blacks."[37]

Similar units

See also

Notes

  1. Butler
  2. ^ Capt. Francis Jackson Meriam (pictured), was commander of the 3rd South Carolina Colored Infantry.

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War". National Archives. August 15, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
  2. ^ Douglass, Frederick (July 6, 1863). Speech at National Hall, for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments (Speech). Mass meeting held at National Hall, Philadelphia. National Hall, Philadelphia. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  3. ^ Rodriguez, Junius P. Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, vol. 2, pg 241
  4. ^ Cornish, The Sable Arm, pp. 29–111.
  5. ^ Cornish, The Sable Arm, p. 130.
  6. ^ Henderson, Steward (October 27, 2020). "The Role of the USCT in the Civil War". www.battlefields.org. American Battlefield Trust. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  7. ^ Cornish, The Sable Arm, p. 288; McPherson, The Negro's Civil War, p. 237
  8. ^ a b Herbert Aptheker, "Negro Casualties in the Civil War", "The Journal of Negro History", Vol. 32, No. 1. (January, 1947).
  9. ^ "National Park Civil War Series: The Civil War's Black Soldiers".
  10. ^ Cornish, The Sable Arm, p. 218.
  11. ^ McPherson, The Negro's Civil War, Chapter XIV, "The Struggle for Equal Pay," pp. 193–203.
  12. ^ Fry, Zachery A. (October 2017). "Philadelphia's Free Military School and the Radicalization of Wartime Officer Education, 1863-64". Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 141 (3): 278–279. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  13. ^ "The Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony"; Carolina Country Magazine, date?, accessed November 10, 2010
  14. mixed-race people were descended generally from male native-born Spanish and French colonists (called Criolla or Créole) and African slave women, or free African-American women. After the United States made the Louisiana Purchase (1803), many Americans moved to Louisiana. They ignored the status of the free people of color, grouping them with the mass of blacks, then mostly slaves. (Today the people of color descended from this group are generally referred to as Louisiana Creoles
    .)
  15. ^ "Affairs In The West.; A Negro Regiment in Action – The Battle of Island Mounds – Desperate Bravery of the Negros – Defeat of the Guerrillas – An Attempted Fraud", The New York Times, 19 November 1862, accessed 22 February 2016
  16. ^ Chris Tabor, "Skirmish at Island Mound", Island Mound website, accessed 12 Oct 2009
  17. ^ Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site; Missouri Department of Natural Resources
  18. ^ a b Cornish, The Sable Arm, pp. 173–80.
  19. ^ Words of our Hero: Ulysses S. Grant, edited by Jeremiah Chaplin, Boston: D. Lothrop and Company, pp. 13–14.
  20. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
    . Vol. 98, no. 2 (The Trumpet Unblown: The Old Dominion in the Civil War). pp. 242–243.
  21. ^ Williams, George W., History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negros as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens, vol. II, New York: G.P. Putnam Son's, 1883, pp. 351–52.
  22. ^ Congress of the Confederate States of America (April 15, 2014). "No. 5". Joint Resolution on the Subject of Retaliation. May 1, 1863. Retrieved March 6, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  23. ^ Republican Party (June 7, 1864). "Republican Party Platform of 1864". Archived from the original on April 21, 2015. [T]he Government owes to all men employed in its armies, without regard to distinction of color, the full protection of the laws of war—and that any violation of these laws, or of the usages of civilized nations in time of war, by the Rebels now in arms, should be made the subject of prompt and full redress.
  24. ^ Grant, Ulysses (1863). "Letter to Richard Taylor". Vicksburg. I feel no inclination to retaliate for the offences of irresponsible persons; but if it is the policy of any General intrusted with the command of troops to show no quarter, or to punish with death prisoners taken in battle, I will accept the issue. It may be you propose a different line of policy towards black troops, and officers commanding them, to that practiced towards white troops. So, I can assure you that these colored troops are regularly mustered into the service of the United States. The Government, and all officers under the Government, are bound to give the same protection to these troops that they do to any other troops.
  25. ^ 45th United States Colored Troops
  26. ^ a b Gladstone, William A., United States Colored Troops, p. 120
  27. ^ .
  28. ^ "Wild West Western Facts, Buffalo Soldiers". The Wild West. Retrieved December 3, 2015.
  29. .
  30. ^ Hahn, Steven (2004). "The Greatest Slave Rebellion in Modern History: Southern Slaves in the American Civil War". southernspaces.org. Retrieved August 22, 2010.
  31. ^ African American Civil War Memorial and Museum; organization website
  32. ^ "District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln". loc.gov. 1863.
  33. ^ "African American Civil War Museum To Hold Grand Opening". WAMU. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  34. ^ "Memorial & Museum History". www.afroamcivilwar.org. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  35. ^ See film review by historian James M. McPherson, "The 'Glory' Story," The New Republic, January 8 & 15, 1990, pp. 22–27.
  36. .

General references

Further reading

  • Lee, Ulysses. The Employment of Negro Troops. Published by the Office of the Chief of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1966. 740 pp.

External links