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The USCT(United States Colored Troops)....How many were Volunteers?
...and how many were Drafted?
Act of February 24, 1864
"...all able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, resident in the United States, shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this act...and form part of the national forces..."
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
New York Times, 27 September 1861
Last edited by Battalion : 03-25-2008 at 06:28 PM.
I do not understand the point or observation you are trying to show us. The is a letter to the provincial governor of Arkansas and related to an election being held March of 1864.
The letter was about Drafting people into the Army....
insight needed
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
"...all able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, resident in the United States, shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this act...and form part of the national forces..."
For the war, only about 6% of the manpower of entire Union Army was drafted. Almost all of that came in late 1864 and 1865. There were some 186,000 officers and men in the USCT, about 179,000 of them Black people. What number of draftees do you imagine there were in the USCT? Or are you simply posting an open-ended question without stating your own guess to try to intimate something here?
Since you skipped so much of this act in your quote, let's see what you left out. The red and blue italics are what you omitted.
SEC. 24. And be it further enacted, That all able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, resident in the United States, shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this act, and of the act to which this is an amendment, and form part of the national forces; and when a slave of a loyal master shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the United States, his master shall have a certificate thereof; and thereupon such slave shall be free, and the bounty of one hundred dollars, now payable by law for each drafted man, shall be paid to the person to whom such drafted person was owing service or labor at the time of his muster into the service of the United States. The Secretary of War shall appoint a commission in each of the slave States represented in Congress, charged to award to each loyal person to whom a colored volunteer may owe service a just compensation, not exceeding three hundred dollars, for each such colored volunteer, payable out of the fund derived from commutations; and every such colored volunteer, on being mustered into the service, shall be free. And in all cases where men of color have been heretofore enlisted, or have volunteered in the military service of the United States, all the provisions of this act, so far as the payment of bounty and compensation are provided, shall be equally applicable as to those who may be hereafter recruited. But men of color, drafted or enlisted, or who may volunteer into the military service, while they shall be credited on the quotas of the several States or subdivisions of States wherein they are respectively drafted, enlisted, or shall volunteer, shall not be assigned as State troops, but shall be mustered into regiments or companies as United States colored troops.
As noted here, this is section 24 of a bill with 27 sections, entitled: =====
PUBLIC--NO. 11.
I. AN ACT to amend an act entitled "An act for enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes," approved March third, eighteen hundred and sixty-three. ===== This is simply one section of the 1864 version of the draft law. The USCT are merely treated as one element of the "national forces". If you actually look at it objectively, all it means is that the Black people will be treated on an equal footing with white recruits and draftees. The exception is for slaves who are drafted or volunteer; their owner gets a payment, and they get to be free. Isn't it amazing that the Confederacy couldn't get themselves to give a slave his freedom if he fought for them, even a year after this law was being passed in the US Congress?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
"...the recruiting officers do not even attempt to make any discrimination between the slaves of loyal and those of disloyal men, but go through the country picking up all they can induce to go with them, and in some cases forcing them away..."
Maj.Gen. J.M. Schofield, Department of the Missouri (St. Louis), September 26, 1863
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
and every such colored volunteer, on being mustered into the service, shall be free.
...but only if they go into the army.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War: Some uneasiness is felt about a riotous spirit that is thought to exist. To be ready for any emergency I would like to have the battery and two three-months’ regiments sent to West Virginia returned. A number of colored men have been drafted and accepted as substitutes. No instructions have been received as to their disposition. I think they ought to be got out of the city as soon as possible.
Hon. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War: I have just arrived in this city in company with Major-General Grant. Great embarrassment is felt for the want of non-commissioned officers for regiments of African descent now in progress of formation. Will you not authorize the colored men drafted in the Western States to be forwarded to this department, that the most intelligent may be appointed non-commissioned officers?
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
As the law said: "...and every such colored volunteer, on being mustered into the service, shall be free...."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
...but only if they go into the army.
And when the Confederacy finally found themselves desperate enough to allow the slaves to serve as soldiers in 1865, they still could not bear to free them in return. Which was the entire point of putting that section of the quote in the above post in Red, as I am sure you know. You do admit the clear-cut difference, don't you, between the US 1864 law and the Confederate 1865 law? Right? We can see a nice, clear admission of that from you here, can't we? Or is there some reason you unwilling to simply acknowledge the truth?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
I asked you to state your guess as to how many of the USCT were drafted. I even gave you a little statistical data to get you started. Once again we have the usual failure on your part to respond, and more posts with extraneous quotes not related to the question.
Why bother to keep posting all this dreck? Why start a thread where the only thing you have to say is unrelated to the topic? Why flee from direct questions? In short, why go to all this trouble if you have nothing to say?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
"...the major-general commanding (General Foster) ordered an indiscriminate conscription of every able-bodied colored man in the department. As the special representative of the Government in its relation to them, I had given them earnest and repeated assurances that no force would be used in recruiting the black regiments. I say nothing of this order, in reference to my special duties and jurisdiction and the authority of the major-general commanding to issue it; but as an apparent violation of faith pledged to the freedmen, it could not but shake their confidence in our just intentions, and make them the more unwilling to serve the Government.
The order spread universal confusion and terror. The negroes fled to the woods and swamps, visiting their cabins only by stealth and in darkness. They were hunted to their hiding places by armed parties of their own people, and, if found, compelled to enlist. This conscription order is still in force. Men have been seized and forced to enlist who had large families of young children dependent upon them for support and fine crops of cotton and corn nearly ready for harvest, without an opportunity of making provision for the one or securing the other.
Three boys, one only fourteen years of age, were seized in a field where they were at work and sent to a regiment serving in a distant part of the department without the knowledge or consent of their parents.
A man on his way to enlist as a volunteer was stopped by a recruiting party. He told them where he was going and was passing on when he was again ordered to halt. He did not stop and was shot dead, and was left where he fell. It is supposed the soldiers desired to bring him in and get the bounty offered for bringing in recruits.***
Another man who had a wife and family was shot as he was entering a boat to fish, on the pretense that he was a deserter. He fell in the water and was left. His wound, though very severe, was not mortal. An employe in the Quartermaster’s Department was taken, and without being allowed to communicate with the quartermaster or settle his accounts or provide for his family, was taken to Hilton Head and enrolled, although he had a certificate of exemption from the military service from a medical officer.
I protested against the order of the major-general commanding (General Foster) and sent him reports of these proceedings, but had no power to prevent them. The order has never to my knowledge been revoked..."
Brigadier-General R. Saxton to Sec. of War Edwin M. Stanton (dated Beaufort, South Carolina, December 30, 1864)
***This is probably the game that's going on with all these recruiting efforts- the recruiters are pocketing the bounty money.
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
I wish to just mention, that colored troops, was not exclusively Negro/Black. Native American Indians were considered and classified as 'colored.'
Many had "Caucasian" names so, it really is difficult to know who was Native American Indian and who was Negro/Black, unless you have a better 'break down' then just 'colored.'
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The USCT(United States Colored Troops)....How many were Volunteers? 
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