Yep, the Union treated them as equals to go fight Union unequals. Pretty good strategy if you ask me...
Whether they wanted to or not.
“Major General Davis Hunter, Department of the South, Hilton Head, South Carolina, on May 8, 1862, advised Brigadier General Isaac I. Stevens, commanding post at Beaufort, Port Royal Island, “I am authorized by the War Department to form Negroes into ‘squads, companies, or otherwise,’ as I may deem most beneficial to the public service. I have concluded to enlist two regiments.” Obediently, Stevens, Second Brigade, Northern District, Department of the South, on May 11 ordered in a circular, “in accordance with ... of Major General Hunter…the several agents or overseers of plantations will send to Beaufort tomorrow morning every able-bodied Negro between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, capable of bearing arms.”
“Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase on May 21 sent to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton various papers about the state of affairs on Port Royal Island, including the following correspondence.”
“Edward L. Pierce, special agent, Treasury Department, Port Royal, on May 12 wrote to Chase: “This has been a sad day on these islands--- The scenes of today… have been distressing… Some 500 men hurried… from Ladies and Saint Helena to Beaufort, … and the to Hilton Head… The Negroes are sad… The Superintendents… aided the military in the disagreeable affair, disavowing the act. Sometimes whole plantations, learning what was gong on, ran off to the woods for refuge. Others, with no means of escape, submitted passively to the inevitable decree… This mode of [enlistment by] seizures and transportation… spreading dismay and fright, is repugnant.”
“ The next day, at Pope’s Plantation, Saint Helena Island, Pierce wrote to Hunter about scenes transpiring yesterday in the execution of your order… The colored people became suspicious of the presence of the companies of soldiers detailed for the service, who were marching through the island during the night… They were taken from the fields without being allowed to go to their houses even to get a jacket…there was sadness in all. As those plantations were called from the fields, the soldiers, under orders, while on the steps of my headquarters, loaded their guns, so the Negroes might see what would take place in case they attempted to get away…On some plantations the wailing and screaming were loud and the women threw themselves in despair on the ground. On some plantations, the people took to the woods and were hunted up by the soldiers… I doubt if the recruiting service in this country has ever attended with such scenes before.’
: At this time G.M.Wells, Superintendent of Plantations, Mrs. Jenkins,’ Saint Helena Island, wrote Pierce, “This conscription, together with the manner of its execution, has created a suspicion that the government has not the interest in the Negroes that it has professed, and many of them sighed yesterday for the old ‘fetters’ as being better than the new liberty.”
“On May 13, L.D. Phillips at Dr. Pope’s plantation, also wrote to Pierce: the whole village, old men, women, and boys, in tears, [were] following at our heels. The wives and mothers of the conscripts, giving way to their feeling, break into the loudest lamentations and rush the men, clinging to them with the agony of separation… Some of them, setting up such shrieking as only this people could, throw themselves on the ground and abandon themselves to the wildest expressions of grief… The old foreman {at Indian Hill]… said it reminded him of what his master said we would do… I have heard several contrasts the present state of things with their former condition to our disadvantage. This rude separation of husband and wife, children and parents, must needs remind them of what we have always stigmatized as the worst feature of slavery… never in my judgment, did major-general fall into a sadder blunder and rarely has humanity been outraged by an act of more unfeeling barbarity.”
“Five and a half months later on October 29, Brigadier General Rufus Saxton in Beaufort informed Secretary of War Stanton, ”When the colored regiment was first organized by General Hunter no provision was made for its payment, and thee men were discharged after several months service, receiving nothing for it. In the meantime their families suffered… This failure to pay them for their service has weakened their confidence in our promises for the future and makes then slow to enlist.”
Thomas Bland Keys,
The Uncivil War: Union Army and Navy Excesses in the Official Records, pp. 21-22.