Op-ed: false reporting on USCT service

[ForeverFree]

That's some rather p-ss poor history. The only USCT units in existence at the time were the 1st Kansas and 1st South Carolina. Neither yet officially organized and nowhere near Antietam, MD. Where's the Internet History Police (Civil War Memory boys) when you need them?

The comment above is not that USCT were at Antietam or the other places mentioned; but rather that some African descent people had joined white regiments from Illinois and New York and fought at those battles.

Note also: according to Dudley Cornish's The Sable Arm, the first 3 colored regiments were Louisiana Native Guard outfits that formed in and around New Orleans. The Kansas and South Carolina regiments were the 4th and 5th colored regiments, according to the book.
****

RE: African American conscription: some blacks were, in effect, conscripted into the Union army. I don't know what the numbers are. I also don't know if the subject of blacks as volunteers or non-voluteers is the subject of myth. In fact, I am often disappointed at how little people know of anything about black soldiers in the Civil War.

- Alan

 

[Battalion]

The comment above is not that USCT were at Antietam or the other places mentioned; but rather that some African descent people had joined white regiments from Illinois and New York and fought at those battles.

Review-
"A few weeks after President Lincoln signed the legislation on July 17, 1862, free men of color joined volunteer regiments in Illinois and New York. Such men would go on to fight in some of the most noted campaigns and battles of the war to include, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Sherman's Atlanta Campaign."

They were able to join white regiments because of the July 17, 1862 legislation? Before that they couldn't? Don't think so...

Note also: according to Dudley Cornish's The Sable Arm, the first 3 colored regiments were Louisiana Native Guard outfits that formed in and around New Orleans. The Kansas and South Carolina regiments were the 4th and 5th colored regiments, according to the book.

The SC and KS units had been organized before the others but not officially mustered in US service. These were the only colored troops in existence at the time of Antietam.

 

[matthew mckeon]

If anyone is interested in real, honest to goodness black soldiers, Dudley Cornish's "The Sable Arm" is a good place to start. "Forged in Battle" by Joseph T. Gaathar is a more recent, well done study. "Army Life in a Black Regiment" by T.W. Higginson is an interesting memoir by a white officer of the First South Carolina Volunteers, mentioned above. "On the Altar of Freedom" by a sergeant in the 54th Mass. is a good account by a black soldier. "Firebrands of Liberty" a recent book about black soldiers in South Carolina, the "Department of the South" is worth looking into. These are ones I've read personally, there are many others.

Posters have suddenly become intensely interested in who was where, whether they were volunteers or draftees, what their legal status, their rank and other details. But of course these are Union troops.

 

[ForeverFree]

Review-
"A few weeks after President Lincoln signed the legislation on July 17, 1862, free men of color joined volunteer regiments in Illinois and New York. Such men would go on to fight in some of the most noted campaigns and battles of the war to include, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Sherman's Atlanta Campaign."

They were able to join white regiments because of the July 17, 1862 legislation? Before that they couldn't? Don't think so...

As I understand it, enlistment in the USA was limited to free white men before the Militia Act was passed in July. Time permitting, I might look for the details. And if I recall, no black men served as soldiers in the Mexican American War.

The SC and KS units had been organized before the others but not officially mustered in US service.

It seems like we agree, the KS and SC regiments were not official regiments of the US army by the time the LA regiments were officially in the army.

- Alan

 

[ForeverFree]

As far as I remember correct the Louisiana Native Guard regiments were no part of the USCT. Later, after many of the black original officers had left the regiments, they were decommissioned and part of the personell was transfered to USCT regiments - where there were white officers. So this, if viewed without other sources, would formally say: No black officers in the union army? Wrong. No black officers in the USCT (which mirrors point 1): True.

That is not exactly true. The correct answer is, there were very very officers in the USCT. I believe there was about a dozen black chaplains (such as Henry McNeal Turner), and chaplains were officers, I think; there was at least one black doctor (I don't recall his name), and doctors were officers; and Martin Delaney, who co-published a newspaper with Frederick Douglass, was commissioned a major, largely on the strength of his recruiting efforts (he had a meeting with Lincoln in the White House that also seemed helpful). So the count is not "none," but it's not a whole lot.

RE the Native Guards: the first Native Guards regiments actually predated the organization of USCT regiments. It wasn't until May 22, 1863 the the "Bureau of Colored Troops" was established by the US War Department. Meanwhile the first 3 Native Guards regiments were mustered in before the end of 1862. All Native Guard units were eventually organized under the USCT, with new unit names. Trice provides detail here.

- Alan