USCT vs. State Regiment Designation

[Bryan_C]

Some Black regiments had state names before they became USCT units- for example, the 1st Iowa Colored Infantry became the 60th USCI. What I'm wondering is why they had to change their name.

 

[Stryker65]

@RedRover can probably give a more detailed answer, but the designation change was because there had been many "Colored" and "African Descent" regiments organized by department commanders and states before the creation of an official USCT corps. The War Department was in charge of making said corps, and after organizing the first thirty or so regiments the department realized very quickly that they had to account for the dozens of "Colored" and "Africal Descent" regiments already serving in the field, and issued a blanket order that reclassified all "-CT" and "-AD" regiments as USCT units on March 11, 1864.

A better explanation would be the Bureau of Colored Troops's annual report, which I will give in the next post. It includes a summary of all "Colored" regiments ("Colored", "African Descent", and USCT) in service October 31, 1863, prior to the order's making.

An interesting clerical error in the name change is that Major General Edward Canby, commanding all US forces in the Gulf, interpreted the reclassification order as simply adding more units to the Regular Army, and he was made to rescind that order and change unit designations from "US Infantry (Colored)" to "US Colored Infantry".

 

[Stryker65]

 

[James Brenner]

Stryker65 is absolutely correct. As an example, Governor Tod of Ohio
authorized recruiting a colored regiment in the summer of 1863. Lacking federal funding and with no call for them to enter active duty, the 127th OVI had difficulty organizing. Once the War Department authorized Black regiments, it assumed all responsibility for training, supplying, paying, etc. At that point, the regiment was no longer a state entity but a federal one. The WD changed the unit's designation from the 127th OVI to the 5th USCT.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Some Black regiments had state names before they became USCT units- for example, the 1st Iowa Colored Infantry became the 60th USCI. What I'm wondering is why they had to change their name.

How did Iowa raise a black regiment???

 

[Bryan_C]

How did Iowa raise a black regiment???

I think many of the men were from the slave state of Missouri. Don't forget that some men- maybe quite a few, or quite a lot- and that both Black and White men- served in regiments from states they didn't live in.

 

[Library Lady]

How did Iowa raise a black regiment???

This is how IAGenWeb answers that.

1st Iowa Volunteer Infantry - African Descent

It doesn't surprise me that they recruited in Missouri. One of the Underground Railroad escape routes from Missouri led up into Iowa and then across the Mississippi River into Northern Illinois and on to Chicago.

 

[James Brenner]

I wonder if - and how much - abolitionist sentiment in the different states played a part in raising the regiments.

 

[Ben Ford 987]

How did Iowa raise a black regiment???

I'm not sure about Iowa.

But I can tell for a fact, based on my research, that many northern states received credit for contributing freed former enslaved men in the South to the USCT. Men who never had been outside the deep South, much less in any Northern States,
I saw in numerous cases where these former slaves were recruited into the Union army in Mississippi very shortly after their having been freed. The CMSRs showed comments something like "enrollment credited to New York or Massachusetts."
Apparently it was important on some level for Northern states to get credit with having contributed Black units and since was actually impossible, it was done through shuffling paperwork at the time of enrollment.

Again, I don't know whether this is the case of Iowa or not.
I can't say whether they really did enlist black men in Iowa into a regiment or not.

 

[Michael_Schaffner]

I think many of the men were from the slave state of Missouri. Don't forget that some men- maybe quite a few, or quite a lot- and that both Black and White men- served in regiments they didn't live in.

How did Iowa raise a black regiment???

There have been several answers to this and the original post and I think they're all good, but I think one more comment can be added that's relevant, not just to this question, but to our general understanding of the USCT and emancipation.

Let's start with the basics. Iowa in the 1860 Census is reported as having a Black population of 1,069 but the BCT credited it with recruiting 440 USCT. But, also in the Census, men of military age were assumed to constitute 20% of a state's population, while overall the average of the population for all northern states serving in the military was closer to 10%. So likely only around 100 of the 440 credited to Iowa were actually living there before the war started.

The balance of the 440 credited to Iowa would have come from Black men who made their way to the recruiting rendezvous at Keokuk from other states, along with those recruited by authorized state agents representing Iowa. And this may have represented all of the six companies raised in Iowa. Their subsequent service took them to Helena Arkansas and other hell holes in the lower Mississippi which would not only explain their disease rate, but also that most of the additional 700 men came from Arkansas, Louisiana, etc.

Two conclusions I draw from this are, first, it reinforces our understanding that most enslaved people were not passively waiting to be emancipated -- most were *self-emancipated and traveled some distance for the freedom offered by the United States flag.

Second, a large portion of USCT regiments appear to have been more cosmopolitan than white volunteer regiments, being a combination of those free or enslaved before the war and representing a variety of communities, urban and rural, plantation and small farms, covering broader regions, all under an overlay of white officers also geographically and culturally diverse -- in other words, as much "United States" as "Colored."

Something to keep in mind when we see the letters "USCT" -- each one of those regiments has their own unique story, complex and diverse.

 

[Michael_Schaffner]

I'm not sure about Iowa.

But I can tell for a fact, based on my research, that many northern states received credit for contributing freed former enslaved men in the South to the USCT. Men who never had been outside the deep South, much less in any Northern States,
I saw in numerous cases where these former slaves were recruited into the Union army in Mississippi very shortly after their having been freed. The CMSRs showed comments something like "enrollment credited to New York or Massachusetts."
Apparently it was important on some level for Northern states to get credit with having contributed Black units and since was actually impossible, it was done through shuffling paperwork at the time of enrollment.

Again, I don't know whether this is the case of Iowa or not.
I can't say whether they really did enlist black men in Iowa into a regiment or not.

You're right. There were authorized state agents who were allowed to recruit in southern states and credit those men to their own state's quota set by the AGO. This reduced either the odds that the credited state would have to draft men, or the number they would have to draft. New Orleans was one of the sites identified by the BCT as a recruiting rendezvous in southern states.

 

[Ben Ford 987]

You're right. There were authorized state agents who were allowed to recruit in southern states and credit those men to their own state's quota set by the AGO. This reduced either the odds that the credited state would have to draft men, or the number they would have to draft. New Orleans was one of the sites identified by the BCT as a recruiting rendezvous in southern states.

Thank you very much for clarifying the situation and also validating that I had in fact seen what I stated.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I wonder if - and how much - abolitionist sentiment in the different states played a part in raising the regiments.

Certainly true of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts.

 

[Ben Ford 987]

Certainly true of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts.

Yes, certainly true.
But that is a very different situation than the one I was referring to.

 

[Stryker65]

Michigan also raised a black regiment -- more Underground Railroad stuff, I'd assume?

Some Black regiments had state names before they became USCT units- for example, the 1st Iowa Colored Infantry became the 60th USCI. What I'm wondering is why they had to change their name.

That happened with the Louisiana units as well -- black Louisiana units formed in late 1862 were known as "Native Guards" since many of its early members were mulatto or mixed-race New Orleans-er. As Union commanders realized just how many free blacks there were in the region, their designations were changed to "Corps d'Afrique" in June 1863, and the 27-regiment Corps d'Afrique was the very first Corps of African-American troops, predating the regular USCT by many months.

 

[Bryan_C]

Just wanted to add this image to this discussion. It is from a presentiationon on Black Civil War soldiers that I gave last week for Juneteenth (which is why Texas is highlighted). The numbers are found in the Official Records, Series 3, Volume 4.

I did something a little different with my categorizing these numbers. I movded Washington, DC, and West Virginia to the Border states from the Northern states because those places had slavery when the war began, and were also places that were home to Confederate soldiers.