Download Reluctant Freedom Fighters: Coercion and Negative Recruitment

Reluctant Freedom Fighters: Coercion and Negative Recruitment
Experiences of African Americans
in the United States Civil War
_________
A Thesis
Presented
to the Faculty of
California State University, Chico
__________
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
in
History
___________
by
Kellen Starmer
Fall 2014
Reluctant Freedom Fighters: Coercion and Negative Recruitment
Experiences of African Americans
in the United States Civil War
A Thesis
by
Kellen Starmer
Fall 2014
APPROVED BY THE DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES
AND VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH:
______________________________
Eun K. Park, Ph.D.
APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:
____________________________
Robert Tinkler, Ph.D., Chair
____________________________
Michael Magliari, Ph.D.
___________________________
Jason Nice, Ph.D.
DEDICATION
Thank you to the friends, mentors, instructors, and loved ones who listened, read, revised,
encouraged and, most importantly, cared.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Dedication … ............................................................................................................................. ……….
iii
Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... ……….
v
CHAPTER
I.
Development and Misrepresentations of African Americans’
Civil War Experience……………………………………..……...……………
1
II.
Recruitment in the Southern Atlantic States…….............................................. 17
III.
Recruitment in Louisiana and the Lower Mississippi Valley…………………
IV.
Recruitment in the Border States of Maryland, Missouri, and
Kentucky……………………………………………….……………………… 43
V.
Recruitment in Free States………………..…………………………………...
63
VI.
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….
71
Bibliography………………………………..............................................................................
75
iv
33
ABSTRACT
RELUCTANT FREEDOM FIGHTERS: COERCION AND NEGATIVE RECRUITMENT
EXPERIENCES OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
IN THE UNITED STATES CIVIL WAR
by
Kellen Starmer
Master of Arts in History
California State University, Chico
Fall 2014
During the United States Civil War, African American men recruited throughout the
United States, fought alongside white men in an attempt to secure their freedom. Over the past
fifty years, historians have devoted a great deal of research to blacks Civil War experience, but
that scholarship has tended to focus mostly on positive aspects of their service. By contrast, this
thesis examines negative recruitment experiences of African Americans throughout the United
States during the Civil War. It argues that blacks’ experienced various forms of mistreatment
such as impressment, theft and other questionable recruitment practices. Geography is an
important factor in this thesis because not all blacks felt the impact of recruitment alike, and
most of the differences are based on regional peculiarities. Northern free states, border states,
southern Atlantic states, and Louisiana and Mississippi all had unique recruitment experiences
based on the commanders, geography, military necessity, the applicability and execution of
emancipation policy, and numerous other factors. This research concludes that African
Americans’ recruitment experiences, although positive in some cases, was much more negative
v
than leading histories of the Civil War claim. This investigation seeks to provide a fuller and
more factual understanding to the black military experience.
vi
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION:
African American Civil War Military Experience:
A Problematic Historiography
The United States Civil War has left a strong and lasting impression on Americans’
historical consciousness. The moment the guns fell silent in 1865, northerners and southerners
alike began writing different versions of the war. Many northerners remembered the Civil War
as a Christian Crusade between good and evil in which the free North was victorious over the
slaveholding South. Southerners, although initially bitter with defeat, increasingly began to
romanticize the “Old South,” and the “lost cause” nostalgia emerged. David Blight argues in
Race and Reunion that three main visions of Civil War history developed in the fifty years
following the conflict: the reconciliationist vision, the white supremacist vision, and the
emancipationist vision (the version that gave African Americans a place in the conflict). During
the half century after the Civil War, Blight argues that Americans fought battles over how they
would remember the conflict. Nearing the end of the period, many northerners and southerners
alike encouraged, accepted, and improvised a reconciliationist interpretation of the Civil War,
giving northern and southern whites leading roles. Unfortunately this left little if any room for
African Americans’ experience because the emancipationist vision conflicted too much with the
2
still popular white supremacist vision.1
Over the past fifty years the black military experience in the Civil War has emerged as a
new and important area of research, gaining interest from an increasing number of historians.
Largely because of the Civil Rights Movement, historians are discovering a version of the Civil
War with African Americans playing more than a trivial role. An important focus of many is to
answer the question of whether blacks would fight, and the research answers with an emphatic
yes. Questions based on blacks’ willingness to fight and how blacks performed in battle have
dominated much of the work devoted to African Americans’ Civil War service, and most
historians have centered their attention on positive aspects of blacks’ military service.
Dudley Cornish initiated major work in this field with The Sable Arm: Black Troops in
the Union Army, 1861-1865, which traces the movement toward the use of black soldiers in the
Union Army. Published in 1956, Cornish’s book uses an impressive array of primary sources,
including state and federal government documents, diaries, letters, memoirs, special studies,
magazine articles, and newspapers, to illustrate the emergence of black soldiers during the Civil
War. Cornish “traces the development of Union policy on the use of black troops in the Union
army and analyzes the problems connected with the implementation of that policy.”2 In
hindsight, fielding black soldiers to fight against their Confederate oppressors seems quite
obvious, and although Frederick Douglass stated early on that “we are ready and would go,
counting ourselves happy in being permitted to serve and suffer for the cause of freedom and free
institutions,” it proved a slow and difficult process to get black soldiers to the battlefront.3
Before the enlistment of black men in the Union Army became legal, officers such as David
1
David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2001), 2-5.
2
Herman Hattaway in Foreword of Dudley Cornish, The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army,
1861-1865 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987), vii.
3
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 5.
3
Hunter in South Carolina took matters into their own hands by attempting to form slaves into
battle-ready units. Hunter’s effort failed because he moved too quickly for the Lincoln
administration, which was not yet ready to take the controversial step of arming blacks. James H.
Lane, stationed in the more inaccessible regions of Kansas, where the War Department had less
direct control over military affairs, raised and employed black soldiers as early as 1861, but his
was an exceptional situation.
Eventually, by 1862, black regiments began to appear throughout the different theaters of
war. Once it became “legal” to recruit, enroll, train and deploy black soldiers in 1863, Cornish
shows that an immediate problem arose regarding the lower payment received by black soldiers
in comparison to that earned by white soldiers. For some, this problem persisted throughout the
war, while others were able to find solutions to it. Black soldiers were initially utilized for
fatigue duty, but eventually were tested in battle, deemed worthy, and deployed in combat with
increased frequency. Cornish estimates that black soldiers participated in about 449
engagements overall, including such larger battles like Fort Hudson, Milliken’s Bend, Olustee,
and Fort Wagner. These and other action contradicted early views of many critics and
transformed many into friends and advocates for the use of black soldiers.
A scholarly masterpiece over fifty years old, Cornish’s work remains today one of the
most referenced works on the black Civil War soldier. Like any pioneering research, it has left
room for other historians to pursue new questions. For instance, Cornish does not stray too much
from tracing the development of Union policy about recruiting black soldiers. Although he does
affirm that blacks performed well in battle, he does not explore in any detail their other
experiences while in the service of the United States.
Another important work in this field, one that examines more closely the particulars of
4
the black Civil War experience, is James M. McPherson’s The Negro’s Civil War: How
American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union, published in 1965. McPherson’s
goal is mainly to disprove the commonly held belief that “the slave was a passive, docile,
uncomprehending recipient of freedom in 1865, and that the four and one-half million Negroes
in the United States played no important or effective role in the tragic drama of the Civil War.”4
To achieve this goal, McPherson compiles an impressive amount of primary material that details
the acts and feelings of black men and women throughout the Civil War. He ties together this
material with explanatory background information and context.
Although McPherson’s book to some extent, retells the story told by Cornish, it is
especially useful because McPherson uses African Americans as sources. A common problem in
writing the history of blacks’ Civil War experience is that few blacks were literate, making it
hard to get their history directly from them. Usually in order to obtain these histories, one has to
rely on white witnesses, typically white Union officers or Confederate soldiers. This can be
problematic because as historian Noah Trudeau states, “each had a distinct agenda: Union
officers were often anxious to build up the performance of the black soldiers, while Confederates
were equally determined to tear it down.”5 McPherson provides a source that touches on most of
the relevant issues that have emerged in the scholarship of the black Civil War soldier such as
the relationship between white officers and black soldiers, atrocities committed by Confederates
against black soldiers, the recruitment of black soldiers, and finally their effectiveness in battle.
As to be expected from McPherson, this work was ahead of its time in the sense that it opened
doors and asked questions that, as we will see, later historians were happy to answer.
4
James M. McPherson, The Negro’s Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for
the Union (New York: Vintage Civil War Library, 1965), xv-xvi.
5
Noah Andre Trudeau, Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865 (Boston: Little Brown,
1998), xvii.
5
Following McPherson’s method of using black voices to tell the story of their Civil War
experience, R. J. M. Blackett edited Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent:
His Dispatches from the Virginia Front. The book starts out with a biographical essay about
Thomas Morris Chester’s life, and the rest is devoted to Chester’s recording of the actions of the
Army of the James from 1864 to 1865 for the Philadelphia Press. An active member and strong
supporter of the American Colonization Society, Chester travelled back and forth between
Liberia and the United States on a regular basis, until 1863. By that point, it seems that Chester
became less interested in the ACS and more hopeful that blacks could find freedom in America.
Soon after he gave up on the ACS, he accepted a position as war correspondent for the
Philadelphia Press covering the Army of the James. Although Blackett believes Chester’s
appointment was a move intended to do nothing more than increase the newspaper’s black
audience, it is very important because there were black soldiers in the Army of the James.
Chester took the opportunity to focus much of his attention on these soldiers, and proved to be
very attentive to their experience.6
During 1864-1865 the Army of the James was stationed in Virginia, engaged in the slow
and dangerous task of taking Richmond and Petersburg, both of which General Robert E. Lee
desperately tried to hold. Chester provided a very detailed and readable account of this
campaign, paying particular attention to the black soldiers. As may be expected, he was very
sensitive to the question of whether black soldiers would fight and he made a very clear effort to
prove the fighting ability of blacks at every opportunity. In addition to considering their
performance in battle, he also explored themes that would come to dominate the subfield of
black Civil War soldiers. He was very interested, for instance, in the white officers of black
6
Thomas Morris Chester, Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from
the Virginia Front, edited by R. J. M. Blackett (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989).
6
units; they usually favorably impressed him. Although quick to mention when these officers
mistreated their men, in most cases, he appears relieved when the offenders received prompt
punishment. He also discussed the understanding between black soldiers and Confederates that
no quarter would be granted by either side in battle, and he detailed occasions of mistreatment of
both black soldiers and their white officers by the enemy.
Chester’s recording of the war is a very valuable one. Not only is it from an African
American perspective, but it also provides a very broad look at the Army of the James and the
black soldier’s contributions to it, as opposed to records kept by individual soldiers recording
their personal experience. Chester was an interesting person in a very important time for African
Americans, and it is quite helpful to hear the opinions of an educated black man on the situations
that confronted them. He continued to play an active role in the pursuit of racial equality after
the war, but shifted his focus to Louisiana. Sadly, Reconstruction ended all too soon for African
Americans in the South and Blackett believes that “Chester seems to have lost the will to fight,
his hopes for the race squelched by a more virulent racism poised to implement harsher forms of
segregation and exclusion than anything he had known.”7 His account, lost until recently, helps
shine light not only on his deeds but also on those of his fellow African Americans in the Civil
War.
Until 1990, there had been no extensive work done on the relationship between white
officers and black soldiers. Although many had looked into the qualifications of the officers, and
of the commitment of individuals such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Robert Gould
Shaw to abolitionism, no extensive research had been done on how the two groups actually got
along on a day-to-day basis. Thankfully Joseph T. Glathaar solved this problem in 1990 when he
wrote Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. In this
7
Chester, Thomas Morris Chester, Civil War Correspondent, 132.
7
book Glathaar investigates the complex relationship between black Civil War soldiers and their
white officers. In particular he examines “the interaction of the two racial groups to understand
better not only these black commands and their contributions to Union victory but also the
aspirations, prejudices, and behavior of their officers and men and the society from which they
came.”8
The “alliance” that Glathaar claims was forged between the black soldiers and white
officers developed after they had fought together because they shared mutual goals, and because
white society tended to scorn the regiments. However, Glathaar also discusses the mistreatment
of black soldiers by white officers. Some soldiers were pressed into service against their will,
some were cheated out of their pay or had their wages stolen by officers, still others were flogged
or endured other torturous punishments. Glathaar even reveals that black regiments mutinied
against their officers far more often than white regiments. Although this information seems to
contradict Glathaar’s claim of an alliance between the two groups, his research is still extremely
valuable. Instead of focusing his attention on trying to develop this “alliance,” Glathaar may
have done better to concentrate on and acknowledge the complex relationship that these two
groups had since the relationship in itself is fascinating. Glathaar reveals truly remarkable
examples of the most positive kinds of relationships between these two groups as well as the
most negative, giving this book a place on the shelf with some of the classics on the black
military experience.
Another area that was in desperate need of further research in this sub-field up until 1998,
was a study focusing on African American soldiers’ experiences in battle, or a study showing
how well the black soldiers performed in combat during the Civil War. Noah Andre Trudeau
8
Joseph T. Glathaar, Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), x.
8
took on this task with Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865. Using an
impressive array of primary sources such as diaries, letters, and newspaper reports, as well as the
necessary secondary literature on the topic, the book takes an in-depth look at most of the major
engagements that blacks participated in as well as some of the smaller actions.
Trudeau’s book touches on themes common to other works on African American
soldiers. One involves the question, seemingly asked by at least one white man before every
engagement, of whether blacks would fight when called upon. Typically they fight well, and the
same white man then claims that this was the definitive proof that blacks are up to the task of
battle. Trudeau also examines another common theme of African American soldier scholarship:
Confederate mistreatment of African Americans in blue. The battles of Olustee and Fort Pillow
illustrate horrific occasions for mass slaughter of black troops by Confederate soldiers.9 This
book’s importance lies in providing a good readable history of the battles blacks fought, while
proving conclusively that African American soldiers performed very well in combat.
Moving towards not simply focusing on the glorious aspects of African Americans’ Civil
War service, John David Smith has put together a collection of essays covering many
experiences of black soldiers in the Civil War in Black Soldiers in Blue: African American
Troops in the Civil War Era. In addition to editing the work, Smith sets the book’s tone in the
first chapter by focusing on the evolution of federal policy about black enlistment. The other
authors mostly focus on individual battles in which blacks fought. Highlighting negative aspects
of blacks’ Civil War experience are Arthur Bergeron who writes about the massacre at Olustee,
John Cimprich who discusses the controversy behind the Fort Pillow massacre, Thomas Mays on
the Battle of Saltville, and Michael Meier on recruitment in the Mississippi Valley.
Another volume edited by John David Smith, Race and Recruitment, contains one essay
9
Trudeau, Like Men of War, 466.
9
particularly focused on the negative experiences of blacks during the Civil War by John
Cimprich and Robert Mainfort Jr. describing the Fort Pillow massacre. Previous to this
research, many argued that a massacre did not occur there. But Cimprich and Mainfort use
quantitative data drawn from casualty reports and other documents produced before the incident
became publicized to show that, although Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s role in
the massacre is unclear, there was indeed a massacre. John David Smith’s book Lincoln and the
U.S. Colored Troops gives a very interesting look into Lincoln’s involvement with the formation
of the United States Colored Troops (U.S.C.T). According to Smith, “Lincoln experienced a
metamorphosis during the war.” In two years’ time “Lincoln switched from opposing the arming
of African Americans to championing it enthusiastically.”10 Lincoln moved “from rejecting the
freeing of the slaves as war measure, to transforming Union troops into the liberators of the
South’s 4 million enslaved men, women, and children.”11 During this time Lincoln became
increasingly aware of the importance of the Union’s black troops and placed more value on their
contribution to the war effort. Smith argues that by supporting black participation in the war,
“Lincoln granted blacks part ownership in the war” and became increasingly concerned with
their interests and opinions.12
Smith uses a very extensive selection of the most up-to-date secondary sources on
various topics, while using very few primary sources in comparison. For the book’s purposes
this is adequate, but there is no truly new scholarship offered in his work. Another issue is
Smith’s assessment of the overall impact of black service. He overoptimistically claims that
military service served “for decades after [the war] as evidence of black accomplishment,
10
John David Smith, Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
2013), 2-3.
11
12
Smith, Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops, 107.
Ibid., 110.
10
earning for the [United States Colored Troops] veterans status as well as postwar victories large
and small in civil and political affairs.”13 This seems like a true assertion during early years of
Reconstruction, but it seems to be a stretch when looking at the reign of terror of the Ku Klux
Klan during Reconstruction and the emergence of Jim Crow laws afterward. Smith does,
however, do a good job at moving away from the typical positive outlook on black soldiers’
Civil War experience, by highlighting negative aspects of black service such as impressment,
discrimination, and atrocities.
Atrocities against, and by, black soldiers take center stage in Black Flag Over Dixie:
Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War by Gregory Urwin. The anthology’s topics range
broadly, from an article by Howard C. Westwood on the complicated decision Confederates
made when they captured members of the 54th Massachusetts in Charleston, to one by Bryce
Suderow on the Battle of the Crater, where he claims the worst atrocities of the war occurred.
While providing interesting articles on details surrounding atrocities, Urwin also provides
articles on large scale atrocities such as those at the Battle of Olustee, the Battle of the Crater, the
Battle at Plymouth, and at Fort Pillow. The article on Fort Pillow by Albert Castel is particularly
interesting. Castel attempts to analyze the most important voices from the ongoing debate
surrounding the Fort Pillow incident, and comes to a determination on what really happened. He
dispels the theory, often pointed out by historians who claim atrocities did occur, that there was a
devious ruse played by the Confederates during the cease-fire, and proves that the fort fell
because of superior strategy and numbers. He goes on to prove quite convincingly that Forrest’s
men did in fact kill “a large number of the garrison after they had either ceased resisting or were
13
Ibid., 113.
11
incapable of resisting.”14
Another work concerning atrocities involving black soldiers is George S. Burkhardt’s
Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War. Instead of dividing these
separate atrocities up, Burkhardt takes them on as a whole in an attempt to prove that these
atrocities were not “distinct, unconnected events,” that they “formed a pervasive pattern [that]
stemmed from southerners’ common desire to defend and protect their heritage and society.”15
This interpretation is unique since for the most part historians have dealt with these atrocities
individually, and not as connected events.
Burkhardt details quite clearly and convincingly that Confederate soldiers committed
atrocities against black Union soldiers at Milliken’s Bend, Fort Wagner, Olustee, Yazoo,
Suffolk, Fort Pillow, during the Camden Expedition, at Plymouth, Brice’s Cross Roads,
Petersburg, and Saltville as well as a few other places. In most of these situations black soldiers
were either killed on the battlefield or captured and executed by hanging or firing squad. The
“de facto policy” or pattern that Burkhardt explains is that these killings were “condoned, never
punished, and always denied.”16 When confronted with the fact that many black soldiers were
taken prisoner during the Civil War, Burkhardt responds by insisting that this fact changes
nothing: “always black soldiers were recovered property and ‘not considered prisoners of war.’
The rights of ownership allowed Confederates to do as they pleased with repossessed chattels.
They could re-enslave or destroy that property, as they thought best.”17
The increase in concentration on atrocities committed against African Americans by
14
Albert Castel in Gregory J.W. Urwin, Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil
War (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), 101.
15
George S. Burkhardt, Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 2007), 1.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., 187.
12
Confederate soldiers appears to be a response to the insistence by some that atrocities were either
exaggerated or did not occur at all. In light of the evidence, the fact that so much of this “antiatrocity” literature retains a following is frightening. This shows the importance of literature
revealing these events as the evidence presents them, giving a fuller picture of the Civil War
however gruesome it may be. Since there is still a debate, it seems that this research will
continue, and additional contributions to the Civil War atrocities theme will emerge.
One of the more recent works is Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments
That Changed the Course of the Civil War by Steven Ash. Ash, relying primarily on the
account of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, examines the often-overlooked Florida Campaign of
1863 and attempts to show its importance. He claims that “had the black troops suffered
disgrace in Florida, had they crumbled in the face of Confederate counterattacks, or clashed with
the white troops sent as reinforcements, or abused the civilian population, the whole movement
to enlist blacks would very likely have been halted in its tracks, and the Civil War could have
had a different outcome.”18
Ash’s work, well written as usual, traces the campaign from beginning to end. The
problems with this work are few, but important. First, is the speculative nature of his thesis that
all but states outright that if this campaign had been a failure, black soldiers would not have
served in the numbers they did in the Civil War. Although this campaign was undoubtedly proof
to many that blacks made worthy soldiers, it ignores the many wealthy and powerful abolitionists
who, regardless of the outcome of the Florida Campaign, would have continued to pour their
resources and efforts into arming blacks. Second, although the black soldiers performed
admirably in skirmishes near Jacksonville, it seems that officials would overlook this
18
Stephen V. Ash, Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments That Changed the Course of
the Civil War (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2008), xiii.
13
performance since there were no large-scale, traditional engagements fought in the entire
campaign. Overall, regardless of whether this was or was not the operation that led to the mass
recruitment of black soldiers, it does show how precarious the idea of black soldiers was, an
important aspect of the black military experience.
The examples of literature on the black soldier in the Civil War reviewed here illustrate
the sub-field has grown extensively over the past fifty years, and continues to attract attention.
There are several places that seem to indicate that further research is needed. Since there is still
an active debate on the issue, it appears more work will be done surrounding atrocities on and by
black soldiers in the Civil War. Another area that is likely to draw further research concerns the
relationships between black soldiers and white officers. In addition, there seems to be a lack of
scholarship investigating how the various recruitment methods may have led to different overall
experiences for individual black soldiers.
One thing is certain; much of this research, Glathaar and those focused on atrocities
excepted, concentrates on positive black experiences in the Civil War. Proving that black
soldiers fought well and actively contributed to their own freedom was an extremely important
step in the evolution of this literature; few historians would deny this interpretation. Any who
question this “fact” today are either uninformed or blind to the substantial research presented as
evidence. This knowledge leads to new possibilities for research on the black military
experience; without the burden of advocating for the positive performance of black soldiers, a
fuller understanding can be attained. No military experience can be complete when looking only
at the brave and willing patriot; in every war, in addition to the willing, there are those who are
reluctant or unwilling to fight. To gain a fuller understanding of the United States Civil War and
blacks’ experiences in it, the negative experiences need to be further researched and brought to
14
light.
As more attention has been given to African Americans’ participation in the Civil War in
academia, filmmakers have encouraged their own, often simplified, interpretations of the Civil
War, and many have accepted them as truth. Since the 1980s, popular films have portrayed
emancipation as the main motivation for Union soldiers fighting the Civil War. Many, such as
historian Barbara Fields, have reinforced this now commonly believed misinterpretation. Fields,
who gave extensive commentary in Ken Burns’s documentary on the Civil War, argues that
preservation of the Union was too shallow a goal for men to fight for; only the addition of
freedom to the North’s goals elevated the cause enough to justify the sacrifice of lives and
material.19 Although a small percentage of northerners believed that the Civil War’s main
purpose was to end slavery, most felt it was a war to save the Union. Gary Gallagher
convincingly argues that the citizens who fought for the Union believed in a nation built on “free
labor, economic opportunity, and a broad political franchise they considered unique in the
world.”20 These men thought that their victory over the slaveholding Confederacy “confirmed
the nation, made it stronger in the absence of slavery’s pernicious influence, set the stage for the
country’s continuing growth and vitality, and kept a democratic beacon shining in a world
dominated by aristocrats and monarchs. It is this belief that led them into battle.”21 The idea that
emancipation was the main reason northerners fought in the Civil War diminishes the deaths of a
third of a million U.S. soldiers, by promoting a false idea of why they fought.
Although a very good film, bringing important attention to African Americans’ Civil War
experience, the 1989 drama Glory thrust the emancipation cause into mainstream popular
19
Gary W. Gallagher, Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood & Popular Art Shape What We
Know About the Civil War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 92.
20
Gary W. Gallagher, The Union War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 6.
21
Ibid., 6.
15
culture. The movie follows the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment from their
formation to their training, and, ultimately, to their best known action at the Battle of Fort
Wagner.
In Glory, and in reality, the members of the 54th Massachusetts were true volunteers. As
soon as the governor of Massachusetts offers command of the 54th Massachusetts to Robert
Gould Shaw, portrayed by the actor Matthew Broderick, Shaw’s long time friend Thomas
(Andre Braugher), an educated free black man, eagerly volunteers as Shaw’s first recruit.
Similarly, the following scene shows a large group of volunteers gathered immediately after
enlisting. As Shaw enters the crowd on horseback, he is greeted with a chorus of enthusiastic
remarks from various recruits. When he reaches the front of the group, near what appears to be
the volunteer enlistment table, he locks eyes with Morgan Freeman’s character, John Rawlins,
who wisely nods his head. Shaw then gives a rousing speech, and the volunteers all respond
with a hearty cheer.22 Seeing only this small sample of the formation of a regiment leads one to
believe that the formation of all regiments of the U.S.C.T. proceeded in a like manner.
The overly positive view of recruitment and enlistment that is portrayed in Glory is
problematic. The fact that leading historians in the field deem it as “the most powerful movie
about the [Civil War] ever made,” is equally concerning, for it further promotes the simplified
positive experiences of African Americans.23 Although there were many, perhaps a majority, of
black men who willingly volunteered to serve in the U.S.C.T., there were a plethora of different
scenarios and negative experiences. In the free northern states, for example, recruiters
frequently swindled and coerced black men into serving, often employing alcohol to aid their
22
Glory, Directed by Edward Zwick (1989; USA: TriStar Pictures, Sony, 2009), DVD.
James M. McPherson, Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 99. McPherson gives high praise to Glory in this reflection on the film. This is a
good example of a leading historian focused on positive experiences of African Americans, as was his book The
Negro’s Civil War.
23
16
cause. In the Union-occupied portions of the southern slave states, recruiting agents and military
personnel alike hunted down and pressed blacks into service against their will. And in the border
states officers of the U.S.C.T. often imprisoned men until they agreed to join, or simply pressed
them into service in a manner similar to those employed in the Southern states. Overall, the
story of recruitment is much more complex than movies such as Glory would lead one to believe.
Nevertheless, even the leading academic scholarship on African Americans’ Civil War
experience rarely mentions negative recruitment practices.
This thesis will argue that African Americans encountered various negative recruitment
experiences during the U.S. Civil War throughout the United States. Geography is an important
factor in this thesis because not all blacks felt the impact of recruitment alike, and most of the
differences are based on regional peculiarities. Northern free states, border States, states in the
Department of the South, and Louisiana and Mississippi all had unique recruitment experiences
based on the commanders, geography, military necessity, the applicability and execution of
emancipation policy, and numerous other factors. For example, the two Confiscation Acts passed
by Congress and President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation all treated individual
subregions differently.24 A thorough investigation of these experiences will provide a fuller
understanding of African Americans’ service in the U.S. Civil War.
24
The First Confiscation Act, which became law in August 1861, declared free any slave actually used by
the Confederate military. The Second Confiscation Act of July 1862 went much further. In it, Congress
emancipated all rebel-owned slaves within Union lines in seceded states, overruled aspects of the Fugitive Slave
Act, and repealed the ban on black enlistment in the Union army. It pushed toward the “prospective emancipation of
virtually all slaves in the rebellious states.” Then, on New Year's Day of 1863, President Lincoln issued the
Final Emancipation Proclamation, which declared free all slaves within Confederate-held areas and further
encouraged escaping slaves to join the Union army. James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in
the United States, 1861-1865 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013), 236-237, 344 (quotation from 239).
17
CHAPTER II
Recruitment in Department of the South,
North Carolina and Virginia
In the occupied southern states, the enlistment of black soldiers proceeded in a unique
manner. As more territory came under Union control, the Union army’s manpower need
increased and recruiting black soldiers became a priority to many military leaders. There is
significant evidence to illustrate that in these occupied states black soldiers were pressed into
service against their will, which does not fit with the popular account of the black military
experience in the Civil War. In many cases, historians gloss over the negative aspects of blacks’
experience in this region, while devoting more attention to stories like that of Thomas
Wentworth Higginson’s accounts of the 1st South Carolina’s expedition to Florida. Throughout
the states in the Department of the South (which included South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida),
recruiters committed shocking abuses against the ex-slaves as they scoured the region for
recruits. African Americans in South Carolina bore the brunt of this ill treatment.
Some of the most astonishing evidence of the brutal forms of impressment comes from a
group of northern abolitionists sent as teachers or superintendents for the Port Royal Experiment
in South Carolina. These volunteers, called Gideonites, “were mainly young antislavery people,
about half of them from Boston and its vicinity and half from New York.”1 The accounts of the
Gideonites show the large group of northerners who swarmed South Carolina with differing
intentions. Philanthropists, missionaries, politicians, military leaders, and fortune seekers all
1
Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1964), xii.
18
“crowded the Sea Islands to contest with each other over the destiny of the emancipated slaves.”2
Some of these fortune seekers became Union recruiters, a job that many believed would be
highly profitable. The Gideonites’ records show that these recruiters, as well as Union officers,
frequently terrorized the newly freed black population on the Sea Islands of South Carolina in
their efforts to enlist soldiers for the army.
General David Hunter, the first to attempt to recruit black soldiers from this region, began
a policy of impressment that left a lasting legacy in the Department of the South. Hunter, an
abolitionist from New York, did not intend to leave a negative impact in the Department of the
South. Although his methods were cruel, he hoped to better the situation of the ex-slaves. In
March of 1862, when the question of arming blacks had not yet been determined, many radical
abolitionists hoped that Hunter would begin the process, and eventually gain Lincoln’s support.
He did not disappoint them.
Almost immediately upon taking command of the Department of the South, Hunter began
putting abolition into effect throughout the southern Atlantic by emancipating “contrabands” in
his district on April 13.3 Hunter’s first proclamation declared “All persons of color lately held to
involuntary service by enemies of the United States…are hereby confiscated and declared free.”4
Because this first proclamation conformed with federal law it did not cause much uproar. The
proclamation that he issued on May 8, however, did cause commotion. This proclamation went
much further than the first, declaring all slaves in the entire Department of the South forever free.
Most of this territory was not yet under Union control. Lincoln, unwilling then to take the
controversial step to emancipation, rebuked Hunter by issuing his own proclamation stating,
2
Ibid., xiii.
Ibid., 144.
4
James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 2013), 213.
3
19
“neither General Hunter nor any other commander or person has been authorized by the
Government of the United States to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any State free.”5
Although Hunter was not given the power he asserted in his second proclamation, he maintained
the powers given in his first and was therefore able to free all slaves who escaped to Union lines.
Even before issuing his May 8 emancipation proclamation, Hunter began taking steps to
arm the slaves. After informing his district commanders of his plans for the department and for
recruiting volunteers, which initially entailed waiting for recruits to come to Union lines, he
changed his mind and ordered “all able-bodied male Negroes between the ages of eighteen and
forty five who were capable of bearing arms… to be sent to Hilton Head at once.”6 Willie Lee
Rose argues in Rehearsal for Reconstruction that Hunter “enjoined the strictest secrecy until the
morning of May 12, so that the Negroes could not take warning and run away.”7 Hunter
believed secrecy a necessity and recruitment would not be easy because “rumors were early
afloat, when recruiting began, that the government officers were gathering up the negroes to ship
away to Cuba and the West Indies. These reports for a long time hindered the enlistment very
much.”8 As news of Hunter’s order circulated, many whites in the region understandably
expressed concern. Hunter’s order quickly brought him into conflict with Treasury agents. On
May 11, a special agent for the Treasury department expressed to Hunter his reservations about
the orders.
The season of cultivating has come; and without proper cultivation the crops planted will
come to nothing; and the money expended by Government, as well as the labor, will be
useless. All the hands, with few exceptions, now on the plantations, are useful for the
cultivation of the growing crops; and only a few could be taken from them without
5
Dudley Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 1956), 36.
6
Official Records of the War of Rebellion I, xiv, 341,
http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?Content=020/0001. Official Records III, ii, 52-53,
http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?page=52&dir=123
7
Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction, 146.
8
Joseph T. Wilson, The Black Phalanx (New York: Arno Press, 1968), 112.
20
substantial injury. Under these circumstances it is proposed to take from the plantations
all able-bodied men between 18 & 45, leaving only women and children, and old or
sickly men, to cultivate the crops…Two thirds of the available force of the plantations,
will be taken…As the persons are to be taken to Hilton Head, and without their consent, I
assume (though I trust under a misapprehension) that they are to be organized for military
purposes without their consent.9
The issue came down to the fact that the Treasury Department hoped to ease the ex-slaves’
transition from slavery to freedom; the project of working the plantations freely was crucial to
this experiment. In addition to undermining their experiment in free labor, the enlistment of
slaves against their will, the Treasury agents argued, threatened the food supply of the region. In
addition, forcing the blacks into service would lead to “debilitating effects on the morale,” and
would cause distrust between them and the U.S. government. Hunter ignored these concerns and
several companies of soldiers immediately went into action recruiting blacks against their will.10
As Hunter’s black army grew, and many newspapers reported numerous stories on the
formation of these black recruits, the public demanded clarification. The public outcry,
specifically from northern Democrats and from slave owners and Democrats alike in the border
states, led Congress to inquire into the situation in hopes of figuring out exactly what Hunter was
doing. On June 9, Representative Charles Wickliffe, a Democrat from Kentucky, helped pass a
resolution forcing the secretary of war to provide official information on Hunter’s behavior in the
South. Wickliffe asked three questions of Hunter: Had he organized a regiment of fugitive
slaves, did he do this with the authority of the War Department, and had the War Department
provided uniforms, guns, and ammunition.11 In his written response to Congress, Hunter
skillfully and sarcastically skirted the answers to the three questions but insisted in his
9
Edward L. Pierce to Maj. General Hunter, Beaufort South Carolina, 11 May 1862, in Freedom: A
Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867, Series II The Black Military Experience, eds. Ira Berlin, Joseph
P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 47.
10
Ibid., 47.
11
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 45.
21
concluding remarks that “the experiment of arming the blacks so far as I have made it, has been a
complete and even marvelous success.”12 Although Wickliffe was outraged at this reply, since
he was a Democrat who did not condone the arming of black soldiers, he lacked the ability to
force Congress to stop Hunter.
Soon after, the Second Confiscation Act became law putting the power to arm the slaves
in the hands of the president. In particular, section 11 authorized Lincoln to “employ as many
persons of African descent as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of this
rebellion.”13 The Militia Act, passed later that same day, gave even more power to the president
by allowing for the employment of black soldiers and setting individual soldiers and their
families free.14 Although at face value, it seems as if the Militia Act gave Hunter the power to do
exactly what he was currently doing, it actually put the power to authorize such a move in
Lincoln’s hands. So, for the time being, Hunter was still unable to arm, acquire uniforms or
officers for, and, most importantly, to pay his black regiment.
If Hunter had been more patient and tactful in his recruitment of black soldiers, he may
have been successful. Dudley Cornish argues that for his failure in this endeavor,
Hunter had no one to thank but himself. His original impressment of Negroes was not
forgotten, and while his reply to Wickliffe’s resolution had pleased the radicals it had
shocked the more conservative element in the North. Worst of all, Hunter had alienated
the support of the white officers and men of his own command.15
His alienated white officers believed that Hunter abandoned and mistreated his white soldiers in
favor of his obsession with his black regiments.16 Cementing Hunter’s failure, on August 6,
Lincoln made it clear in a statement to the New York Times that, although he planned to continue
12
Official Records, 3. II, 148, http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?page=148&dir=123
(accessed 16 June 2014).
13
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 46.
14
U.S. Statutes at Large, XII, 592, 599, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage (accessed 16 June 2014).
15
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 48.
16
Ibid.
22
to use blacks as laborers, he had no intention of arming them.17 Lincoln’s caution stemmed from
his very delicate position in regard to the Border States. If he made it known that he supported
arming black soldiers, he feared the Border States would secede and join the Confederacy.
Understanding his defeat, Hunter wrote to Secretary Edwin Stanton, “Failing to receive
authority to muster the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers into the service of the
United States, I have disbanded them.”18 The black men now had no choice but to return home.
Hunter’s actions had lasting consequences for the Department of the South, especially in terms
of blacks trusting whites. In effect, Hunter had kidnapped hundreds of black men, drilled them
as soldiers for four months without pay, and then dropped the project when he was unable to get
the President’s authorization. Nevertheless, Dudley Cornish takes an interesting and favorable
stand on Hunter’s experiment, claiming that,
General Hunter had done a great service to the cause of the Negro soldier, however
outrageous the means he had used. He had forced the issue into the open, and from the
middle of May on through the rest of 1862 the question of arming the Negro, slave or
free, occupied column after column of newspaper space and stirred the expression of
every kind of opinion, conviction, and reaction.19
Although Hunter’s actions did bring the black soldier to public attention and led to debate on the
issue, they caused – contrary to Cornish – much more harm than good. Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, who eventually took command of the First South Carolina when it was re-formed,
claimed that “the ultimate result [of Hunter’s experiment and its failure] was a habit of distrust,
discontent, and desertion, that was almost impossible to surmount.”20 Consequently, it was
increasingly difficult to raise an army of former slaves in this region, which directly led to future,
17
Ibid., 50.
Official Records, 3 ser., II, 346, http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?page=346&dir=123
(accessed 16 June 2014).
19
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 40.
20
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment (East Lansing: Michigan State University
Press, 1960), 211-212.
18
23
more brutal forms of impressment.
Although Hunter had failed, others succeeded in their attempts to raise black military
units. As Lincoln deemed necessary, he increasingly allowed experimentation in the wake of the
Militia Act. In August of 1862 in Louisiana, General Benjamin Butler raised a black regiment as
did James Lane in Kansas as early as October 1861. Lane succeeded where Hunter failed
because of a unique mixture of circumstances in the Kansas-Missouri region since the passage of
the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act.21 Lane freed and enlisted black men quite casually and because
their theater of war was so far removed from any government center, he could interpret and
ignore administration policy and War Department orders as he saw fit. After Hunter’s regiment
disbanded, military necessity forced the issue to be revisited in the Department of the South.
General Rufus Saxton, the military governor of the Sea Islands, received orders from Stanton on
August 25, 1862, encompassing nearly everything that Hunter sought, mainly authorization “to
arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the service of the United States such number of volunteers
of African descent as you may deem expedient…and [you] may detail officers to instruct them in
military drill, discipline, and duty, and to command them.” It even addressed the issue of pay
stating “persons received into service and their officers [are] to be entitled to and [will] receive
the same pay and rations as are allowed by law to volunteers in the service.”22 According to
Cornish, this “signif[ied] a major turning point in the war policy of the Lincoln administration,
foreshadowing the large-scale organization of Negro regiments in 1863 and their broadening
21
James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988), 145-169. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and repealed the
Missouri Compromise by allowing popular sovereignty to determine the legality of slavery in these areas. Anti- and
pro-slavery men alike flocked to Kansas to vote for or against slavery. This led to what is known as “Bleeding
Kansas,” violence on and around the border of Kansas and Missouri between pro- and anti-slavery factions. The
violence in the region outlived the Civil War.
22
Official Records, 1 ser., XIV, 377,
http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?page=377&dir=020 (accessed June 16, 2014).
24
combat use throughout the rest of the war.”23
Saxton, though, did not have an easy time recruiting blacks in the region because of the
intense resentment left over from Hunter’s impressment. But Saxton was well liked and trusted
by the blacks in the Department of the South. Affectionately called “Gen’rel Saxby” throughout
the region, Saxton succeeded in gaining true volunteers but struggled to fill his regiment.24
Saxton then selected Massachusetts abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson to command this
new regiment. When Higginson arrived in Beaufort in November of 1862, the regiment was just
over half full. Although Higginson eventually raised a full regiment, he was very critical of the
problems that Hunter’s actions caused for his recruiting efforts. The “formation of [Hunter’s]
regiment was, on the whole, a great injury to this one.”25 According to Saxton, Higginson
recruited honestly and took only those who volunteered. But as Higginson departed for his
expedition in Florida in January of 1862, two men were on their way to the Department of the
South who intended to do things differently, the veteran Jayhawker Colonel James Montgomery,
and again, Major General David Hunter.
James Montgomery, who had successfully raised black soldiers in Kansas, had become
tired of a long feud with James Lane and Charles Jennison over not being promoted to colonel of
the 1st Kansas.26 Disgusted, he left Kansas in December 1862 for Washington where he used all
of the political resources at his disposal to receive authority from the War Department “to raise,
subject to the approval of the general commanding the Department of the South and under his
direction, a regiment of South Carolina volunteer infantry, to be recruited in that State, to serve
23
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 80-81.
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 40.
25
Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, 12.
26
James Lane and Charles Jennison both fought for the anti-slavery faction in the Kansas-Missouri region
during Bleeding Kansas. They then transferred their loyalties to the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War.
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 145-169.
24
25
for three years or during the war.”27 He immediately left Washington with General Hunter for the
Department of the South and took the few recruits that Saxton had raised after the formation
Higginson’s First South Carolina. Since recruiting in Florida went slowly, efforts to fill
Montgomery’s regiment were increased in South Carolina as recruiters began filtering south.
Major General David Hunter returned as the commander of the Department of the South
in January 1863. Almost immediately he made known his plans to press black men into service.
A Gideonite described the immediate fear throughout the region in March of 1863. He said that
for a week local African Americans had been quite anxious about the rumors of Hunter making
soldiers of all of the black men in the region. After the Gideonite confirmed that the rumors were
true, they confessed “that for a full week before hardly a man on the plantation under sixty years
of age had slept in his bed.” Hearing of a strange white man coming to the area was enough to
“[drive] them from the field into the woods like so many quails,” after an occurrence like this
“they will not go to church…[or] go to the Ferry.” At one point this Gideonite asked a black man
named Demus when a praise meeting was to be held. Demus told the meeting attendees of the
question asked of him and “they immediately became suspicious of some trap to catch them, they
grew anxious, a cry arose that there were soldiers out on the plantation, the men left the praisehouse, and the meeting, instead of continuing all night, broke up about midnight with some
confusion.” This Gideonite felt that Hunter’s recruitment scheme greatly harmed their efforts to
give black men a fair chance at succeeding as free men. He believed that for the ex-slaves “to be
forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon
their crops and skulk and hide…[leading] the life of hunted beasts during all this precious
27
Official Records, 3 ser., III, 14, http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/recordView.cfm?page=14&dir=124
(accessed 16 June 2014).
26
planting season” was a great injustice.28
From the previous account it is quite obvious that the black men of the area remembered
too well what had happened to their race a year before. They understood that Hunter looked to
resume his wholesale impressment of all able-bodied blacks in the region. When the draft for the
4th South Carolina began, it is likely that recruiting officers learned quickly that this would be no
easy task. When two “officers from [Illinois] came [to the plantation]…not a man was to be
seen…the men would not come back till the officers had gone – they were afraid of being taken.”
The men abandoned their homes and “made a camp somewhere and mean never to be caught.”29
Hunter’s second attempt at recruiting affected many more than had his previous try because he
expanded the pool to men as old as fifty. In addition, he authorized the conscription of
unemployed contrabands with recruiters allowed to determine who was unemployed.30
As recruiting parties realized that the task of recruiting would be harder than they
expected, they began getting more creative and brutal in their methods. In April 1863, a report
indicated that the soldiers who had been “at Fripp Point” the night before had had limited
success. The soldiers “caught old Simon and Mike, [and] a boy of fifteen,” and when one boy of
seventeen tried to escape, they shot at him and “wounded him in the head slightly.”31 It seems
that as blacks successfully evaded recruiting parties, the latter experienced frustration and
became much more willing to act violently. On another occasion in May, two men, Sancho and
Josh, ran away from recruiters into a marsh. The soldiers opened fire and hit Josh in the leg with
a bullet and in the head with buckshot. Although Josh survived, the episode shows that the
28
Elizabeth Ware Pearson, Letters From Port Royal, 1862-1868 (New York: Arno Press and the New York
Times, 1969), 172.
29
Ibid., 176-177.
30
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 40.
31
Pearson, Letters From Port Royal, 185.
27
recruiters were becoming much more willing to use violence to acquire new soldiers.32
The culmination of the recruiters’ frustration and violence came in December of 1863.
Again, a Gideonite recorded the more disturbing methods of recruitment. This man remembered
that the soldiers came to Fripp Point at night with fifty men and quite successfully recruited men.
They “carried off not only Caesar, a deserter, Abel’s son, but also old Miller, Tony, and Jonas
and David.” The soldiers took these men with the justification that they were deserters, but the
Gideonite asserted that only one of them “belonged to…the regiments.” Because of the
difficulty in gaining true volunteers, these soldiers had to be very sneaky in their efforts and
“they had come by rowboats to the village creek.” Upon finding no legitimate deserters “they
took all the men they could find.” The soldiers arrived just after the praise meeting and “set a
guard all about the houses and shot at every man that tried to run away.” They then carried away
all of the men who did not escape. This raid at the Fripp Point plantations so scared black men
that “they wont dare go to work.”33 It is clear that recruiters had become so determined to gain
conscripts that they were willing to kill and injure black men who resisted impressment. These
actions support the argument that, for some recruiting parties, it became policy (although
unspoken) that ex-slaves in the region had the right to either enlist “voluntarily,” or be shot.
As more territory came under Union Army control, reports of injustices towards blacks
spread to the surrounding states of Virginia and North Carolina. This was because the military
situation was very similar to that of South Carolina and the Sea Islands: the Union Army held
small areas in these states and slaves flocked to the Union-held territory. Men were not the only
ones who had to deal with impressment; many women were left without their husbands in times
of need. A Virginia freedwoman, writing to a Northern missionary for help, conveyed the
32
33
Ibid., 188.
Ibid., 229.
28
worries of women left alone when their husbands were conscripted against their will:
Sir I take the liberty to pen you a few lines, stating my own case, the Soldiers have taken
my Husband away, from me, on yesterday, and it was against his will, and he is not
competent to bee A Soldier. he is very delicate, and in bad health, in the Bargin, and I am
not healthy myself, but if they, keep him, they leave me, and 3 children, to get along the
best we can, and one of them is now verry Sick. do try and get them to release him if you
can, for they too[k] him, when he was on his to his work. he is A shoo make by trade, his
name is James Wallis. pleas do all you can Jane Wallis, his wife34
Similar recruitment stories became common throughout the region from Virginia to Florida.
Even as late as September 1864, well after General Quincy A. Gillmore took over for Hunter at
the end of 1863, there were records of mistreatment towards African Americans. Late in the war
a Gideonite wrote that recruiters acted with “excessive severity, not to say horrible cruelty.” The
previous night the Gideonite had learned that “three men were shot, one killed, one wounded
fatally…the other disappeared over the boat’s side and has not been seen since.” This observer
summed up what the recruitment had become in the Department of the South: “a mere
conscription, every able-bodied man is compelled to serve, and many not fit for military
service are forced to work in the quartermaster’s department.”35
A statement by an impressed Virginia black soldier provides a detailed account of the
coercion employed in the region. John Banks, a twenty-four-year-old black man, wrote in
January 1864 about how he came to be a soldier in the Union Army. As he was cutting wood a
mile from his house on December 2, 1863, ten armed soldiers approached him. They
immediately asked him to enlist to which he responded that he could not because he was
“obliged to do the work for my family.” They then forced him to go with them to Newport News
to see their commanding officer, Captain Montgomery. He explained his situation to the captain
and begged to go home to his family. Although Banks asserted that Montgomery treated him
34
35
Jane Wallis to Prof. Woodburry, York County, Virginia, 10 December 1863, in Freedom, 138.
Pearson, Letters From Port Royal, 283.
29
“kindly and let [him] go home under guard & stay for about five minutes,” Montgomery insisted
that “he couldn’t release [Banks] because he ‘had orders’ to take all colored men & make them
enlist.” Banks was then sent “surrounded by armed soldiers, just as though I was a prisoner” to
Craney Island. Immediately upon arriving at Craney Island, he heard stories of mistreatment
toward men who refused to enlist. Usually men were put in the guard house and only given hard
bread and water until they enlisted. Banks finalized his decision to enlist when a soldier told him
and another man that “if [they] didn’t enlist he would put the contents of his musket into
[them].”36
Although it is easy to point fingers at individuals for the injustices done to the black
population in the Department of the South and as far north as Virginia, an outside factor also had
a large impact on the nature of recruitment. Because warfare creates so many opportunities for
exploitation and personal gain, it is not at all surprising that white men found ways to exploit
blacks. As black men were increasingly accepted into the army, they became very valuable to
many people. One of the first to exploit the black recruits were men called substitute brokers.37
When northern white men sought to avoid the draft, black substitutes looked quite appealing.
This was especially the case because the southern blacks’ “lowly economic position often made
[them] easier and cheaper to purchase,” and they were also easier to “intimidate into enlisting.”38
This practice became so rampant and widespread that the War Department eventually ruled that
blacks could substitute only for other blacks.
The largest source of abuses against the black population in the Department of the South
36
Statement of John Banks, Craney Island, Virginia, 2 January 1864, in Freedom, 139-140.
Leon F. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 73. For substitution
policy see James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 600-602. He explains that, if individual congressional
districts did not meet the quotas of volunteers assigned them by the Enrollment Act of 1863, a draft lottery would be
held to fill the quota. To avoid being drafted, an individual could either hire a substitute, or pay a commutation fee.
Substitutes were typically eighteen and nineteen year olds or immigrants. Many substitute brokers, however, looked
to freed slaves in the South as a potential source of manpower.
38
Ibid., 73.
37
30
came as a direct result of a law “enacted on July 4, 1864 which provided that blacks recruited in
the Confederate states could be credited to the draft quotas of the loyal states.”39 They were not
considered substitutes, but the end result was the same: black men were to serve in place of white
men. This led to a flood of recruitment agents from the northern states who combed the occupied
South for recruits, especially in the Department of the South. Many of these recruiting agents
were sent directly by state governments or even counties to press soldiers into service and save
their white citizens from having to enlist. Often these “recruits” were even swindled out of
money owed to them in the form of bonuses and bounties. A court-martial trial shows
convincingly how a man from Massachusetts made a great deal of money by doing just this. In
his memoir of his wartime experience, George Henry Gordon, a lawyer and Union general,
recorded this type of operation. A witness from Massachusetts swore that “he formed a copartnership with others to go to Newberne in North Carolina and buy up negroes to fill the
requisitions made upon Massachusetts.”40 The witness went with a Massachusetts paymaster
who brought $425 for each recruit. Out of this money, the witness swore that “the negro got but
two hundred,” the rest went to the “profits of the business,” i.e. the recruiter.41 This individual
operated a very lucrative recruiting business, robbing blacks of their bounties and accumulating
“ten thousand dollars as his share.”42 This court case does not give evidence of impressment, but
it does illustrate the negative recruitment experience of black soldiers, when they were tricked
and robbed by white men. Gordon also claimed that “this traffic of New England towns in the
bodies of wretched negroes, bidding against each other for these miserable beings who are
39
Ibid.
George Gordon Henry, A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion, 1863-1865,
J.R. Osgood and Company, 1882), 275.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
40
(Boston:
31
deluded, and if some of the affidavits I have in my office are true, tortured into service.”43
Surprisingly, some of the men who were spared these recruiters’ efforts were men who
already worked for the military. When agents began to recruit among the labor forces of
fortifications, bases, and armies, their military employers objected loudly. Because of these
protests, Hunter “forbade recruiters to conscript employees of the engineers department.”44 But
even this did not stop the recruiters. Those who were particularly affected, and protested the
loudest were military commanders such as General William T. Sherman. Sherman considered
blacks much more valuable as teamsters and laborers than as soldiers, and they were a very
important part of his army. Since able-bodied men were the only ones who could become
laborers, these were the only black men Sherman allowed into his lines. The high number of
able-bodied men working in his army attracted many recruiters. Because of his fury at the
persistent efforts of recruiters, Sherman eventually ordered the arrest of recruiters who interfered
with his black laborers. When he learned of this conduct, and Sherman’s protests, even Lincoln
admitted his misgivings about the recruiting system.45 Overall, the system of recruitment that had
developed in the South to fill quotas for northern states negatively affected nearly everyone
involved. The policy outraged military commanders, disrupted black regiments, and failed to
produce recruits in the numbers necessary to fill northern states’ quotas. It was estimated by the
Bureau of Colored Troops that in eight months, over one thousand northern recruiters brought a
little over five thousand black men into federal service.46
The story of recruitment in the states of the Department of the South does not conform
with modern imagery. The Glory ideal of slaves eagerly lining up to enlist and serve their
43
Ibid.
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 40.
45
Ibid., 77-78.
46
Ibid., 78.
44
32
country as free men was not as widespread a reality as some literature would have modern
readers believe. In the South, before and after emancipation, ex-slaves were all but re-enslaved
by their assumed northern liberators. Especially as the war raged on longer than expected, the
War Department realized the necessity for more troops and instituted drafts in northern states,
and northerners increasingly looked for ways to avoid going to war. The opportunity for cheap
substitutes (and, in some cases, profits at the expense of the recently liberated blacks) was
immediately taken advantage of and exploited, leading to the abuses reviewed. In addition, the
need for more men in the South led commanders in the Department of the South to resort to
wholesale impressment and coercion in many cases. In either case, the result was the same: large
numbers of southern black men fought against their will for the Union Army.
33
CHAPTER III
Recruitment in Louisiana and the
Lower Mississippi Valley
Recruitment of black soldiers in Louisiana initially mirrored that of the Department of the
South, North Carolina and the Virginia Tidewater region: it began slowly, gained momentum,
and eventually resulted in nearly wholesale impressment. Recruitment began after the Union
army gained a strong foothold in the state by capturing New Orleans in April of 1862. The main
difference in recruitment between the Department of the South and Louisiana was who
commanded local troops. Early on in the Department of the South and Tidewater regions, David
Hunter pressed Washington to enlist black men into the military. General Benjamin F. Butler,
however, did not see black recruitment as an immediate priority in Louisiana. This was mostly
because he believed that black soldiers were not a necessity. Instead, Butler was confident in his
ability to raise an army of five thousand loyal white citizens.1 It was in fact Butler’s subordinate,
General John W. Phelps, an antislavery advocate from Vermont, who made the first effort to
recruit and arm blacks in Louisiana.
General Phelps was the commander of the U.S. forces at Camp Parapet, a military base
outside New Orleans. By December of 1861 he had made it clear in an announcement that his
goal was to destroy slavery.2 Following this course of action he disobeyed Butler’s orders,
allowed blacks to escape to his lines, and refused to return them to their owners.3 As Phelps and
Butler went back and forth on this matter, Phelps took the initiative and, without orders, began
1
Dudley Cornish, The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 1987), 57.
2
Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, Leslie S. Rowland, eds. Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation,
1861-1867, Series II: The Black Military Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 42.
3
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 58.
34
efforts to raise five companies of black soldiers. On July 30 Phelps sent Butler requisitions for
“arms, accoutrements, clothing, camp and garrison equipage, etc., for three regiments of
Africans” that he raised to protect his position.4 Butler ignored the request and instead sent an
order to Phelps to use his “contrabands” to cut down trees surrounding his position. Phelps saw
the order as “humiliating” because it was an obvious rejection of his proposal and seemed to
suggest that “he and his officers serve [as] slave drivers.”5 Phelps responded to Butler by stating
that while he was willing “to prepare African regiments for the defense of the Government
against its assailants, [he was] not willing to become the mere slave driver which [Butler]
propose[d], having no qualifications that way.”6 Phelps went on to tender his resignation, which
Butler rejected. Phelps insisted on its acceptance, which forced Butler to send the request to the
War Department. The War Department did not act fast, and Phelps’ resignation languished for
the time being.
During this lull in the Phelps-Butler quarrel, the military situation changed drastically
when a Confederate offensive, beginning in August 1862, altered Union man-power demands in
favor of African American recruitment. Although Butler pleaded for more white reinforcements,
he received none. Consequently, Butler became more receptive to enlisting black men for the
entire Department of the Gulf. Meanwhile, Phelps’s resignation, which had been waiting on War
Department approval, was finally accepted on August 21. The following day, Butler gave
General Order No. 63 which called on the free colored militia of Louisiana to enroll in the Union
Army.7 Although Phelps had done nearly all the work, his resignation allowed Butler was to take
all the credit for black enlistment. Notably, Butler’s order applied only to free persons, not
4
Ibid., 59.
Berlin, Reidy, Rowland, Freedom, 43.
6
Cornish, The Sable Arm, 60.
7
Ibid., 65.
5
35
slaves or contrabands. However, it still constituted a very big step. At this early stage in
Louisiana, the U.S. Army only recruited from the Louisiana Native Guard, whose members were
eager to join the Union Army. Louisiana had a long history of all-black military units dating
back to French colonial times, the Louisiana Native Guard was formed in 1861 as an all-black
militia. Although they sided with the Confederacy at the beginning of the war, they quickly
transferred their loyalties to the United States when the Union Army took control of the region.
In 1862, General Nathaniel P. Banks assumed command of the Department of the Gulf,
and enlistment began to include contrabands and slaves. The situation was difficult, however,
because many planters in Louisiana claimed to be Union sympathizers, which made the status of
their slaves complicated and uncertain under the Confiscation Acts. As manpower needs
increased, recruiters frequently raided plantations to gain black enlistees. On these missions, they
coerced any and all able-bodied slaves they encountered. They even pressed into service free
blacks in New Orleans and Baton Rouge against their will. These developments led nearly all
native Louisianans to be hostile to the efforts of recruiters: “slave owners complained about
seizure of their slave property; quartermaster and commissary officers opposed disruption of
their work crews; free blacks objected to being treated like slaves, and slave hirelings protested
their loss of privilege.”8 Throughout the war, commanders heeded or ignored these various
protests as they saw fit. Disorder is the best descriptor for the recruitment in this region. The
various competing interests in Louisiana planters, northern lessees, contrabands, and free
blacks who all claimed loyalty to the Union, in addition to War and Treasury department officials ruined all chances of formulating an orderly, consistent, or coherent recruitment policy.9
Although Butler was eventually given most of the credit for black recruitment, Phelps, of
8
9
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 118.
Ibid., 121.
36
course, initiated it in Louisiana and conducted recruitment on a legitimately volunteer basis. Had
the task been left under Phelps’ direction, the story of recruitment may have been quite different
in Louisiana. In a letter to the headquarters of the Department of the Gulf, Phelps had explained
the success of, and his hopes for, volunteer recruitment:
I think that with the proper facilities I could raise the three regiments proposed in a short
time. Without holding any inducements, or offering any reward, I have now upward of
three hundred Africans organized into five companies who are willing and ready to shew
their devotion to our cause in any way that it may be put to the test. They are willing to
submit to anything rather than to slavery.10
Unfortunately for the blacks of Louisiana, Phelps was one of the only commanders who recruited
in this way, and his leadership in the region did not last long.
As black recruitment increased, military officials routinely committed injustices against
the black community in occupied cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Cities such as these
boasted large numbers of free people of color. Many of these free persons of color worked as
artisans, shopkeepers, and enjoyed the status and wealth that went along with their profession.
Many others worked for municipal transportation networks and for the Army’s quartermaster and
commissary department.11 Although evidence indicates that recruiters sought all blacks for
impressment in this region, the free black population had the means to communicate the
injustices done to them because many of them were literate. A group in Baton Rouge, for
example, sent a well-articulated protest against impressment of free blacks to the provost marshal
in that city.12 They complained of being “hunted up in the streets, in the market house, and other
places whilst engaged in our daily avocations, and marched off to the Penetentiary, where we are
10
Brigadier General J. W. Phelps to Captain R. S. Davis, Camp Parapet Louisiana, 30 July 1862, in
Freedom, 62.
11
Berlin, Reidy, Rowland, Freedom, 118.
12
Louisiana had a very large free black population before the Civil War. This group will be referred to as
free blacks or free persons of color. Slaves who became free during or after the Civil War will be referred to as
freed blacks.
37
placed with contrabands, and forced into the service.”13 Clearly, free blacks and contrabands
were taken indiscriminately against their will. Interestingly, free blacks did not show much
concern toward the conscripted contrabands, and they took pains to make it known that they
“were born free, have lived free, and wish to be treated as freemen.”14 They further argued that
as freemen they were entitled to rights guaranteed by the government. They stated that they
were willing to join the army, but wished to be lawfully drafted, just as whites were.
A similar account comes from free persons of color in New Orleans to the commander of
the Department of the Gulf. They first establish that they are “sincerely attached to the
constitution,” and desire “maintenance of the Unity of the National Government and its laws.”15
They then cite the two regiments that General Butler raised from the Louisiana Native Guard as
evidence that their population was actively doing its duty. These men, like those in Baton
Rouge, were concerned because many free blacks were being “arrested in the public thoughfare
and incarcerated as criminals, while engaged in their various avocations.”16 They asserted that if
the government needed their support they were willing to do their part, but they had already done
a lot for the government and insisted that recruitment proceed in a legal way. This type of
recruitment was confirmed by a New Orleans recruiter who admitted to pressing men into
service against their will, and that “there are others recruiting in this city who use harsh measures
to induce the negroes to enlist.”17
This kind of behavior on the part of recruiters caused much protest even from the white
population of Louisiana, and many times, black soldiers served as the impressment agents. This
13
Baton Rouge Free Blacks to the Provost Marshal of Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, November
1863, in Freedom, 159.
14
Ibid.
15
Manuel Guerrier et al. to Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, New Orleans, 17 August 1864, in Freedom,
165.
16
Ibid.
17
P.F. Mancosas to Major General N. P. Banks, New Orleans, 7 August 1863, in Freedom, 152.
38
likely occurred when blacks already serving believed that all African Americans should serve to
promote their race. C.T. Buddeck, a white native of New Orleans, protested when his “house
servant, a negro man [aged] 40 years, while leaving my house on his way to my office, yesterday
was met and seized by a squad of negro soldiers and obliged [to go] along.”18 Although his
servant begged to be released he was “overcome by superior force, which compelled him to
move on.”19 Buddeck went to his servant’s place of imprisonment and asked that the commander
in charge release him. The commander told him that he could not release the man because he
had volunteered to join the Army. Buddeck confirmed with his servant that he had not
volunteered, and sought an explanation from the commander. The commander responded by
showing him his servant’s mark on a piece of paper. Apparently Buddeck’s servant “had been
told ‘to touch the pen’ but he did not know what for.” The mark that Buddeck’s servant put down
was considered a signature, so in this way he had “volunteered” to join the U.S. Army.20 This
type of trickery shows how easy it was to coerce African Americans to enlist, even when it is
very clear they had no desire to do so.
These tactics also affected Army laborers. The Superintendent of Negro Labor for the
Department of the Gulf told of a very violent occurrence in a letter of protest to the Department
Commander. In New Orleans, at 10:30 pm on August 4, 1863, six policemen entered the
residence of a Mr. Bourgeois and demanded to take his black son Peter, an Army laborer, to
press into the service of the Army. When Peter refused to go he was “set upon and cruelly beaten
by the squad one of them using a knife upon him and wounding him in three different places.”21
Peter was eventually released, but the Superintendent had heard of numerous instances from
18
C.T. Buddeck to Major General N.P. Banks, New Orleans, 5 August 1863, in Freedom, 150.
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
Lieutenant George H. Hanks to Major General N.P. Banks, New Orleans, 5 August 1863, in Freedom,
19
151.
39
prominent citizens whose “houses were forcibly entered… and their servants taken out of bed
and maltreated if they refused to accompany the Squad.”22 It is quite evident that in New Orleans
especially, recruiters found the large population of blacks hard to resist and coerced and
impressed black men of all backgrounds indiscriminately for service in the U.S. Army.
Blacks outside of the cities of Louisiana and in the lower Mississippi Valley also
encountered unjust recruitment practices. As in South Carolina, recruiters concentrated mostly
on the plantations spread throughout the fertile region. The recruitment in Louisiana and lower
Mississippi Valley differed from that in South Carolina because many prewar plantation owners,
ostensibly Unionists, still operated their estates. Because of some of the owners’ shaky claims to
Union loyalty, many recruiters found it very easy to justify simply going onto plantations and
taking the men they sought. Commanders in this region often outlawed this kind of
impressment, and even gave plantation owners passes providing immunity to Union recruiters.
But the plantations remained a very easy target for recruiters, and commanders did not take any
strong action to prevent their exploitation.
The impressment of enslaved blacks working on plantations sparked protests from
plantation owners to various Army officials. Their protests were economically motivated, for
they needed their work force to cultivate crops and did not have men to spare. A planter writing
to the commander of the Division of West Mississippi worried about General Banks’ order for
the “conscription of all our able bodied men between the ages of 20 & 40 years of age.” Since he
had already “furnished for enlistment all our able bodied hands between the ages of twenty and
thirty,” taking more men would leave him with only “weak aged and helpless” men, and his
“planting interests in ruin.”23 Against the protests of their former masters, and the new
22
23
Ibid.
Bradish Johnson to Major General Canby, New York, 17 August 1864, in Freedom, 167.
40
freedmen, black men found themselves in the army when military necessity required it.
The army’s recruitment tactics touched even Unionist planters, such as Mary Duncan,
whose family owned nine estates along the Mississippi River in Louisiana and Mississippi.24
Despite protection papers from generals Ulysses Grant and James McPherson, and Admiral
David Porter, the Duncans faced the military’s impressment of black workers from their
plantations. In a letter to the army’s adjutant general, she explained how her family’s “rights as
loyal citizens have been rudely violated.”25 Recruiters visited their several estates “and
FORCIBLY removed nearly all the male negroes therefrom (saving some blacks who managed
to conceal themselves from the ‘pressgang’).”26 At one plantation her husband managed,
recruiters seized “his hired blacks, and…the ‘pressgang’ visited his house at night; searched the
quarters for their occupants; and remained on his premises until daylight.”27 Mrs. Duncan
complained that subordinate officers devised their own rules that resulted in her family’s
plantations being “literally rifled and stripped.”28 She considered these actions quite illegal—and
clearly insulting to Union supporters.
Many times these ‘press gangs’ consisted of black soldiers. Likely, black soldiers had
very few sympathies for slave owners in the region, “loyal” or not. In one instance four black
men from the Louisiana Native Guard under the guise of recruiters, “visited plantations of loyal
& peaceable men, putting guards over their houses, threatening to shoot any white person
attempting to leave the houses, and then [seizing] horses carts & mules for the purpose of
24
Lieutenant Robert M. Campbell to Colonel H. Schofield, Milliken’s Bend Louisiana, 18 July 1863, in
Freedom, 148.
25
Mary Duncan to General Thomas, Staten Island, 2 June 1863, in Freedom, 146.
26
Ibid., 146-147.
27
Ibid., 147.
28
Ibid., 148.
41
transporting men women & children from the plantations to the city of New Orleans.”29 It is
unclear if the men taken were conscripted into the Army, but since the men of the Louisiana
Guard were acting as recruiters, it can be assumed that they coerced some into service in
exchange for their freedom. The same men then went “singing, shouting & marauding through
the Parish disturbing the peace.”30 The provost marshal of St. Bernard Parish, writing to the
provost marshal general of the Department of the Gulf, asserted that “such a method of recruiting
for the service of the U.S. Army is improper.”31 The supervising special agent of the Treasury
Department agreed, and added that it was immoral as well. He believed that if, “negroes are to
be impressed, as described in the enclosed papers, [which gave an example of similar
impressment method to the one above] they have lost, not gained, by the proclamation of the
President. They are, nominally, free, but in reality, the most unprotected of serfs.”32
In many ways the recruitment of blacks in Louisiana and the lower Mississippi Valley
resembled the situation in the Department of the South. Particularly as manpower needs
increased, recruiters scoured these regions and took any able-bodied black man they
encountered. An interesting difference in this region was the impressment of black men who had
been free before the war began, especially in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In addition,
although many planters, slave owners, were initially able to acquire passes that exempted their
new “hired laborers” from the press gangs, recruiters increasingly ignored these passes as
manpower needs increased. The Louisiana Native Guard is the most glorified of black regiments
from this region, but upon further investigation, not all men volunteered like these men did.
After these men were recruited there is evidence that they were among the guiltiest in the
29
Captain George G. Davis to Brigadier General James Bowen, St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, 21 August
1863, in Freedom, 157.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid., 158.
42
impressment of blacks into the service. Overall, most black men suffered impressment because
they provided a cheap and abundant source of manpower throughout the region at a time that the
Union Army desperately needed men.33
33
For an example of an overwhelmingly positive experience, see, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr, The
Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1998).
43
CHAPTER IV
Recruitment in the Border States of Maryland,
Missouri, and Kentucky
Black Recruitment in Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky significantly differed from that
in other slave states because of these Border States’ official loyalty to the Union and their
consequent exemption from the Confiscation Acts and Emancipation Proclamation. Slaveholders
throughout these states adamantly opposed recruitment of any slaves because they believed it
would inevitably lead to emancipation of their chattel property as well as disruption of their
businesses. Non-slaveholders, however, cared little about the slaveholders’ property, and
especially when blacks were eligible to be counted toward white draft quotas, they strongly
supported the movement to enlist slaves in these states. As manpower needs increased, and
recruiters moved into these regions, the voluntary or forced enlistment of both slaves and freed
slaves undermined slavery and guaranteed the institution’s collapse.
Underscoring the uniqueness of this region was the variety of experiences of blacks.
Many slaves saw the Union army as their quickest route to freedom, so they eagerly fled their
masters and joined the army. This led to myriad problems for blacks in the region. Often, former
masters and hired slave-hunters tracked down, tortured, and, in a few cases, killed slaves. Many
escaping men left their families to various forms of punishment. Sometimes masters increased
the workload for relatives of fugitive slaves and/or subjected them to harder forms of labor,
sometimes physically abusing them. If an escaped slave brought his family to Union lines,
however, there was no guarantee that anyone would care for his family upon his joining the
Army. In addition, as in the other regions, Union officials forced both slave and free black men
44
into the Union Army. With all of these black enlistment experiences, it is quite clear that the
41,500 black soldiers from these states, nearly one-quarter of all blacks who fought in the Civil
War, lived through perhaps the most overwhelmingly negative enlistment experience of the war.1
In Maryland in June 1863, General Robert C. Schenck, the commander of the Middle
Department and the Eighth Army Corps, urged President Lincoln to approve enlistment of black
troops from Baltimore. In response to this request, and manpower needs, the War Department
authorized Colonel William Birney to begin the recruitment of free blacks in Maryland. From his
headquarters in Baltimore, Birney quickly went beyond his orders by recruiting from Baltimore’s
jails and slave pens.2 His civilian agents also exceeded their authority by going to the countryside
and bringing in all the blacks they could find, including the slaves of loyal citizens. This
obviously outraged the slaveholders who considered these actions as violations of their rights.
This was especially the case when the recruiting parties consisted of armed black soldiers. Many
officials and prominent citizens throughout Maryland loudly protested to any official who would
listen.3
Slave enlistment did not directly affect Maryland’s non-slaveholding whites and because
of this, most supported the enlistment of both free and slave blacks throughout Maryland. The
Civilian & Telegraph, a Republican newspaper based in Cumberland, mentioned on February 12,
1863 that “the subject of employing negroes in the army has created much interest throughout
the loyal States.”4 The main reason for the interest was that, before the war, non-slaveholders
had become very dependent on free black labor, and as these men were recruited, white
1
John W. Blassingame, “The Recruitment of Colored Troops in Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, 18631865,” Historian 29, (1967): 545.
2
Cleveland Morning Leader, 3 August 1863.
3
Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, Leslie S. Rowland, eds. Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation,
1861-1867, Series II: The Black Military Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 184.
4
Civilian & Telegraph, 12 February 1863.
45
employers turned to hiring slaves from neighbors to replace free black labor. This made the
value of slaves skyrocket, and the slaveholders profited. This increase in value led nonslaveholders to call out slaveholders for profiting from the war while not fully participating in it.
Non-slaveholders stressed their desire to officials for slaves to be enlisted as well as free blacks.5
Non-slaveholders stressed to officials their desire that slaves, rather than free blacks, be enlisted.
Such a policy would protect the free black laborers employed by non-slaveholders and especially
punish disloyal slaveholders.6
However, as reports of recruitment violations increased, Lincoln completely suspended
black recruitment in Maryland in September 1863 until a new, more organized policy could be
formed. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton convinced Lincoln that he had found the solution and
issued it as General Order No. 329 in October. This order became the model for recruitment in
the border states. Under the order “free blacks and slaves whose masters consented could enlist
immediately, the slaves gaining freedom and their masters, if judged loyal by a special
commission, receiving compensation from the government.” Significantly, Lincoln also
approved enlistment of slaves who did not have their masters’ permission, leading many slaves
to run away and join the Union Army.7
With this new authorization, Colonel Birney re-launched recruitment and did not hesitate
to use controversial black recruiting squads. As in other regions, many slaves flocked to the
recruiters to attain their freedom by joining the army, but not all slaves eagerly enlisted.
Although Birney continually asserted that his men pressed no slaves into service, evidence shows
that at least some slaves found themselves in uniform against their will. Impressment increased
in 1864, especially when many slaves and free blacks learned of the inequalities that prevailed
5
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 184-185.
Civilian & Telegraph, 19 May 1864.
7
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 185.
6
46
inside the Army, especially the unequal pay that persisted despite earlier promises made to black
enlistees. This led to a considerable drop in the number of volunteers, causing recruiters to react
by forcing black men to enlist.
Impressment even occurred before it spiked in 1864. In many cases the accounts of
impressment of slaves in Maryland came from the slaveholders. A group of slaveholders writing
to their U.S. senator wrote to complain of their experience in October of 1863 when recruiters
were “harassing us, plundering us, and abducting our negroes.”8 The involvement of black troops
in the recruiting effort especially upset them. In one instance, a small group of black soldiers
arrived by steamboat at a plantation and demanded that the slaves go with them to join the army.
When most of the blacks refused to enlist, the soldiers promised to return the next day “and carry
them off by force.”9
In March 1864, the Christian Recorder explained why Maryland’s blacks did not enlist.
The colored man of Maryland wants free soil, free speech, free men, and no slaves, with
equal pay, equal bounty, equal pensions, equal rights, equal privileges, and equal
suffrage, under the Government of the United States, with no distinction on account of
color. The want, or demand, of equal remuneration in the Union army has been a cause of
hindrance to the enlistment of colored men in this State.10
As attitudes such as these prevailed and slowed voluntary recruitment in Maryland, impressment
increased.
William Jackson, a free man, exemplified black Marylanders forced to join the Union
Army. While Jackson was sitting at his house with his family in March of 1864 an Army officer
accompanied by a group of soldiers approached him. The officer asked him his name, age, and
whether a bounty of $400 would entice him to join the army. The officer added that if he did not
8
Thos. Clagett Jr. et al. to Hon. Reverdy Johnson, Upper Malboro, Maryland, 28 October 1863, in
Freedom, 213.
9
Ibid., 214.
10
Christian Recorder, 12 March 1864.
47
take the $400 and volunteer, he would be forced to join anyway and receive nothing. Jackson
responded by telling the Army officer that he was unfit for military service and claimed to have
evidence proving that “for the past ten years… [he had] attacks of Epileptic fits.” This did not
persuade the officer who immediately recorded Jackson’s name in his book as a recruit and
ordered Jackson to follow him and his soldiers.11
Jackson, unable to convince the officer to leave him alone, “with difficulty and by
solemnly pledging [himself] to report to him at that evening at 4 oclock,” obtained permission to
remain at his house for the time being.12 Jackson then went to two doctors in his neighborhood
who knew him well and “obtained from each of them certificates… showing the fact of [his]
having been subject to Epileptic attacks for many years, and of my being incompetent for
military duty by reason of this painful and dangerous disease.”13 He then made his way to the
Steamboat Cecil to meet the officer at 4:00 p.m. as promised.
Once aboard the steamship, he reported to the officer in charge, provided his
documentation concerning his illness, and stated his case as to why he was unfit for service. The
officer responded that he “looked able to perform military duty and he would not take any
certificate to the contrary.”14 The next day Jackson came up with a new plan, by seeking to
obtain exemption from the government surgeon in Baltimore. He asked to obtain leave to go to
the doctor in Baltimore, was given permission, and saw the doctor two days later. After being
examined, Jackson was “pronounced fit for service and ordered on duty to the Camp near
Baltimore where I have been ever since and still am detained against my will.”15
William Jackson’s account provides evidence that men were pressed into service without
11
Affidavit of William Jackson, 13 April 1864, in Freedom, 220.
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid., 221.
12
48
the use of violence, but this was not always the case. Often, recruitment squads used, or at least
threatened to use, violence to intimidate blacks into serving. For example, slaveholder Henry
Tydings witnessed a group of black soldiers and a white man surround a black man, Thomas
Pumphrey, plowing a field. The group then “compelled him, with presented bayonets, to
accompany them…[and they took] him off.”16 Pumphrey’s objection to what he termed unjust
treatment spurred a soldier to level a gun at him. By threatening him so, the soldiers took
Pumphrey away.17
According to Tydings, this was not an uncommon occurrence, and almost all of the
blacks near Saint Margaret’s were hiding from the press gangs. Tydings complained that his
personal losses consisted not of his slaves running off to join the army, but of the loss of “work
of my negroes, concealing themselves, as did in like manner, nearly all the negroes in this
neighborhood, for several days, during all the time the Press Gang was in this neighborhood.”18
Tydings complaint proves that many Maryland slaves ran away not to join the Union Army but,
on the contrary, to escape being pressed into Union service.
Meanwhile, in June 1863, the government of Missouri passed a gradual emancipation
ordinance that many hoped would slow the momentum of immediate emancipation and
discourage recruitment of black soldiers. In July, as Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas launched
a massive recruiting drive in the Mississippi Valley, he authorized Colonel William A. Pile to
enlist Missouri blacks into an Arkansas regiment. His orders stipulated that Pile limit himself to
free blacks and the slaves of disloyal slaveholders. Slaves’ desire to enlist and the desire of
radicals to expand recruitment pushed this policy to its limits when Pile began recruiting in Iowa.
When Iowa recruiting parties moved into northern Missouri, slaves quickly began enlisting,
16
Henry Tidings to Lieutenant Jno. S. Warton, Saint Margarets Maryland, 28 May 1864, in Freedom, 221.
Ibid., 222.
18
Ibid.
17
49
which outraged the loyal slaveholders. This caused General John M. Schofield, the commander
in charge of Missouri, to temporarily halt recruitment everywhere except for western Missouri.
He continued this policy until September of 1863.19
As Schofield recognized the need for, and inevitability of, black recruitment, he looked to
the State Department for advice, and was told to follow Stanton’s General Order No. 329 (the
same used in Maryland). The Department also gave him authorization to make appropriate
modifications, leading to Schofield’s General Order No. 135 allowing the enlistment of all slaves
regardless of their master’s loyalty, but prohibiting the use of roaming recruiting squads. Without
recruiting squads, this left the provost marshals in charge of black recruitment. Provost
marshals, who were confined to a fixed location, were busy with the other duties of their
position, and often unenthusiastic about arming blacks. Because of this recruitment proceeded
sluggishly. The policy left recruitment mostly up to the slaves and free blacks. For them to join
the Army they had to escape from their masters and travel without protection to the nearest
provost marshal. This led to atrocities committed against slaves in this region who ran away and
were caught by either their owners, local slave patrols, or Confederate troops.20
In part because of protests from radical abolitionists over Schofield’s half-hearted efforts
to recruit blacks, Lincoln replaced him with General William S. Rosecrans in January of 1864.
Rosecrans, however, did not make any drastic changes to Schofield’s policies. Of particular
importance was his insistence on continuing the complete restriction of roaming recruitment
parties. One positive thing Rosecrans did was to introduce provost marshals who were more
sympathetic to the plight of slaves trying to join the army. They were also very lenient when
black soldiers went into the countryside on recruiting missions of their own. As blacks continued
19
20
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 187-188.
Ibid., 188-189.
50
to run away to the Union Army and to freedom, many savvy slaveholders began to offer
incentives in the form of payment or share-crop incentives, which drastically slowed recruitment.
This was another factor that led to impressment when slaves were unwilling to leave their
plantations where they experienced more freedoms.
One of the worst things that slaves in Missouri experienced during the Civil War was
mistreatment from their owners. As slaves ran away to Union lines to join the army and attain
freedom, potential enlistees, as well as women and children, suffered at the hands of slaveholders
and slave patrols. Even before black recruitment began in Missouri, many slaveholders attempted
to find ways to avoid losing their human property. An article from the Weekly Vincennes
Western Sun illustrates the migration of Missouri slaveholders and their slaves to Kentucky; the
slaveholders hoped that moving their property to Kentucky would solve their problems. They
believed that because of the unique political situation of Kentucky, and the concessions given to
its citizens by the U.S. government, their slave property might be protected there.
A large number of negroes have passed through this city during the past week,
accompanied by their masters, from Missouri, on their way to Kentucky. They are taken
to Kentucky to avoid the operations of the emancipation schemes in Missouri. The way
the negroes of loyal masters are stolen in Kentucky is not very flattering to the owners of
slaves in that State, and offers no assurance of security to the property of owners from
other States.21
Unfortunately for the slaveholders, it was nearly impossible for all of them to take their
property to Kentucky, and those who did, ended up losing their slaves eventually anyway. As
slaves continued to attempt to run away to Union lines, some owners became extremely brutal in
their treatment. Aaron Mitchell was one of these runaways who escaped with two other men and
a woman, trying to reach Hannibal, Missouri. They were arrested near Frankfort by four men
and detained in a jail for the night. The next day they were all taken back to their homes. When
21
The Weekly Vincennes Western Sun, 2 February 1863.
51
they took the first man, Henry, home, his owner’s wife whipped him. When they took Aaron
and his accomplice, Alfred, to their master, both were whipped as well. The master then took
Alfred away and shot and killed him with one shot “through the heart.”22
Many did not even receive a chance for “justice” from their masters, and were killed or
beaten by the slave patrols or guerilla bands that caught them. An official from St. Louis heard a
story from a former slave that escaped to Waverly County in Iowa. As this particular man was
trying to escape, his group ran into a gang of “bushwhackers,” who proceeded to kill three of the
fugitives who were trying to enlist in the army.23 This incident and the example of Aaron
Mitchell show that once blacks made the decision to run away, death was a very legitimate
concern. This presented a stark contrast to the treatment of runaways before the war, when
slaves were often beaten for running away but summary execution remained a rarity. The threat
of blacks enlisting in the army undoubtedly infuriated many slaveholders who would rather see
their slaves dead than wearing Union blue.
Not only were the black men who attempted to join the Union Army subjected to
atrocities, the families they left behind were also at risk. As black men increasingly ran away,
slaveholders threatened to mistreat runaways’ families in an attempt to deter them from joining
the army. A relatively mild form of mistreatment included increased workloads. Following his
enlistment in the 2nd Missouri volunteers, Martin Patterson complained that his wife had been
“compelled to do door work, - such as chop wood, husk corn… and that one of his children has
been suffered to freeze, and has [since] died.”24
Another example of this mistreatment can be seen in a letter from a Missouri slave
22
Affidavit of Aaron Mitchell, Louisiana Missouri, 4 January 1864, in Freedom, 237-238.
Testimony of R.A. Watt, St. Louis Missouri, 30 November 1863, in Freedom, 235-236.
24
Brigadier General William A. Pile to Major O. D. Greene, Benton Barracks, Missouri, 11 February 1864,
in Freedom, 242.
23
52
woman named Martha to her husband who had joined the Union Army. Martha begged her
husband to come back because since he had left, her owner treated her and their children terribly.
“They abuse me,” she wrote, “because you went & say they will not take care of our children &
do nothing but quarrel with me all the time and beat me scandalously the day before
yesterday.”25 At this point Martha was quite unsure of what was to become of her and the
children.
The Superintendent for the Organization of Missouri Black Troops provided another
account of even more imaginative cruelties on the part of slaveholders towards the family of
runaway slave soldiers. One of the men who had recently joined the Army was very aware of
cruelties experienced by his family and begged for intervention. Sure enough, as the
Superintendent went to investigate the situation, he found that the slaveholder was trying to take
the man’s family away to Kentucky, possibly to be sold further south. The officer intervened by
taking possession of the family so they could not be taken away.26 Although in these cases, the
men had already left for the Union Army, retaliations against the families of enlistees
undoubtedly discouraged many slaves from running away to enlist.
Because of the ban on roaming recruiting parties in Missouri, impressment did not occur
as much as in other states, but it did indeed occur. Many times this was at the hands of black
soldiers who looked to increase their ranks, and especially after Rosecrans took command, these
activities increased, leading to wholesale impressment for many African Americans in the
region. Henry Clay Bruce, a free African American, experienced trouble from black recruiting
parties. One such group, according to Bruce, “being in the United States service
25
Martha to My Dear Husband (Richard Glover), Mexico, Missouri, 30 December 1863, in Freedom, 244.
Brigadier General William A. Pile to Major General Rosecrans, Benton Barracks, Missouri, 23 February
1864, in Freedom, 245.
26
53
themselves…thought it no more than right to press in every young man they could find.”27
Bruce remembered that white men, who were promised a certain amount of money for every
recruit that they brought in, encouraged the black soldiers. As these men “scoured the county in
search of young men for soldiers,” Bruce was forced “to sleep out nights and hide from them in
the daytime.” He was “afraid to go to town while they were there, and greatly relieved when a
company was filed out and left for some point in Iowa.”28
Kentucky was one of the last states to recruit black soldiers for the Civil War. This
reflected the delicate political attempts involved in making sure that Kentucky remained loyal,
and did not join the Confederacy. Although Kentucky had the largest slave population of all the
border States, many feared that any discussion of emancipation or recruitment in Kentucky
would lead to secession. Through most of 1863, the only form of impressment of blacks
occurred to secure slaves as laborers for the military.29
Slaves in Kentucky, however, were unconcerned with the fragile political situation in
Kentucky, and increasingly escaped to join black regiments in neighboring states. Especially
when slave recruitment began in Tennessee in September 1863, a flood of slaves, whole families
in many cases, moved south in hopes of securing freedom. Although slaveholders in Kentucky
protested to the War Department about this ongoing and increasing problem, the War
Department was unable to stop the slaves from escaping.
By February of 1864, as black recruitment was moving along very efficiently throughout
the rest of the border States, Congress lost patience with Kentucky. This can be seen in
amendments made to the Enrollment Act providing for the conscription of slaves and for free
27
Henry Clay Bruce, The New Man. Twenty-Nine Years a Slave. Twenty-Nine Years a Free man (York: I.
Andstadt & Sons, 1895),107, Documenting the American South,
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/bruce/bruce.html#bruce93 (Accessed 15 October 2013).
28
Ibid., 107.
29
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 191.
54
blacks to be added to the draft in the state. This caused an uproar throughout the state led by
Colonel Frank Wolford, who publicly denounced Lincoln and declared the enrollment of slaves
in Kentucky unconstitutional. Wolford was dismissed from the Army, but that only increased his
popularity and united many whites in Kentucky against federal policies. A compromise was
eventually reached between the government and Kentuckians: enrollment continued but blacks
remained exempt from the draft as long as whites filled the state’s quota.30 Although the crisis
seemed to be averted for slaveholding Kentuckians, rumors that recruitment was not going to
happen in Kentucky made slaves ever more eager to run away. This eventually led to
Kentucky’s slaveholders becoming more receptive to allowing their slaves to enlist so they could
at least receive compensation from the government.
As opposition to black recruitment waned in Kentucky, General Stephen G. Burbridge,
himself a Kentucky slaveholder and commander of the District of Kentucky issued General
Order No. 34 to allow the enlistment of blacks in Kentucky. Under the order, only free blacks
were allowed to enlist on their own will, and slaves had to have their owners’ consent to join. As
in Missouri, Burbridge prohibited the use of roaming enlistment parties. In addition, so as to not
offend Kentuckians, black enlistees served out of state.31 Predictably, slaves who failed to get
their owners consent to enlist left on their own anyway. This led to problems similar to those
encountered in Missouri, with slave patrols catching unauthorized runaways, and unauthorized
runaways being sent home by the provost marshals to receive brutal punishments from their
owners. Because of rumors and reports of these problems, the War Department authorized the
enlistment of all black volunteers within a month, and slaves no longer needed the consent of
30
31
Ibid., 192.
Ibid., 193.
55
their masters to enlist.32
As enlistment became open to all volunteers, the flood of slaves attempting to join the
army created new problems. Similar to the Missouri situation, escaping slaves had to reach the
provost marshals unprotected. Both slave patrols and slave owners trying to catch runaways
inflicted physical abuse and, in some cases, death. By the summer of 1864, General Lorenzo
Thomas went over Burbrigde’s head by setting up eight centers within Kentucky for black
recruitment and organization instead of sending all black recruits out of state. He also gave the
order for soldiers at these posts to organize roaming recruiting parties, giving protection to those
trying to enlist.33 As in the other areas where blacks were used to recruit slaves, impressment of
blacks resulted.
Similar to Missouri, the families of black enlistees suffered greatly. Masters used their
power over the men’s families to prevent them from joining the army, and to vent their anger
against those who did join. This led many men to take their families with them when they ran
away. But officials did not know what to do with an enlistee’s family once he had enlisted.
Many officers set up camps for enlistees’ dependents. Because of protests from slaveholders,
and orders from Washington, many times these dependents were forced to leave, which meant
they had to either return to their owner, or figure out an alternative.34
By late 1864, black volunteers became much more scarce, and recruiting parties
increased their efforts, many times resorting to impressment of any able-bodied black they could
get their hands on. General Thomas even went as far as to authorize forced enlistment of any
black male who had escaped from slavery but not joined the army.35 As whites in many states
32
Ibid.
Ibid., 194.
34
Ibid., 195.
35
Blassingame, “The Recruitment of Colored Troops in Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri,” 538-539.
33
56
scrambled for draft substitutes, impressment and kidnapping became rampant throughout
Kentucky. Slaveholders contributed to the lack of black recruits and impressment by offering
wages or share crop options to stop them from enlisting.
Earlier, when black enlistment had increased in June of 1864, many whites throughout
Kentucky were outraged at this change. A telling example of challenges facing recruiting
officers throughout Kentucky comes from the Provost Marshal of the Second District of
Kentucky, J.R. Grissom. In a letter to Major W. H. Sidell on June 20, he told the story of whites
in Hancock, Kentucky, rising up to prevent black recruitment. As he organized a group of thirty
black recruits, preparing them for enlistment, one hundred new and unorganized white recruits
were lined up by their recruiting officers and ordered to shoot any black who attempted to enlist.
While this took place, about three hundred spectators encouraged the white recruits. Grissom
then took the black recruits to the jail for their protection, where they waited for the crowd to die
down. He wrote urgently and was unsure of his and his recruits’ safety unless armed
reinforcements were sent.36
Grissom’s recruits were relatively lucky, since they had reached a place where they were
slightly protected by the government. Men on their way to enlist were the most at risk of harsh
treatment. A report from the Provost Marshal of the fourth District of Kentucky, lists many of
the brutal punishments these potential enlistees experienced. One group of seventeen men who
had reported to enlist but were then turned away because they did not have their owners’
consent, were followed and attacked by a group of young white men. Upon capturing the blacks,
they “whipped them most unmercifully with cow-hides.”37 Another young black trying to enlist
was “seized by young men of the place, tied to a tree and subjected to the most unmerciful
260.
36
General J. R. Grissom to Major W. H. Sidell, Owensboro, Kentucky, 20 June 1864, in Freedom, 259-
37
Excerpt from Captain James M. Fidler, historical report, 15 June 1863, in Freedom, 257.
57
beating.” He also claimed that in Nelson County, black men were “chased and killed” when they
tried to enlist.38
A judge advocate general of the Army, who sympathized with black men, confirmed the
brutal treatment of potential recruits. He claimed that,
the commencement of the recruiting of colored troops in Ky. Was signalised by
disgraceful outrages perpetrated in the twin, & it would seem inseparable interests of
treason & slavery. Slaves escaping from their masters, with a view of entering the
military service were waylaid beaten, maimed, & often murdered.39
He went on to state that it seemed these occurrences were disappearing as the Army continued to
press forward with its recruitment polices in Kentucky.
As in Missouri, men running away to the Union Army sometimes left their families to
face the wrath of their former masters. Slaveholders throughout Kentucky treated the families of
runaways terribly in hopes that their bad treatment would stop other men from enlisting. The
story of Patsey Leach illustrates the dilemmas wives of black enlistees faced during the war. Her
husband joined the army in the fall of 1864 and, although her owner never acknowledged his
joining from that time forward, “he treated me more cruelly than ever whipping me frequently
without any cause and insulting me on every occasion.” Three weeks after her husband left, her
owner saw her watching a company of black soldiers passing by. He then “knocked [her] to the
floor senseless… when [she] recovered [her] senses he beat [her] with a cowhide.” Within about
a month of service, her husband was killed, giving her owner another opportunity to whip her
severely. But this whipping was not enough. Soon after Leach remembered that,
he took me into the Kitchen and tied my hands tore all my clothes off until I was entirely
naked, bend me down, placed my head between his Knees, then whipped me most
unmercifully until my back was lacerated all over, the blood oozing out in several places
so that I could not wear my underclothes without their becoming saturated with blood.
38
39
Ibid.
Excerpt from J. Holt to Hon. E. M. Stanton, St. Louis, Missouri, 31 August 1864, in Freedom, 264.
58
The marks are still visible on my back.40
After this beating, which was still not enough for her owner, he told her that “tomorrow you will
never live no more,” which led her to take her child and escape that night. Leach was certain that
“my master whipped me for no other cause than my husband having enlisted.”41 The severity of
punishments inflicted by slaveholders on the families of blacks who enlisted varied, but Leach’s
is a good example of the brutality of some slaveholders.
Such mistreatment by slaveholders led many men to take their families with them when
they escaped slavery to enlist. This led to a huge problem for the army officers who had to
figure out what to do with the dependents. In many cases, they forced the dependents out of the
camps. At Kentucky’s Camp Nelson in November, The Liberator reported that,
At this moment, over four hundred helpless human beings—frail women and delicate
children—having been driven from their home, by United States soldiers, now lying in
barns and mule sheds, wandering through woods, languishing on the highway, and
literally starving, for no other crime than their husbands and fathers having thrown aside
the manacles of slavery to shoulder Union muskets!42
The Liberator, in the same article, also offered a first-hand account of this situation from
a black soldier whose family was part of the banished group. Joseph Miller, a member of the
124th United States Colored Troops, enlisted in October, and had brought his family with him
because his former owner said he would not provide for them if he left. Miller’s family was
initially given permission to stay at the camp, but in late November was told that they all had to
leave the next morning. Although Miller’s son was very sick, the family was forced, in
subfreezing temperatures, to leave the camp. Miller protested to the officer in charge, but was
unable to prevent his family’s expulsion from Camp Nelson. As they left Miller remembered
“the wind was blowing hard and cold; and having had to leave much of our clothing when we
40
Affidavit of Patsey Leach, Camp Nelson, Kentucky, 25 March 1864, in Freedom, 269.
Ibid.
42
The Liberator, 28 November 1864.
41
59
left our master, my wife, with her little ones, was poorly clad.” That night he went in search of
his family and found them in an old meeting house. What he found is quite saddening,
The building was very cold, having only one fire. My wife and children could not get
near the fire, because of the numbers of colored people huddled together by the soldiers. I
found my wife and family shivering with cold and famished with hunger; they had not
received a morsel of food during the whole day. My boy was dead. He died directly after
getting down from the wagon. I know he was killed by exposure to the inclement
weather. I had to return to camp that night; so I left my family in the meeting-house, and
walked back. I had walked there. I travelled in all twelve miles. Next morning I walked to
Nicholasville. I dug a grave myself, and buried my own child. I left my family in the
meeting-house, where they still remain.43
This account from The Liberator gives but one example of the many other cases when tragic
incidents occurred.
So far this section has focused on examples of slaves’ and free blacks’ negative treatment
because of their enthusiasm to enlist, but many were not eager to enlist, and were pressed into
service against their will. Many of the sources describing impressments come from the
perspective of the slaveholder, so it is questionable whether the men “pressed” into service went
willingly or were forced. In one case The Weekly Vincennes Western Sun printed an article titled
“NEGRO STEALING.” The article gave an account of a government steamboat sent up the Ohio
River “and without any legal authority gobbled up about 300 negroes.”44 This, claimed the
Weekly, “necessarily creates intense excitement in Kentucky.”45
Another example comes from the letter of slaveholder Elizabeth A. Minor to the
president. In her letter she tells of two of her “servants” who were enlisted in the Army against
their will, and she hoped that they could be returned to her. She stated that “I am fully persuaded
that they were induced to enlist through the excitement of the times, and not of their own freewill; for up to the time of their leaveing home which was the day previous to their enlistment,
43
Ibid.
The Weekly Vincennes Western Sun, 11 June 1864.
45
Ibid.
44
60
they said they never intended to go into the army unless compelled by the draft.”46 She continued
on to plead for their release, convinced they could not have possibly joined the army on their
own free will.
More persuasive than the previous account, E.H. Green wrote a letter to the Secretary of
War with eyewitness proof that his slaves were taken to join the Union Army against their will.
He claimed that “three negroes – one man & two boys who are at this time in Camp here, having
been, as proof very conclusively Shews, forced into the Service at the point of the bayonet &
against their free will & consent.”47 Green continued saying that if they had left on their own
free will, he would not have protested, and pointed to his allowing others to join as evidence. He
hoped that the Secretary of War would immediately “cause an order to be at once issued
directing their discharge from the service – that they may go where they please.”48
The most convincing proof of forced impressment of blacks in Kentucky comes from
blacks themselves. The affidavit from Humphrey Green showed how he was pressed into the
service of the Union Army. After he escaped from his master, Green was captured by a recruiting
party in May of 1865. When Green was asked to enlist by Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn, he
declined because he had rheumatism. The lieutenant then said “he would have one of his officers
put [Green] in jail,” that he “guessed [Green] would enlist when [he] got out.”49 Green, not
wanting to go to jail, agreed to enlist. In addition to the threat of imprisonment, Green
remembered that “Glenn gave us (myself, Richmond and Charles.) whiskey to induce us to
enlist.”50
46
Elizabeth A. Minor to Hon. A. Lincoln, Fairview, Kentucky, July 1864, in Freedom, 265.
E.H. Green to Hon. E. M. Stanton, Henderson, Kentucky,14 March 1865, in Freedom, 272.
48
Ibid.
49
Endorsement of Col. Jas. N. McArthur, enclosing affidavits of Humphrey Green and Charles Green,
Henderson, Kentucky, 31 May 1865, in Freedom, 273-274.
50
Ibid., 274.
47
61
The affidavit of Charles Green provides another example of a black man pressed into
service. In January of 1865, a group of black soldiers came to his owner’s home and asked Green
if he wanted to enlist. Green declined, and the soldiers ordered him to follow them to town to
talk to Lieutenant Colonel Glenn. Upon being taken to Glenn, Green recounted that “I told him
that I did not want to enlist. Lt. Col Glenn asked me ‘what in hell was the reason,’ I did not want
to go. He then turned around to the Sergeant who stood by and told him to ‘take this damned
nigger to the jail,’ that ‘I was but a damed Secesh nigger anyway.’ I then replied, ‘Well rather
than go in jail I will join.”51 In both of these cases, Lieutenant Colonel Glenn offered either
imprisonment or enlistment as the only options.
As is the case in the regions already reviewed, these negative recruitment experiences are
many times glossed over in the current scholarship. In Diane Mutti Burke’s chapter on
emancipation in Missouri, from her book On Slavery’s Border she gives significant attention to
recruitment. She asserts that,
Missouri slave men flocked into the Union army after official recruitment began in
November 1863. By this point, they understood that enlistment would result in their
immediate freedom, would allow them to assert their manhood and rights to citizenship,
and might result in the liberation of their families as well.52
Her comments on recruitment are eerily similar to the conclusion drawn from the Glory
recruitment experience. In the four pages devoted to recruitment, Mutti Burk mentions negative
experiences at the hands of Confederate guerrillas and slaveowners, but does not mention any
negative recruitment experiences by the Union army or recruiters.53 This version leads one to
believe that all freed slaves and free blacks in the border States eagerly lined up to volunteer
their service, but after an examination of the evidence it is clear this was not the case.
51
Ibid.
Diane Mutti Burke, On Slavery’s Border: Missouri’s Small Slaveholding Households, 1815-1865
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), 292.
53
Mutti Burke, On Slavery’s Border, 292-297.
52
62
Investigation of black recruitment in the border States of Maryland, Missouri, and
Kentucky illustrates the uniqueness of recruitment in this region. As in other states, many slaves
were pressed into service against their will, especially when manpower demands required drastic
measures, or when recruitment of whites or willing blacks slowed. The legality of slavery in
these states during the war, however, made this situation unique. Many slave owners clung to
their slaves and resisted the efforts of recruiters to enlist blacks. In many cases, this led to
atrocious acts against slaves trying to escape, and against the families of those who had escaped.
Because of all of these negative experiences, it is safe to say that border state recruitment and
enlistment of black soldiers was uniquely brutal.
63
CHAPTER V
Recruitment in Free States
Even as the Civil War began, many northerners supported enlisting African Americans to
share the burden of war. Black communities and abolitionists alike flooded the War Department
and various other governmental agencies with letters pleading to allow black men to fight for the
Union cause. Many hoped that the enlistment of blacks would inevitably lead to the Civil War
becoming a war with freedom as an objective leading to emancipation and a foundation for
equality. As the war dragged on, and Union casualties mounted, the cause of African American
enlistment gained new supporters. These new advocates argued that blacks had a strong
resistance to the subtropical diseases of the southern states, and therefore needed to be recruited
for the Army’s southern operations. They also argued that black men made more preferable
cannon fodder than white men. Because of this increasing public pressure, by late 1862 and
early 1863, plans for recruitment began to surface.1
John A. Andrew, a prominent radical abolitionist and governor of Massachusetts, pushed
President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to allow him to form a black regiment
in early 1863. Convinced by Andrew’s case, Stanton began the process of northern recruitment
in January by authorizing the governor of Rhode Island to muster a regiment of black volunteers.
Soon after, Andrew began forming what became the 54th Massachusetts. As support swelled for
regularized free black recruitment by abolitionists in the Northeast, Midwestern states also began
to support the idea because they planned to fill their conscription quotas with black men instead
1
Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, Leslie S. Rowland, eds. Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation,
1861-1867, Series II: The Black Military Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 74,75.
64
of white men.2
In May of 1863, the War Department responded to these demands by issuing General
Order 143. This order set up the Bureau of Colored Troops, which could authorize individual
states to form black regiments.3 Very quickly the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana requested and received approval to begin recruitment.
Meanwhile New York’s Democratic governor stalled, causing his state to be the only one where
the struggle over black enlistment continued.4
Although recruitment progressed steadily through 1863, the initial enthusiasm shown by
blacks wore off by 1864, and recruiters began having difficulty convincing them to enlist. One
solution to this was sending recruiters to occupied southern states to recruit from the large
population of freed slaves, discussed in Chapter 1. This policy failed to bring in adequate
numbers of black soldiers, so recruitment efforts in the northern states continued. Increasingly,
recruiters used shady practices to coerce, and intimidate blacks into enlisting into the Union
Army, mainly to ease the burden of conscription requirements set on individual states.
As soon as states received authorization to begin recruitment in May of 1863, many
officials immediately hoped or predicted that all able-bodied blacks be pressed into service.
George Stearns, a northern recruiter, asserted that for the Union Army to arm one hundred
thousand blacks, as they should, the best method was to “conscript them wherever they are to be
found.”5 Many others shared Stearns’s view that the main reason to recruit blacks was so the
Union “will have an army that will put down the rebellion without further draft on the northern
2
Berlin, Reidy, Rowland, Freedom, 75,76.
General Order No. 143, 22 May 1863; Orders and Circulars, 1797-1910; Records of the Adjutant
General's Office, 1780's-1917; Record Group 94; National Archives,
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=35 (Accessed 6 June 2014).
4
Berlin, Reidy, and Rowland, Freedom, 76.
5
George L. Stearns to William Whiting, Buffalo, N.Y., 27 April 1863, in Freedom, 91.
3
65
Whites.”6 Although the army never officially adopted his policy, this commonly held opinion
helps explain the way recruitment was carried out in the northern states. It was very easy for
men who felt this way to resort to trickery and coercion to achieve their goals for the war effort.
When voluntary black recruitment slowed in early 1864, recruiters such as Stearns, stretched
their authority to get more recruits leading to more money in their pockets.
There were many reasons that African American recruitment slowed in early 1864, one of
the main issues was the unequal pay of black soldiers. While the army paid white privates
thirteen dollars per month, black privates received ten dollars. Out of that pay, the black soldiers
were required to pay for their own uniforms. Even in August of 1863, some blacks were
shocked that “colored men [rushed] to arms as if they were receiving full wages and all the rights
of citizens.”7 A reporter from the Christian Recorder found it preposterous “for sound [ablebodied] men to go to work for about six or seven dollars a month.”8 The inequality in pay
illustrates a double disadvantage for the black soldiers during the Civil War. The Confederate
States of America refused to recognize blacks as soldiers, leading to numerous atrocities against
them, and the United States of America refused to grant the black soldiers equal financial
compensation.
Black soldiers and citizens alike protested these injustices. The soldiers, in many cases,
“refused to accept” the unequal pay and demanded “the same pay as a white soldier.”9 Blacks
civilians made their opposition public through demonstrations and frequent letters to the War
Department and other federal offices. The easiest form of protest for blacks not already in the
service, however, was quite simply refusing to enlist. It seems quite ironic that because of racial
6
Ibid.
Christian Recorder, 15 August 1863.
8
Ibid.
9
The Christian Recorder, 26 December 1863.
7
66
discrimination exempting black men from the draft, blacks actually had an advantage over whites
in this instance because they were exempt from the draft and did not have to join if they chose
not to. As a result, free northern blacks found themselves subjected to coercion and fraud by
northern recruiters faced with a dwindling supply of volunteers.
African American soldiers themselves were some of the leading voices discouraging
civilian blacks from enlisting. They frequently wrote letters to black newspapers telling about
the injustices they faced. Many of these soldiers were very selfless in their letters. Usually they
were concerned most about their families, and the meaning of injustices to the black community
as a whole. One member of the 6th U.S.C.T. explained that his “wife at home [is] almost
starving.”10 This man had been able to provide for his wife and two children before the war, but
since his unit was protesting the unequal pay offered them, he was unable to send any money.
This was not an isolated circumstance: many men in the U.S.C.T. encountered the same problem.
A representative from the 32nd Regiment of the U.S.C.T. also worried about the 32nd’s suffering
families. They were very upset that Union Army leaders thought “they can make money on us.”
They insisted that they were not as ignorant as many white officials imagined, and they refused
to accept an amount of money that implied black inferiority.11
Meanwhile, new black recruits were “swindled” in more creative ways, further
discouraging voluntary enlistments. To encourage enlistment, many counties and states offered
bounties of various amounts to black enlistees. In January 1864, the Dayton Daily Empire
illustrated how recruiters tricked blacks out of their money. It noted that Connecticut gave $310
for every black recruit, $300 for the recruit and $10 to the recruiter. Under Colonel Pardee, “the
negro [got] but two hundred dollars – [was] openly swindled out of one hundred dollars, which
10
11
Ibid., 20 February 1864.
Ibid., 6 August 1864.
67
[was] divided between the Colonel and the recruiting officer.”12 Men receiving $200 likely
considered themselves somewhat lucky. Others, such as William McConslin, a member of the
29th USCT, was not so fortunate. He reported that neither he nor anyone else who had enlisted in
Bloomington, Illinois, had received their promised bounty.13
Especially as reports of “swindling” and fraud increased in the northern states, blacks
became more and more reluctant to enlist voluntarily. The lack of volunteers led recruiters to
devise creative methods of coercion. Especially in 1864 and 1865, reports of shady recruitment
increased. Alcohol was a very popular method for collecting enlistees. According to a report
from The New York Herald “the administration of drinks containing narcotic poison, has been
for months, one of the ordinary methods of promoting enlistment.”14 In many cases “mere boys,
between fourteen and seventeen years of age…[were] made drunk and then enlisted.”15 Today
there are laws that challenge the authenticity of any legal document signed while the signer is
under the influence of alcohol. The use of alcohol by recruiters, especially on teenagers, is quite
obviously extremely unjust.
In addition to the intoxication of young men, recruiters used this method to convince and
recruit older men usually disqualified from military service. The Herald claimed to have
recorded evidence of enlistment of cripples, men “with ruptures, hernia[s], varicose veins,
pulmonary diseases, broken legs, broken arms” as well as men who were “toothless, deaf, half
sightless, hunchbacked, wry necked, half fingerless, decrepit and idiotic.”16 Taking men to a
barbershop, dying their hair, and using makeup to change their appearance were just some of the
means by which the Army was tricked by recruiters into accepting unqualified men. The Weekly
12
Dayton Daily Empire, 11 January 1864.
Christian Recorder, 27 August 1864.
14
The New York Herald, 9 January 1864.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
13
68
Vincennes Western Sun reported that a black man in Indiana was rejected for being too old, but
he went back days later “with his hair dyed, and looking twenty years younger.” He confessed to
the reporter that “he had been ‘fixed up’ for the occasion by some bounty broker.”17 It is
doubtful that all of these unqualified men were persuaded with the help of alcohol, but the efforts
of some recruiters to enlist all men available highlights their desire for more money.
Impressment did not occur in the northern states nearly as much as it did in the other
regions covered, but there were scattered incidents indicating that it was also a factor in this area.
Most occurred in the midwestern states, which is understandable since the abolitionists who may
have protected them were mostly confined to the Northeast. Because of the large toll taken by
the war on white men in the region, many thought it all but fair to compel blacks to play a larger
part in the war. Because of these attitudes, it is not surprising that instances of “stealing negroes”
were reported in parts of the Midwest. The Weekly Vincennes Western Sun reported in January
1864 that Colonel Fishback engaged “in stealing negroes from all parts of the State to save
Indianapolis from the draft.”18 As the opportunity arose to save white men from going to war,
many recruiters and officers alike looked to the black population to fill quotas.
The experience of William J. Nelson illustrates how hard northern recruiters worked to
compel northern free blacks to enlist while maximizing their personal profits. In 1865, while at
his home, Nelson was visited by a recruiter who convinced him to join the Army for one year of
service for a bounty of $200.
After he left with the recruiter, the recruiter “made [Nelson]
drunk” and “sold [him] to another man [as] a substitute.”19 When he arrived at the army camp in
Delaware, he realized that he had been enlisted as a substitute and therefore was not eligible for
17
The Weekly Vincennes Western Sun, 13 February 1864.
Ibid, 9 January 1864.
19
William Joseph Nelson to Mr. Abraham Lincoln, Baltimore Maryland Guard House, 22 February 1865,
in Freedom, 112.
18
69
the bounty promised. Consequently, he demanded to be released. The soldiers at the Army camp
understood that he had been wronged, and released him. After returning home and remaining
there for a few months, another man came to his home and arrested him, likely on the charge of
desertion though Nelson was given no cause. In a letter to President Lincoln, Nelson pleaded to
be released from an army guardhouse in Baltimore where he had been held against his will for an
extended amount of time. 20 Although this is by no means a case of impressment, it illustrates
how corrupt many recruiting officers were, while also illustrating the pressure put on black men
to enlist.
William Webb had an experience similar to Nelson’s. While he was in Michigan trying
to begin a lumber business, he was approached by a group of soldiers who pressured him to
enlist. After he made it clear to them that he “did not care about enlisting,” he was told by the
man in charge that “every colored man ought to take up arms and go to the field” and ordered
Webb to “fall in the ranks.” The officer of the group then took Webb to the guardhouse at the
local barracks.21 While awaiting trial, the soldiers who captured him came to him every day
impelling him to enlist, and he continued to refuse. After being imprisoned for two weeks, and
receiving pressure every day to enlist, he was granted a trial by a Colonel Bond. At the trial, the
officer who arrested him was unable to give any reason for Webb’s captivity other than, “he
thought [Webb] ought to be a soldier.”22 Webb was released on Colonel Bond’s order.
Although Webb knew his rights, and continuously refused to enlist, it is very likely that others
found themselves in the same position and were compelled to enlist against their will.
Previous scholarship on recruitment in the North, as well as African Americans’ wartime
20
Ibid.
William B. Webb, The History of William Webb, Composed by Himself (Detroit: Egbert Hoeska, 1873),
41, Documenting the American South, http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/webb/webb.html (Accessed 15 October 2013).
22
Ibid., 42.
21
70
experience in the northern states, fails to mention any negative recruitment experiences. One
example of this is Leslie Schwalm’s article in Civil War History, “Overrun with Free Negroes:
Emancipation and Wartime Migration in the Upper Midwest.” Although Schwalm touches on
black enlistment and blacks’ mistreatment in the Midwest, she neglects to include information on
the shady recruitment practices of recruiting agents.23 Similarly, in the introduction to Blue-Eyed
Child of Fortune, Russell Duncan omits information regarding any trouble in the enlistment of
the 54th Massachusetts. He does, however, mention the distance recruiters had to travel to fill the
regiment, but fails to make the connection that black enlistees were already hard to come by
during the earliest efforts of recruitment.24 That much of the literature on the topic fails to
acknowledge the variety of coercive methods or the negative accounts from this region only
serves in telling an incomplete story.
Although the recruitment experiences of blacks throughout the North were more positive
overall than those endured by men recruited in southern Atlantic states, the border states,
Louisiana and Mississippi, there were still numerous injustices committed against them. As
northern recruitment slowed, recruiters increasingly looked to the black population to provide
manpower for the Union Army. As they did this, and as black voluntary enlistment decreased
considerably, recruiters found many shady ways to coerce and convince black men to join the
Army. Driven by personal profits, the recruiters were the main culprits in this region, while most
evidence indicates that United States Army officers respected black men’s rights.
23
Leslie A. Schwalm, “Overrun with Free Negroes’: Emancipation and Wartime Migration in the Upper
Midwest,” Civil War History 50, (June 2004): 145-174.
24
Russell Duncan ed. Robert Gould Shaw, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Robert
Gould Shaw (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), 20-22.
71
CONCLUSION
A Fuller Understanding of the
Black Military Experience
In February of 1865, President Abraham Lincoln received reports that Lieutenant Colonel
John Glenn of the 120th U.S.C.T. was “forcing negroes into the Military service.” Lincoln wrote
that the officers “even tortur[ed] them – riding them on the rails and the like – to extort their
consent.”1 This and the evidence presented in this thesis illustrate various forms of abuses
experienced by African Americans while being recruited into the United States Army. This
version of the story is inconsistent with the prevailing literature on blacks’ Civil War experience,
which portrays their experience in an overwhelmingly positive light. It is also inconsistent with
popular films, such as Glory, which show only eager recruits, proudly lined up to volunteer their
service. In reality, in the effort to recruit men into the Army, black men and women experienced
many types of unjust treatment, from various sources, throughout the United States, during the
Civil War.
In the Carolinas and Virginia, many historians tend to focus on the positive experiences
of the members of the First South Carolina, its commander Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and
their expedition to Florida. Usually historians gloss over the fact that this region was home to
some of the most brutal forms of injustices experienced during the war. Thankfully, the large
presence of Gideonites in the region helped ensure that many of these acts were reported and
documented. Under General Hunter, Army officials and recruiters alike threatened violence and
gave false promises to gain recruits for the Army. There were also cases when officers and
recruiting agents shot and killed black men who were tried to escape impressment.
1
2013), 45.
John David Smith, Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
72
The injustices in this region were influenced by various factors. The main factor in this
region was the overzealousness of General Hunter, who stopped at nothing to raise an army of
former slaves. Another factor was military necessity. As white recruits became scarce, and
especially when black men could substitute for white men, recruiting agents flooded the
Department of the South hoping to recruit any and all black men they encountered. Since the
Department of the South had such a high number of freed slaves, the Union Army continued to
look to fill their depleted ranks with these men.
By capturing New Orleans in April of 1862, the Union Army gained a strong foothold in
Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley. But recruitment did not begin in the same manner it did in
the Carolinas and Virginia because the man in charge, General Benjamin F. Butler, initially
opposed arming African Americans. Eventually, manpower needs forced Butler’s hand, and he
began recruiting throughout the region. Once started, recruitment proceeded as in the Carolinas
and Virginia. Throughout this region, with its dense population of freed slaves, current slaves,
and many free blacks, recruiters pressed blacks into service. Scholars dealing with black
recruitment in this region typically highlight the Louisiana Native Guard’s upbeat story,
however, it is clear that there is a very dark side to the black military experience in this region.
African American recruitment in the border states was unique because of these states’
official loyalty to the Union and their consequent exemption from the Confiscation Acts and
Emancipation Proclamation. Because of this unique situation, blacks often suffered negative
recruitment experiences. Some blacks in this region were pressed into service, especially as
manpower needs increased. As in other states, slaves running away to join the Union Army had
to think about their families, who might well be mistreated by slaveowners. But when men took
their families with them to Union lines, the families ran the risk of being turned away to fend for
73
themselves. This led to many cases of starvation and sickness, as well as mistreatment from
roaming Confederate bands that regularly committed atrocities against runaways. African
Americans trying to join the Union Army in this region faced many risks to not only themselves
but their family. These risks led many to not join, and speak volumes to the commitment and
courage of those who volunteered.
Contrary to what most scholars, and the film Glory portray, recruitment in the northern
free states did not take place as smoothly as one might assume. After the enthusiastic beginning
to recruitment, it quickly slowed for a number of reasons. The main reason was the issue of
payment, while white soldiers earned thirteen dollars every month, black soldiers only earned ten
dollars and were required to pay for their own clothing. This outraged many, and recruitment
slowed. Recruiting agents came up with some very shady ways to persuade African Americans
to enlist while devising ways to swindle them out of their money. In other cases, soldiers
pressured black men to enlist by imprisoning them. Although, overall, African Americans
suffered less recruitment abuse in the North than in other regions, clearly Glory’s representation
of black recruitment lacks accuracy.
Enlisting in the United States Army is an important decision, especially in times of war,
when one may very likely be called into combat. In performing the act of enlisting, men, in a
way, are volunteering their bodies and their lives to a cause. During the Civil War, many
African Americans eagerly joined to fight for what they perceived as the cause: freedom. In
addition to the glorified enlistment experience of these men, there are negative experiences that
are important to the story. It is important that those willing to enlist and their families
experienced countless injustices from various sources in their efforts to join.
The willing-to-enlist group was very important, but to characterize all black enlistees as
74
being in this group is potentially harmful. As in any war, there are men who are not eager to
enlist, and their story is also important. Men not wanting to enlist had many reasons for
hesitation. Some had stable jobs that they could not leave and families that depended on them.
Some balked in the face of the difficult decision of leaving most of the friends and family they
knew in bondage while they escaped to join. Others feared being caught on their way to Union
lines by slave catchers or Confederate militia, who many times killed male runaways throughout
the war. Many other men simply feared death. The fact that many of these men who were
unwilling to join the Union Army for one reason or another found themselves forced to fight
against their will is troubling. That most literature tends to ignore this part of the story is also
troubling. Understanding that this occurred, and adding it to the narrative of the black military
experience, is an important step, providing a much fuller picture of the story.
It is clear that the story of enlistment for black men in the Union Army was not quite as
simple as has been represented in both historical literature, or in popular films and
documentaries. Black men eager to enlist were mistreated throughout the United States, by
various sources. Black men who were not eager, or unwilling to join, were many times pressed
into service, while others were imprisoned or intimidated into “volunteering.” This thesis adds
an important chapter to literature on the service of African Americans in the U.S. Civil War.
Most importantly, highlighting the negative experiences of these long lost heroes, does much to
unveil the humanity of all peoples involved in the story.
75
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