Bruce A. Glasrud - Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives on the African American Militia and Volunteers, 1865-1917

Brothers to the

BUFFALO SOLDIERS

PERSPECTIVES ON THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MILITIA AND VOLUNTEERS, 1865-1917

Edited by Bruce

A. Glasrud

University of Missouri Press
Columbia and London

Copyright 2011 by

The Curators of the University of Missouri

University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201

Printed and bound in the United States of America

All rights reserved

5 4 3 2 1 15 14 13 12 11

Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-0-8262-1904-6

ISBN 978-0-8262-7230-0 (electronic)

This paper meets the requirements of the

American National Standard for Permanence of Paper

for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984.

Designer: Kristie Lee

Typesetter: K. Lee Design & Graphics

Printer and binder: Integrated Book Technology, Inc.

Typefaces: Minion, Rockwell, and Copperplate

Contents

Bruce A. Glasrud

Otis A. Singletary

Roger D. Cunningham

Alwyn Barr

Eleanor L. Hannah

Beth Taylor Muskat

Marvin E. Fletcher

Willard B. Gatewood, Jr.

Ann Field Alexander

Willard B. Gatewood, Jr

Roger D. Cunningham

Russell K. Brown

Acknowledgments

The following selections have been reprinted with permission of the authors and/or the publishers.

Otis A. Singletary, The Negro Militia During Radical Reconstruction, Military Affairs 19 (Winter 1955): 177-186. Minor editorial changes.

Roger D. Cunningham, They Are as Proud of Their Uniform as Any Who Serve Virginia: African American Participation in the Virginia Volunteers, 187299, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 110.3 (2002): 293338.

Alwyn Barr, The Black Militia of the New South: Texas as a Case Study, Journal of Negro History 63 (July 1978): 209-219.

Eleanor L. Hannah, A Place in the Parade: Citizenship, Manhood and African American Men in the Illinois National Guard, 1870-1917, Journal of Illinois History 5 (Summer 2002): 82-108.

Beth Taylor Muskat, The Last March: The Demise of the Black Militia in Alabama. Originally appearing in The Alabama Review, Volume 43, January 1990, pages 18-34. The Alabama Historical Association, founded in 1947, is the oldest statewide historical society in Alabama. The Association sponsors The Alabama Review, two newsletters each year, a state historical marker program, and several Alabama history awards. More information on the Association is available at http://www.archives.state.al.us/aha/aha.html.

Marvin E. Fletcher, The Black Volunteers in the Spanish-American War, Military Affairs 38 (April 1974): 48-53.

Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., North Carolinas Negro Regiment and the Spanish-American War, North Carolina Historical Review 48 (1971): 370-387. Minor editorial changes.

Ann Field Alexander, No Officers, No Fight!: The Sixth Virginia Volunteers in the Spanish-American War, Virginia Cavalcade 47 (Autumn 1998): 178-191.

Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. Kansas Negroes and the Spanish-American War, Kansas Historical Quarterly 37 (Autumn 1971): 300-313. Minor editorial changes.

Roger D. Cunningham, A Lot of Fine, Sturdy Black Warriors: Texass African American Immunes in the Spanish-American War, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 108.3 (2005): 345-367.

Russell K. Brown, A Flag for the Tenth Immunes, The Journal of Americas Military Past 106 (Winter 2007): 61-69. This is a revised, expanded, and annotated version of Browns journal article.

As is frequently remarked, No man is an island. Nothing is more to that point than an individual working to publish a book. I am no exception. The staff at the Seguin-Guadalupe County Public Library always helped and made that one more try to locate materials. Roger D. Cunningham taught me much of what I know about the black citizen-soldiers; he also greatly improved the introduction with a careful reading and with pertinent suggestions. Clair Willcox at the University of Missouri Press encouraged and supported the idea and with his staff turned a manuscript into a book. My greatest debt is to the authors of the articles in this anthology, whose efforts illuminated a previously neglected area of black experience in the United States. Pearlene Vestal Glasrud has been reading, proofing, polishing, editing, and improving my writing since graduate school days; this book is no exception. Thanks Pearlene. I take responsibility for any errors.

Bruce A. Glasrud

Seguin, Texas

Brothers to the

BUFFALO SOLDIERS

Introduction

Black Citizen-Soldiers, 18651917

Bruce A. Glasrud

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, black Americans sought to serve their country despite opposition from whites in both the military and the civilian population. They served as soldiers and sailors during wartime, and in times of peace, in a few segregated militia units. The Civil War precipitated a change in their status. After the war, even though peace prevailed, blacks served in the regular army as well as in state militias. During the war, nearly 180,000 African Americans served in units of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT). All the northern and most southern states were represented. Among the early units were the First Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment and the First South Carolina Volunteer Regiment, both formed by white union officers. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Missouri, and Kansas, African Americans formed segregated units within state militias organized to protect the local population amid threats of violence. For a time, free blacks in Ohio were pressed into state service in order to protect Cincinnati from a Confederate attack from Kentucky. Even in the South black troops were employed; the Louisiana Native Guards served in both the Confederacy and in the Union armies.

The Civil War transformed the lives of black Americans beyond the elimination of slavery. It led to new amendments to the United States Constitutionthe thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, which brought freedom and civil rights and promised to eliminate race as a voting restriction, and it also created opportunities for African Americans in military service. Between 1865 and 1917, national, state, and local military forces offered blacks significant career choices and positions of respect for militia and for volunteers.

In each war black soldiers, when given a role in battle, performed with distinction. After each war their contributions were soon forgotten, and they were forced to prove their worthiness and valor at the beginning of each new war. Before the Civil War, African Americans seldom were able to join military units even as volunteers.

Robert J. Gough in Black Men and the Early New Jersey Militia provides insight into the relationship of blacks to the state militias before 1860. Blacks in New Jersey fought in integrated units during the Revolutionary War. However the federal Militia Act of 1792 authorized only male white citizens to enlist in the state militia, and New Jersey restructured its law to agree. During the War of 1812, blacks served as waiters and servants. New Jerseys later 1846 militia act revision continued the discriminatory policy. The rationale for the discriminatory policy is revealing, and it supported continuation of the policy over the succeeding decades even beyond the boundaries of New Jersey: whites believed blacks were unfit soldiers; whites feared armed blacks; and whites worried over the social and political implications of allowing blacks into the military. Even after the Civil War these beliefs and fears remained the justification for military policy. Building on its encouraging biracial start, New Jersey allowed blacks in the militia in the 1870s, they even elected a white commander.