Bennie J McRae - Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters: The 1st South Carolina Volunteers

It is sometimes said that the greatest real heroes of war are the unknown men.... There are reported by statistics 178,975 men who served as colored soldiers in our Civil War and the first man who ever enlisted these was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Tyler Trowbridge.

Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Boston Transcript , 1907

Who were the men who made up the United States Colored Troops? Where did they come from? What role did they play in reshaping the social, political, and military structures in the United States of America?

In 1862, Union general David Hunter initiated the first attempt to recruit blacks into the Union army. Congress and the Lincoln White House were chagrined. Hunter had acted on his own, without the blessing of the War Department, Congress, or the president. A member of Congress demanded answers to a series of questions, which had been posed to Hunter by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. In his response to Stanton, Hunter said, in part:

First, whether I had organized or was organizing a regiment of fugitive slaves ... I reply that no regiment of fugitive slaves has been or is organized in this department. There is, however, a fine regiment of persons whose late masters are fugitive rebels.

Before Fort Sumter, South Carolina, was fired upon on April 12, 1861, seven states in the South had seceded from the Union. A convention in Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a constitution and elected Jefferson Davis president of the Confederate States of America. In a very short time, four more states seceded: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware remained in the Union as slave states.

Pres. Abraham Lincoln prepared to put down what he thought would be a minor insurrection with little opposition by blockading Confederate ports and calling for 75,000 volunteers. Thousands flocked to the recruiting centers in the North as well as some areas in the South controlled by federal forces. Among the prospective volunteers were thousands of free blacks in the North and newly escaped slaves in the South. The black men were told that this was a white mans war and their services were not needed. Ohio governor David Todd summed up Lincolns position, stating that this is a white mans government, they ... [are] ... able to defend and protect it.

As both sides developed strategies and drew battle lines during the latter part of 1861 and into 1862, President Lincoln and the War Department realized that they had vastly underestimated the strength and determination of the Confederate forces. Still, they refused to alter the white mans war policy. During this period, both sides suffered heavy casualties with the Confederates winning many campaigns. In July 1861, Union forces were defeated at Bull Run (Manassas), Virginia. Less than a month later on August 10, the Confederates recorded yet another victory at Wilsons Creek, in Missouri.

In early 1862, the Confederates claimed a significant victory in the West with the defeat of Union forces at Valerde, New Mexico, on February 21, followed by the near defeat of Union forces under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on April 6 and 7 at Shiloh Church and Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. Each side suffered 10,000 casualties, including Confederate general A. S. Johnston. Then came the defeat of Union forces at Shenandoah Valley on May 8 and the single bloodiest day of the war, where both sides fought to a grisly standstill at Antietam. Six thousand were killed and 17,000 wounded.

Throughout this period, President Lincoln steadfastly refused to alter his policy on enlisting men of African descent. He was attempting to preserve the Union while avoiding the question of slavery, and he did not want to alienate the border slave states that remained in the Union. However, groups including some military commanders defied the policy or lack of policy regarding the utilization of a readily available force.

In Cleveland, Ohio, a newly organized military corps of blacks declared that they were ready to do battle as in times of 1776 and the days of 1812. In New York City, blacks formed a military club. In Cincinnati, Ohio, a pro-slavery city in which prejudice was open and cruel, the Black Brigade was organized but soon disbanded under the pressure of angry whites. The proprietor of the recruiting station was forced to remove the American flag. The proprietor of another meeting place was told by the police, We want you damned niggers to keep out of this; this is a white mans war.

The most persistent advocate of arming blacks was the outspoken abolitionist Frederick Douglass, arguably the most influential black leader of his day. Colored men, he complained, were good enough to fight under Washington, but they are not good enough to fight under McClellan. He further stated, The side which first summons the Negro to its aid will conquer.