| Unit Name: | USCT |
| Native Name: | United States Colored Troops |
| Motto: | Sic semper tyrannis "Thus always to tyrants" |
| Dates: | May 22, 1863 – Oct 1865 |
| Allegiance: | Union |
| Branch: | Army |
| Type: | infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering |
| Size: | 175 regiments; 178,000 men |
| Battles: | American Civil War |
| Disbanded: | October 1865 |
United States Colored Troops (USCT) were Union Army regiments during the American Civil War that primarily comprised African Americans, with soldiers from other ethnic groups also serving in USCT units. Established in response to a demand for more units from Union Army commanders, USCT regiments, which numbered 175 in total by the end of the war in 1865, constituted about one-tenth of the manpower of the army, according to historian Kelly Mezurek, author of For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops (The Kent State University Press, 2016). "They served in infantry, artillery, and cavalry."[1] [2] Approximately 20 percent of USCT soldiers were killed in action or died of disease and other causes, a rate about 35 percent higher than that of white Union troops. Numerous USCT soldiers fought with distinction, with 16 receiving the Medal of Honor. The USCT regiments were precursors to the Buffalo Soldier units which fought in the American Indian Wars.[3]
The courage displayed by colored troops during the Civil War played an important role in African Americans gaining new rights. As Frederick Douglass said in an 1863 speech:
The U.S. Congress passed the Confiscation Act[4] in July 1862. It freed slaves whose owners were in rebellion against the United States. Congress almost immediately passed the Militia Act that empowered the President to use free blacks and former slaves from the rebel states in any capacity in the army. President Abraham Lincoln was concerned with public opinion in the four border states that remained in the Union, as they had numerous slaveholders, as well as with northern Democrats who supported the war but were less supportive of abolition than many northern Republicans. At first, Lincoln opposed early efforts to recruit African-American soldiers, although he accepted the Army using them as paid workers. In September 1862, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, announcing that all slaves in rebellious states would be free as of January 1. Recruitment of colored regiments began in full force following the Proclamation in January 1863.[5]
See main article: Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War.
The United States War Department issued General Order Number 143 on May 22, 1863, establishing the Bureau of Colored Troops to facilitate the recruitment of African-American soldiers to fight for the Union Army.[6] Regiments, including infantry, cavalry, engineers, light artillery, and heavy artillery units were recruited from all states of the Union. Approximately 175 regiments comprising more than 178,000 free blacks and freedmen served during the last two years of the war. Their service bolstered the Union war effort at a critical time.
Initially, the USCT were relegated to menial jobs such as that of laborers, teamsters, cooks, and other support duties. However, even these duties were essential to the war effort.[7] For example, USCT engineers built Fort Pocahontas, a Union supply depot, in Charles City, Virginia.[8] Eventually USCT were sent into combat.
The USCT suffered 2,751 combat casualties during the war, and 68,178 losses from all causes. Disease caused the most fatalities for all troops, both black and white.[9] In the last year-and-a-half and from all reported casualties, approximately 20% of all African Americans enrolled in the military died. Notably, their mortality rate was significantly higher than white soldiers:
USCT regiments were led by white Union officers, while rank advancement was limited for Black soldiers, who could only rise to the rank of non-commissioned officers. Approximately 110 blacks did become commissioned officers before the end of the war, primarily as surgeons or chaplains.[10] The Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia opened the Free Military Academy for Applicants for the Command of Colored Troops at the end of 1863.[11] For a time, black soldiers received less pay than their white counterparts, but they and their supporters lobbied and eventually gained equal pay.[12] Notable members of USCT regiments included Martin Robinson Delany and the sons of abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
The process for white officers aiming to lead USCT was considered more protracted and perhaps rigorous than for ordinary Union officers. This was because it was assumed that leading black soldiers would require a better officer than those leading white troops. At the end of their studies, those men who wished to lead black troops had to pass an examination administered by Brig. Gen. Silas Casey's staff in Washington. After a short period of examinations in mid-1863, only half of the men who had taken the exam passed.[13]
Before the USCT was formed, several volunteer regiments were raised from free black men, including freedmen in the South. In 1863 a former slave, William Henry Singleton, helped recruit 1,000 former slaves in New Bern, North Carolina for the First North Carolina Colored Volunteers. He became a sergeant in the 35th USCT. Freedmen from the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, established in 1863 on the island, also formed part of the Free North Carolina Colored Volunteers (FNCCV) and subsequently the 35th.[14] Nearly all of the volunteer regiments were converted into USCT units.
In 1922 Singleton published his memoir (in a slave narrative) of his journey from slavery to freedom and becoming a Union soldier. Glad to participate in reunions, years later at the age of 95, he marched in a Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) event in 1938.
Four regiments were considered regular units, rather than auxiliaries. Their veteran status allowed them to get federal government jobs after the war, from which African Americans had usually been excluded in earlier years. However, the men received no formal recognition for combat honors and awards until the turn of the 20th century. These units were:
The 1st Louisiana Native Guard, one of many Louisiana Union Civil War units, was formed in New Orleans after the city was taken and occupied by Union forces. It was formed in part from the Confederacy's former unit of the same name, which had been made up of property-owning free people of color (gens de couleur libres).[15] These men had wanted to prove their bravery and loyalty to the Confederacy like other Southern property owners by joining the Confederate blacks, but the Confederacy did not allow them to serve and confiscated their arms.
For the new unit, the Union also recruited freedmen from the refugee camps. Liberated from nearby plantations, they and their families had no means to earn a living and no place to go. Local commanders, starved for replacements, started equipping volunteer units with cast-off uniforms and obsolete or captured firearms. The men were treated and paid as auxiliaries, performing guard or picket duties to free up white soldiers for maneuver units. In exchange their families were fed, clothed and housed for free at the Army camps; often schools were set up for them and their children.
Despite class differences between free people of color and freedmen, the troops of the new guard served with distinction, including under Captain Andre Cailloux at the Battle of Port Hudson and throughout the South. Its units included:
Colored troops served as laborers in the 16th Army Corps' Quartermaster's Department and Pioneer Corps.
See main article: List of United States Colored Troops Civil War Units.
See main article: Skirmish at Island Mound.
The first engagement by African-American soldiers against Confederate forces during the Civil War was at the Battle of Island Mound in Bates County, Missouri on October 28–29, 1862. African Americans, mostly escaped slaves, had been recruited into the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers. They accompanied white troops to Missouri to break up Confederate guerrilla activities based out of Hog Island near Butler, Missouri. Although outnumbered, the African-American soldiers fought valiantly, and the Union forces won the engagement. The conflict was reported by The New York Times and Harper's Weekly.[16] [17] In 2012 the state established the Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site to preserve this area; the eight Union men killed were buried near the battleground.[18]
USCT regiments fought in all theaters of the war, but mainly served as garrison troops in rear areas. The most famous USCT action took place at the Battle of the Crater during the Siege of Petersburg. Regiments of USCT suffered heavy casualties attempting to break through Confederate lines. Other notable engagements include Fort Wagner, one of their first major tests, and the Battle of Nashville.
Colored Troop soldiers were among the first Union forces to enter Richmond, Virginia, after its fall in April 1865. The 41st USCT regiment was among those present at the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Following the war, USCT regiments served among the occupation troops in former Confederate states.
U.S. Army General Ulysses S. Grant praised the competent performance and bearing of the USCT, saying at Vicksburg that:
USCT soldiers suffered extra violence at the hands of Confederate soldiers, who singled them out for mistreatment. They were often the victims of battlefield massacres and atrocities by Confederates, most notably at Fort Pillow in Tennessee, at the Battle of the Crater in Virginia,[19] and at the Battle of Olustee in Florida. They were often murdered when captured by Confederate soldiers, as the Confederacy announced that former slaves fighting for the Union were traitors and would be immediately executed.[20]
The prisoner exchange protocol based on the Dix–Hill Cartel broke down over the Confederacy's position on black prisoners-of-war. The Congress of the Confederate States of America had passed a law on May 1, 1863, stating that white officers commanding black soldiers and blacks captured in uniform would be tried as rebellious slave insurrectionists in civil courts — a capital offense with automatic sentence of death.[21] [22] In practice, USCT soldiers were often murdered by Confederate troops without being taken to court. This law became a stumbling block for prisoner exchange, as the U.S. government in the Lieber Code objected to such discriminatory mistreatment of prisoners of war on basis of ethnicity. The Republican Party's platform during the 1864 presidential election also condemned the Confederacy's mistreatment of black U.S. soldiers.[23] In response to such mistreatment, General Ulysses S. Grant, in a letter to Confederate officer Richard Taylor, urged the Confederates to treat captured black U.S. soldiers humanely and professionally, and not to murder them. He stated the U.S. government's official position, that black U.S. soldiers were sworn military men. The Confederacy had said they were escaped slaves who deserved no better treatment.[24]
The soldiers are classified by the state where they were enrolled; Northern states often sent agents to enroll formerly enslaved from the South. Many soldiers from Delaware, D.C., Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia were formerly enslaved as well. Most of the troops credited to West Virginia, however, were not actually from that state.[25]
| North[26] | Number | South | Number | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | 1,764 | Alabama | 4,969 | |
| Colorado Territory | 95 | Arkansas | 5,526 | |
| Delaware | 954 | Florida | 1,044 | |
| District of Columbia | 3,269 | Georgia | 3,486 | |
| Illinois | 1,811 | Louisiana | 24,502 | |
| Indiana | 1,597 | Mississippi | 17,869 | |
| Iowa | 440 | North Carolina | 5,035 | |
| Kansas | 2,080 | South Carolina | 5,462 | |
| Kentucky | 23,703 | Tennessee | 20,133 | |
| Maine | 104 | Texas | 47 | |
| Maryland | 8,718 | Virginia | 5,723 | |
| Massachusetts | 3,966 | |||
| Michigan | 1,387 | Total from the South | 93,796 | |
| Minnesota | 104 | |||
| Missouri | 8,344 | At large | 733 | |
| New Hampshire | 125 | Not accounted for | 5,083 | |
| New Jersey | 1,185 | |||
| New York | 4,125 | |||
| Ohio | 5,092 | |||
| Pennsylvania | 8,612 | |||
| Rhode Island | 1,837 | |||
| Vermont | 120 | |||
| West Virginia | 196 | |||
| Wisconsin | 155 | |||
| Total from the North | 79,283 | |||
| Total | 178,895 |
The USCT was disbanded in the fall of 1865. In 1867, the Regular Army was set at ten regiments of cavalry and 45 regiments of infantry. The Army was authorized to raise two regiments of black cavalry (the 9th and 10th (Colored) Cavalry) and four regiments of black infantry (the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st (Colored) Infantry), who were mostly drawn from USCT veterans. The first draft of the bill that the House Committee on Military Affairs sent to the full chamber on March 7, 1866, did not include a provision for regiments of black cavalry; however, this provision was added by Senator Benjamin Wade prior to the bill's passing.[27] In 1869 the Regular Army was kept at ten regiments of cavalry but cut to 25 regiments of Infantry, reducing the black complement to two regiments (the 24th and 25th (Colored) Infantry).
The two black infantry regiments represented 10 percent of the size of all twenty-five infantry regiments. Similarly, the black cavalry units represented 20 percent of the size of all ten cavalry regiments.[27]
From 1870 to 1898 the strength of the US Army totaled 25,000 service members with black soldiers maintaining their 10 percent representation.[27] USCT soldiers fought in the Indian Wars in the American West, where they became known as the Buffalo Soldiers, thus nicknamed by Native Americans who compared their hair to the curly fur of bison.[28]
Sixteen African-American USCT soldiers earned the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award, for service in the war:[29]
Soldiers who fought in the Army of the James were eligible for the Butler Medal, commissioned by that army's commander, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler. When several slaves escaped to Butler's lines in 1861, at Fort Monroe in Virginia, Butler was the first to declare any refugee slaves as contraband, and refused to return them to slaveholders, a standard that slowly became an unofficial policy throughout the Union Army. Their owner, a Confederate colonel, came to Butler under a flag of truce and demanded that they be returned to him under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Butler informed him that since Virginia claimed to have left the Union, the Fugitive Slave Law no longer applied, declaring the slaves to be contraband of war.
The historian Steven Hahn proposes that when slaves organized themselves and worked with the Union Army during the American Civil War, including as some regiments of the USCT, their actions comprised a slave rebellion that dwarfed all other slave revolts.[30] The African American Civil War Memorial Museum helps to preserve pertinent information from the period.[31]
The motion picture Glory, starring Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick, portrayed the African-American soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. It showed their training and participation in several battles, including the second assault on Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Although the 54th was not a USCT regiment, but a state volunteer regiment originally raised from free blacks in Boston, similar to the 1st and 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry, the film portrays the experiences and hardships of African-American troops during the Civil War.[34] Richard Walter Thomas, black scholar of race relations, observed that the relationship between white and black soldiers in the Civil War was an instance of what he calls "the other tradition": "… after sharing the horrors of war with their black comrades in arms, many white officers experienced deep and dramatic transformations in their attitudes toward blacks."[35]