Approximately 180,000 African American soldiers took up the call to fight for the Union, comprising more than 10% of all Federal forces. Knowing that a Northern loss could mean possible re-enslavement, freemen and former slaves showed dedication to their country and a commitment to the freedom of their people forever.

The Federal program to admit black soldiers during the Civil War was not without precedent or resistance. American blacks had taken part in the country's defense since the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. By the mid-nineteenth century, their earlier efforts were all but forgotten. The government's call for 75,000 volunteers in April 1861 compelled many Northern blacks to offer their services to a War Department opposed to arming blacks for fear it would induce the loyal slave-holding border states to join the Confederacy. However, by the fall of 1862, events had changed in favor of accepting black soldiers. Declining Union enlistments, heavy battle losses and the realization that the war would take more time and resources than expected, confronted President Abraham Lincoln and the Union Army. Continued pressure by abolitionists and awareness of the potential of black labor as the Confederacy had already discovered, also contributed to lifting the Army's prohibition of "Negroes or Mulattoes," in existence since 1820.

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Southern territory under Union control provided the largest number of black soldiers during the war, further weakening the South's economic base. Many were fugitive slaves or "contrabands," a military term for seized enemy property like cotton, machinery or other goods. The refugees sought freedom, safety and employment behind the Federal lines where many served as soldiers, laborers, servants, teamsters, scouts, spies, teachers and nurses. Former slave Susie King Taylor chronicled her experiences as a laundress, teacher and nurse for her husband's regiment, the 1st South Carolina. Charlotte Forten, a well-educated teacher from the North, recorded her wartime participation in the Federal experiment to educate and prepare slaves for emancipation along the coast of South Carolina. Noted pre-war black activists Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth served as spies and nurses, Tubman in the South and Truth in the North.

Many blacks were to perform acts of bravery in the name of the Union and human liberty. Robert Smalls seized freedom for himself and his family when he heroically captured a Confederate ship and delivered it to the Union Navy which was blockading Charleston Harbor in May 1862. "I thought that the Planter would be of some use to Uncle Abe," claimed the 23-year-old slave who went to work for the Navy and later became a U.S. Congressman from South Carolina. The U.S. Navy had a long history of accepting men of all colors and backgrounds due to its continual manpower shortages. As early as September, 1861 the Union Navy began enlisting blacks into naval service as stewards, servants and later as seamen on integrated ships. The Navy awarded the Medal of Honor to eight sailors for outstanding service, two of whom were John Lawson for action at Mobile Bay, Alabama and Joachim Pease who served aboard the USS Kearsarge.

Camp William Penn near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Camp Casey near Alexandria, Virginia and Camp Birney in Baltimore Maryland, were some of the many U.S.C.T. draft and training centers set up for eager new recruits. Once enlisted, black soldiers received basic, sometimes inadequate preparation for field service. Inferior firearms and equipment poor camp conditions and hospital facilities, and a shortage of doctors were not uncommon. Only eight black surgeons served in the Union Army, one of whom was Lt. Col. Alexander T. Augusta, a physician trained in Canada. After the war, Dr. Augusta settled in Washington, D.C. and served on the Howard University Medical School faculty. Black chaplains, 14 in all, provided spiritual guidance and educational instruction to black soldiers.

Random public assaults on men of color in uniform, violence towards blacks in Northern cities, and mistreatment by white comrades and the enemy afflicted the black troops. The fact that black soldiers were paid less was a particularly offensive issue; black enlisted men and officers received only $7 per month whereas white privates earned $13. Due to the intervention and protests of Frederick Douglass, the Governor of Massachusetts and commanding officers such as Col. Higginson and Col. Robert Gould Shaw, the unequal pay issue was amended by mid-1864. In spite of the injustices, the Colored Troops demonstrated their determination and bravery in a number of engagements in the final two years of the war.

The war's single most brutal incident involving black troops took place at Fort Pillow, Tennessee in April, 1864. Publicized Congressional inquiries determined that many Colored Troops in the Union fort were massacred after having surrendered to Confederate attackers. Some black units responded with the avenging battle cry, "Remember Fort Pillow" in subsequent retaliations. The atrocities committed at Fort Pillow and several other sites reflected an action of Confederate Congress in May, 1863, which declared that black men bearing arms and white officers "inciting servile insurrection" would be turned over to state authorities - which meant punishment by death. The complicated prisoner of war situation lingered, but the Lincoln administration did approve strong measures to deter inhumane practices which denied basic rights to black troops and their white officers if captured. The Union government also notified Confederate officials that equally harsh treatment of rebel captives would occur if threats of murdering or enslaving black soldiers did not cease. Black troops and white officers were well aware of their common fate which sometimes served to affirm their mutual goals.

The Colored Troops figured prominently in the ill-fated Battle of the Crater fought on July 30, 1964 as part of the Petersburg Campaign. In utter confusion, black and white Federal units poured into a crater which resulted from a planned mine explosion set off by Union soldiers under the small Confederate fort. Northern soldiers were cut down in the chaos with blacks experiencing the heaviest single-day casualties of the war.

Two months after the tragic Petersburg episode, black soldiers displayed their worth at the Battle of New Market Heights (Chaffin's Farm) near Richmond on September 29, 1864. Fourteen men, including Christian Fleetwood, who later became an active community leader in Washington, D.C. were presented the Medal of Honor for valor at New Market Heights. Several were awarded to men who took charge of their units after all white commanders had fallen. Soldiers of distinction were also given the Army of the James or "Butler" medal, designated by champion of the black troops, Gen. Benjamin Butler and the only medal created solely for the U.S.C.T.

Many black troops engaged at Petersburg, notably the 28th and 29th U.S.C.T., were transported to Alexandria, Virginia for medical treatment. Alexandria served as a major military center for the Union in close proximity to the Federal capital. Hospitals and barracks for black soldiers, such as Slough and L'Ouverture, had been set up to accommodate the sick and wounded. More than 200 African-American U.S. troops from the Civil War were buried in Alexandria's National Cemetery, many of whom died in the city's hospitals after succumbing to disease or wounds received at Petersburg. Black units were also attached to the camps and fortifications that comprised the Defenses of Washington. The 28th and 29th U.S.C.T., raised in Indiana and Illinois, had trained briefly at Camp Casey, near Fort Albany not far from Alexandria, before being dispatched to the Virginia front. Several black regiments were recruited and trained in the Washington, D.C. area - the 1st U.S.C.T in D.C., the 2nd U.S.C.T. sin Arlington, the 23rd U.S.C.T. at Camp Casey and several Maryland regiments raised in Baltimore. At the close of war, several veteran black units returned to Washington to serve guard duty in the city's defense system, notably the 107th U.S.C.T. at Fort Corcoran and Christian Fleetwood's Regiment, the 4th U.S.C.T, at Forts Slocum and Lincoln.

Once the nation was at peace, a number of black regiments stayed in service until 1867, especially in the South where they assisted the Army of Occupation and Reconstruction efforts. Many black soldiers and veterans cooperated with the Freedmen's Bureau, created in 1865 to help with education, employment and the overall transition of newly-freed slaves into society.

This willingness on the part of African American soldiers to sacrifice their lives for a country that treated them as second-class citizens is remarkable. Various accounts relate how German prisoners of war could enter facilities reserved for white Americans that black servicemen could not patronize.

During the Revolutionary War, Black soldiers they assigned loyalty to the British or Patriot cause based on the prospect of freedom. Some joined the Connecticut Line in the Continental Army and what became the Rhode Island Regiment, although not all such enlistments by enslaved men were voluntary. Examples of Black regiments within the British army show up during the early years of the war in the northern states, and during the Southern Campaign in 1780-81, but the primary task of military-age Black men in this force was not to fight in the army, but to serve as support staff for it.

As a result, on July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, freeing slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army. Two days later, slavery was abolished in the territories of the United States, and on July 22 President Lincoln (photo citation: 111-B-2323) presented the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet. After the Union Army turned back Lee's first invasion of the North at Antietam, MD, and the Emancipation Proclamation was subsequently announced, black recruitment was pursued in earnest. Volunteers from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts filled the first authorized black regiments. Recruitment was slow until black leaders such as Frederick Douglass (photo citation: 200-FL-22) encouraged black men to become soldiers to ensure eventual full citizenship. (Two of Douglass's own sons contributed to the war effort.) Volunteers began to respond, and in May 1863 the Government established the Bureau of Colored Troops to manage the burgeoning numbers of black soldiers. be457b7860

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