Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops

4. Battles, Massacres, Parades

73 c h a p t e r f o u r Battles, Massacr es, Par ades In 1886 William Todd, who had served in Company B, SeventyNinth Regiment, New York State Militia (the “Highlanders”), recalled when and how his unit, consisting mostly of Scots immigrants or men of Scottish descent, first encountered the USCT. In July 1862, when General David Hunter was recruiting and training what became the First South Carolina Volunteers, the Highlanders, then a battle-hardened unit, witnessed the black troops training at Hilton Head Island and were not impressed. “When we saw the negroes, uniformed and equipped like ourselves —except that their clothing and accoutrements were new and clean, while ours were almost worn out in active service—parading up and down the wharf, doing guard duty,” Todd explained, “it was more than some of our hot-headed pro-slavery comrades could witness in silence.” Initially the Highlanders directed “vile epithets” at the black troops, restrained only by their officers from engaging with the men of the USCT in fisticuffs. “It is pleasant to record, however, that very few of the regiment thus disgraced themselves, and in a short time after, when the colored troops became a part of Union army in the field, they were welcomed by us all as brothers in arms.”1 The Highlanders’ experience played out in many white Union units. Though most northerners had enlisted in Abraham Lincoln’s army to suppress the rebellion, they quickly came to grasp what the president had realized: the Union’s restoration and slavery’s destruction were inseparable. To be sure, during the war many, probably 74 | Battles, Massacres, Parades most, white soldiers remained prejudiced against soldiers of color. Few white northerners had joined the Union army specifically to free the slaves, but their wartime experiences, including observing for the first time and interacting with slaves, convinced Federal troops of slavery’s evils. During the first two years of the war, the bondspeople gradually transformed white Yankee volunteers into “emancipation advocates”—men who equated emancipation with redemption of the American Republic from slavery’s sin. After 1863 most white Union troops ultimately backed Lincoln’s military emancipation project, mindful that both Union victory hinged on emancipation and that freeing the slaves was essential “to make the Union worth saving.” Beyond this, the black soldiers’ military performance warmed many white troops to the prospect of black enlistments, though they retained elements of their bias against people of color.2 The black soldiers’ generally strong performance in combat convinced rank-and-file white troops that black men had earned the right to be treated as equals—at least on the battlefield. An officer in a Maine unit reported in the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier that the black troops he observed in Louisiana “are composed of smart men, and I believe just as good men to fight as we have. They learn quick, and take pride in doing their duty well.”3 Another soldier, who enlisted as a private in an Illinois regiment, but garnered captain’s bars by serving in the Ninth Louisiana Volunteers of African Descent, defended his black comrades. Following an intense battle in June 1863, in which his company experienced numerous casualties, M. M. Miller informed his aunt: “I never more wish to hear the expression, ‘the niggers won’t fight.’ Come with me 100 yards from where I sit, and I can show you the wounds that cover the bodies of 16 as brave, loyal and patriotic soldiers as ever drew bead on a Rebel.” Miller added: “They fought and died defending the cause that we revere.”4 In exchange, then, for the hardships and indignities they endured —reduced pay, inferior medical care, inadequate weapons, inappropriate rations, insufficient training, the prospect of being enslaved or executed if captured, repeated insults from white troops, brutal punishments that smacked of slave discipline, backwater posts—the USCT achieved a creditable military record. The black soldiers carried Battles, Massacres, Parades | 75 out various military duties and at times distinguished themselves in combat. In the process they convinced many northerners, even their severest and most racist critics, of their value to the Union cause.5 * * * The language of Lincoln’s final Emancipation Proclamation made clear his original intention that blacks would serve as garrison troops. Eight days before issuing the final document, Lincoln informed Senator Charles Sumner of his intention to raise black troops and...