Black Troops, White Commanders and Freedmen during the Civil War

6. Captive Black Union Soldiers in Charleston-What to Do?

6 Captive Black Union Soldiers in CharlestonWhat to Do? "THIRTEEN prisoners Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, black. What shall I do with them?" That message, hastily penned by Confederate Gen. Johnson Hagood on the night of July 16, 1863, near the beginning of the Union attack on Fort Wagner, also noted that two of the blacks were "refugee" slaves, the rest free. l The general's question posed a conundrum. The Confederacy had been struggling with it for months and would continue to struggle with it until the war was dwindling to an end. By mid-1863, the Union, after long hesitation, was taking blacks into its army by the thousands. Inevitably some had become Confederate captives. In time there were many more. Some had been slaves in the state where captured. Some had been slaves in others of the Confederate states. Some had been slaves in Union slave states. Some had been free, residents of Union states or even of the Confederacy (notably Louisiana). Many blacks had donned the Union uniform voluntarily; but not a few, especially among slaves of Confederate states, had been forced into the army, either by formal conscription or by irregular means. Nearly all would be in the ranks, and eventually some would be commissioned. Captive, too, would be some of their white officers. Finally, among captives there would be officers and men ofwhite units operating in conjunction with black units. The law ofevery Confederate state made slave insurOriginally published in Civil War History 28, no. 1 (March 1982):28-44. Reprinted with permission of The Kent State University Press. 86 Captive Black Union Soldiers 87 rection or aiding such insurrection a crime; and, as viewed by the Confederate: slaves in arms as Union soldiers were engaged in insurrection . The conundrum: were all these captives regular prisoners of war or were they all common criminals; or were some the former and some the latter? Or were some captives something in between, in some new, unprecedented status? Or were some simply to be slain, without ceremony? Confederate statesmen, politicians, military commanders , judges, lawyers, and ordinary soldiers and civilians were to face this puzzle. Nowhere in the Confederacy was it posed more starkly than in Charleston. For, from late 1862 until almost the end of the war, in Charleston and its near regions there was repeated conflict with Union forces that included slaves of the local citizenry and, by 1863, slaves from elsewhere as well as free blacks. General Hagood's query, after receipt at district headquarters, was forwarded at once to General Beauregard, commander of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, headquartered in Charleston. With it went word that the captive blacks had been ordered to the city under a strong guard and "without their uniforms.,,2 On the next day, July 17, the department sent a copy of Hagood's note to South Carolina Gov. M. L. Bonham. At the same time, Beauregard informed Richmond that he had black prisoners from the Union forces, several of whom "claim to be free, from Massachusetts." He asked, "Shall they be turned over to State authorities with the other negroes?"3 It reflected the confusion in the Confederacy at that time-the time of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson-that neither General Beauregard nor Governor Bonham yet knew that on May 1, 1863, President Davis had approved a joint resolution of the Confederate Congress that, as we shall see, answered Beauregard's question. The general and governor both thought that President Davis' proclamation of December 23, 1862, promulgated on Christmas Eve, was still applicable: that "all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong to be dealt with according to the laws of said States" and that "like orders be executed in all cases with respect to all commissioned officers of the United States when found serving in company with armed slaves."4 Doubtless Beauregard thought that the proclamation had been carefully formulated, for it had followed by less than a month quite different instructions that he had received from Secretary of War Seddon. In 88 Black Troops mid-November 1862, one of Beauregard's district commanders had captured four slaves, armed and in Union uniform, and Beauregard immediately had sought Seddon's guidance. After checking with the president, Seddon on November 30 had instructed Beauregard to avoid a dilemma. On...