The Intersection between Military Justice and Equal Rights: Mutinies, Courts-martial, and Black Civil War Soldiers
While at camp on Folly Island, South Carolina, on May 1, 1864, Wallace Baker of the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry mutinied against Lt. Thomas F. Ellsworth, a twenty-three-year-old from Massachusetts. Slightly younger and hailing from Kentucky, Baker's outburst arose when Ellsworth sent him to his quarters for arriving at an inspection unprepared. Baker returned before Ellsworth dismissed the company and, exasperated at his command's laughter, the lieutenant repeatedly ordered Baker to his tent. In response, Baker muttered that he would "be damned" to do so before manifesting his racial frustration and demand for equal standing: "Lieutenant," Baker exclaimed, "I won't stand to attention for you or any other damned white officer." At that, Ellsworth angrily seized Baker by the collar and the incident turned into a full-out brawl before the lieutenant gained the advantage and escorted Baker to the guardhouse.1
Baker's commanders knew why trouble simmered within the unit. The men refused to accept the pay offered them because it was lower than that paid to whites and now, letters from home reached the troops. The fact [End Page 170] that "parents, wives, children and sisters" suffered while "we, their natural protectors, are fighting the battles of the nation" weighed heavily on many black soldiers' minds. Recounting the tears one comrade shed upon reading a letter from his sick wife, a member of the 55th vowed that "patience has an end," though he also declared that black soldiers could not accept anything except equal pay from the federal government if they were to stand as American citizens and assured that "we have been tried in the fire both of affliction and of the rebels, and nothing remains but pure metal." Alternating between impatience, anger, defiance, and pride, this soldier ran the gamut of emotions connected with his unit's act of resistance, a microcosm of the experience of black troops during the war.2
The pay disparity undermined army discipline but also energized black soldiers' demands for equal treatment. In February 1864, Col. Alfred Hartwell received an anonymous letter declaring that his 55th Massachusetts would stack arms if they did not soon receive pay. Less than two weeks before Baker's incident, a mutiny erupted as Sampson Goliah defied white officers, while other soldiers revolted. A week after Baker's mutiny, Hartwell and another officer testified at Goliah's court-martial and cited the pay issue as the salient cause of tension within the regiment. In a successful plea to spare the defendant from execution, the prosecutor did the same. As other white officers came to realize, black soldiers mutinied not out of nervous energy generated by camp malaise or the privations of combat service but as political action undertaken by men who felt newly entitled by their wearing of the uniform.3
A court-martial comprised mostly of the same officers who tried Goliah convened to try Baker for mutiny; the same man who prosecuted and successfully argued against punishing Goliah with death served as judge advocate. Influenced by its perception of an increasingly rebellious spirit in the regiment, [End Page 171] however, the court went beyond simple imprisonment in Baker's case. Instead, as did many other courts-martial that dealt with black mutineers, the panel that tried Baker attempted to balance between the legitimacy of the men's frustration while also maintaining the rule of law and military discipline and it sentenced Baker to death.4
Nonetheless, Baker, a black soldier accused of committing grave crimes, received due process, an opportunity for defense counsel, and questioned both a white officer and fellow African Americans—a level of procedural fairness surprisingly typical of general courts-martial of black soldiers. Ellsworth testified first and, having declined counsel, Baker directly questioned him with assistance from Judge Advocate James M. Walton...
