Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in the American Civil War

5 Region, Disease, and the Vulnerable Recruit

c h a p t e r f i v e Region, Disease, and the Vulnerable Recruit Thus far we have considered black soldiers and their overall experiences , without consideration of regional di¤erences. The list of factors influencing black health was largely the same everywhere, but the strength of each influence varied widely depending on place. Black troops were not distributed evenly throughout the Union army. They predominated in areas where troops maintained protective garrisons and were much less common where active fighting was ongoing. No black troops marched with Sherman to the sea, for example, although African Americans did follow his soldiers into Atlanta to secure the city. Black troops were spread up and down the Mississippi River, along the crucial railroad lines in Tennessee, and throughout the coastal areas of North and South Carolina. Accordingly, the black army experience can to some extent be characterized by the places they were stationed. The diseases intrinsic to a given regiment’s mortality pattern were caused by a combination of epidemiological factors, some tied to place and others to the population’s immunological status. Thus it makes sense to talk about the disease climates of specific places. This chapter opens with a consideration of the situation in South Carolina and then describes the deadly events in St. Louis. Chapters 6 and 7 take us to Louisiana and the Gulf Coast of Texas, where things got even worse. Black Troops on the East Coast The black troops stationed in the coastal regions of the Carolinas were among the healthiest regiments. Given all we know about the importance of advocacy in maintaining health, this is not particularly surprising. The first and second South Carolina infantry regiments, composed of local men who had escaped slavery, were oªcered by men dedicated to the abolitionist cause and the promotion of black citizenship. Likewise, the 54th Massachusetts boasted oªcers with a similar commitment to the destruction of slavery, and the large abolition community of Boston closely followed the regiment’s progress. The surgeons of these units appear to have been as dedicated to their men as were the other oªcers. In St. Louis, Ira Russell would have to beg for access to available hospital beds for ill black recruits. But in South Carolina the surgeon had his hospital prepared before sickness set in. Thomas Higginson remembered , “Our new surgeon has begun his work most eªciently; he and the chaplain have converted an old gin-house into a comfortable hospital, with ten nice beds and straw pallets. He is now, with a hearty professional faith, looking round for somebody to put into it.” Higginson worried about the soldiers’ lungs, noting that “their catarrh is an unpleasant reality . They feel the dampness very much, and make such a coughing at dress-parade, that I have urged him to administer a dose of coughmixture , all round just before that pageant.”1 Pulmonary complaints were a major cause of morbidity and mortality among Civil War regiments, black and white, even during the mild Sea Island winters. The South Carolina regiments do seem to have fulfilled expectations with regard to the killing fevers of summer and fall. The Weekly AngloAfrican was proud to report in September 1863 that the black troops were doing remarkably well in what was by all accounts a sickly environment. “The immeasurable advantage of sending colored troops to those parts of the South where the heat is so oppressive to white soldiers is emphatically shown by the lists of the deaths in the Port Royal Hospital from July 1 to August 4,” the paper crowed. “Of the white troops fifty-seven deaths are reported. Of the black soldiers only nine died during that period. Every colored volunteer of that number died of wounds received in battle,” while the Region, Disease, and the Vulnerable Recruit 81 white troops died from a variety of diseases, including typhoid and other fevers. The newspaper concluded that this was clear proof that black men were stronger and better able to endure the harsh southern climate than white men.2 All was not completely rosy in the East, however. As elsewhere, black troops were put to work on heavy construction projects, building fortifications and preparing campsites, and were worked longer hours than white soldiers. One regimental commander complained to his superior that the fatigue duty assigned his men on Folly Island, South...