Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1862–1863 113
with a new form of involuntary servitude. As the two captains noted, “They seem
in a quandary, whether they have really obtained their long sought liberty or only
changed masters.” 63
General Ullmann’s occasional missteps did not help in organizing the Corps
d’Afrique. Late in the summer, when General Banks had nearly completed his
purge of black officers, Ullmann conceived the idea of allowing “free men of color”
to elect their own officers, just as white volunteers had done at the beginning
of the war. He mentioned this to Adjutant General Thomas, who happened to be
in New Orleans. Thomas thought that regiments with elected black officers would
be “highly injurious to the organizations already authorized with entirely white
officers” and forbade the project. Thomas found Ullmann so troublesome that he
asked Banks to bar him from raising “any troops whatever.” 64
While Ullmann’s ideas were far in advance of any that Army leaders could
adopt at that time, there were other officers in the Corps d’Afrique whose primitive
attitudes were even more unwelcome. The appointment of 2d Lt. Augustus
W. Benedict of the 75th New York as major of the 4th Native Guards (later the
4th Corps d’Afrique Infantry), for instance, turned out to be a grave mistake. Appointed
in March 1863, Benedict became the regiment’s lieutenant colonel in a few
months. By late autumn, his conduct had managed to anger most of the enlisted
men. He had ordered more than one man tied spread-eagle on the ground with
molasses smeared on his face to attract flies—the punishment, in one instance, for
“stealing some corn to roast.” He was also notorious for “kicking and knocking
[the men] about.” “It was a common thing,” Capt. James Miller later told investigators.
At Fort Jackson, sixty-five miles downstream from New Orleans, on 9
December 1863, Benedict horsewhipped two of the regiment’s drummers, Pvts.
Harry Williams and Munroe Miller, for lying to a sentry in order to get out of the
garrison. Three other officers witnessed the incident but did not interfere. One of
them, Col. Charles W. Drew, “thought it best to delay . . . instead of reprimanding
him in the presence of the men.” The men’s reaction was to seize their weapons,
begin firing wildly, and demand Benedict’s death. The uprising was spontaneous
and leaderless, as far as most of the officers could tell. “I should think that nearly
one-half the regiment was engaged in the disturbance, the other half trying to quiet
them,” Colonel Drew testified. 65
Led by the colonel, the regiment’s officers managed to quell the disturbance
in less than three hours. Drew sent Benedict to his quarters, which got him out of
the men’s sight and beyond their reach. Drew then told the men that he would not
talk to them while they were armed; most of them went to their quarters, left their
weapons, and came back to hear what the colonel had to say. He called the men
63 Gaskill and Stiles to Stearns, 23 Jul 1863; Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World
the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), pp. 637–38, 646–48; Lawrence W. Levine,
Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 121–33.
64 Col J. S. Clark and Col G. H. Hanks to Col A. B. Botsford, 12 Sep 1863, Entry 159DD, RG
94, NA; Brig Gen L. Thomas to Maj Gen N. P. Banks, 11 Sep 1863 (A–512–DG–1863), Entry 1756,
pt. 1, RG 393, NA.
65 OR, ser. 1, vol. 26, pt. 1, pp. 460 (“thought it best,” “I should”), 464, 468 (“It was”), 469, 471
(“stealing,” “kicking”), 473–74.