Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1862–1863 117
included about 300 men and two regiments of engineers 1,467. The entire force
numbered just over 10,000. 73
Engineer regiments were unusual in the Union Army: Michigan contributed
one, Missouri two, and New York three. None were assigned to the Department
of the Gulf, something that Banks’ chief engineer noticed soon after his arrival.
Deeming engineer regiments essential to future offensive operations, he told
Banks that the absence of one had caused “innumerable delays in the movements
of our troops, and . . . important failures” in the past. Soon afterward,
two corporals in a ninety-day Massachusetts regiment wrote to Banks from Baton
Rouge, urging the creation of an engineer regiment to include “the Smartest
& most intelligent of the ‘Contrabands’ at Donaldsonville, Plaquemine &
at this place. . . . Many of them are Masons, Blacksmiths & Carpenters.” The
corporals asked permission to begin organizing such a regiment themselves.
This bold attempt to jump from the lower noncommissioned ranks to a major’s
or colonel’s commission may have irked Banks. In any case, he was busy at the
time with plans to get rid of black officers in the existing regiments of Native
Guards and disapproved the idea of yet another black regiment. A few months
later, though, the announcement of Ullmann’s impending arrival led him to
reconsider, and the 1st Corps d’Afrique Engineers took part in the siege of Port
Hudson, although without the presence of the two audacious corporals. By the
following year, the Corps d’Afrique included five engineer regiments. 74
The corporals may have wanted to recruit artisans for their projected regiment,
but the recruits who eventually filled the ranks of the Corps d’Afrique
engineers were not skilled craftsmen. Throughout the Army, each company
kept a descriptive book that listed its members’ physical characteristics, age,
occupation, birthplace, and place of enlistment. Descriptive books survive for
only a few companies in which Corps d’Afrique engineers served. These show
that 139 men of the 95th USCI (formerly the 1st Corps d’Afrique Engineers)
transferred to the 81st USCI in July 1864. This was one of several consolidations
that month, intended to bring some of General Banks’ 500-man Corps
d’Afrique regiments to full strength. The 139 new men in the 81st included
6 farmers, 1 waiter, 1 teamster, and 1 self-described engineer. The other 130
were listed as “laborer.” In the smaller, more meticulous peacetime Army, this
would certainly have meant an unskilled pick-and-shovel man. In the enormous
wartime volunteer force, it may simply have meant that the same white
officers who listed the color of every recruit’s complexion, eyes, and hair as
“black, black, black” or “dark, dark, dark” may not have bothered to inquire
about the men’s former livelihoods. “Laborer” and “farmer” often described
men who surely must have been slaves. Whatever the recruits’ previous status,
73 Lt Col R. B. Irwin to Maj Gen N. P. Banks, 16 Aug 1863 (I–66–DG–1863), and Brig Gen G.
L. Andrews to Lt Col R. B. Irwin, 21 Aug 1863 (A–310–DG–1863), both in Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG
393, NA.
74 Maj D. C. Houston to Maj Gen N. P. Banks, 15 Jan 1863 (“innumerable delays”) (H–121–
DG–1863), and T. Nugent and T. L. Jewett to Maj Gen N. P. Banks, 19 Feb 1863 (“the Smartest”)
(N–46–DG–1863), both in Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG 393, NA. Dyer, Compendium, p. 39.