Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1862–1863 119
Hudson, thought that the quality of arms being issued to new regiments of the
Corps d’Afrique was important. “I have no objection to a considerable proportion
of smooth-bore muskets of good quality,” he wrote to department headquarters
in August:
But I prefer and think necessary a larger proportion of rifled muskets. Many of
the smooth-bore muskets which have been sent here for issue are old flint-lock
muskets altered to percussion, very much out of order. . . . As to the care of
these arms, it is certain that colored troops cannot treat them much worse than
the white volunteer troops have hitherto done. . . . Anything that has the appearance
of treating the colored troops as unfit to receive anything but inferior
articles of clothing or equipment is promptly felt by both officers and men. . . .
I would respectfully recommend that as far as practicable distinctions in arming
or equipping the two classes of troops should be avoided for the present at least.
An inspection the next month showed that while the 1st Corps d’Afrique Infantry,
the old 1st Native Guards, had .58-caliber Enfield rifles “in excellent order,”
the 10th, part of Ullmann’s Brigade, had .69-caliber Springfield smoothbore
flintlocks—altered to accept percussion caps—25 percent of which were
“unfit for service.” 77
The question of inferior equipment rankled the U.S. Colored Troops
throughout the war. In Louisiana, as in the Department of the South, the reason
for such deficiencies lay in long supply lines, slow communications, and haste
in raising new black regiments as much as it did in the malice of individual
staff officers who had low expectations of black soldiers’ abilities and believed
that any equipment was good enough for troops who were unlikely ever to meet
an enemy. By the summer of 1863, it had become clear that this war had no
definite “front” and no reliably safe “rear.”
(A–316–DG–1863), Entry 159BB, Generals’ Papers and Books (L. Thomas), RG 94, NA.
77 Andrews to Irwin, 21 Aug 1863 (“I have no”) (A–316–DG–1863); Inspection Rpts, 19 Sep
1863, 73d and 82d USCIs, Entry 57C, RG 94, NA.