Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
one hogshead of sugar. In the summer of 1864, one four-parish area yielded
more than thirteen hundred conscripts, of whom 35 percent failed a medical
examination. Even if all those rejected returned at once to their home
plantations, their absence must have caused a considerable disruption of the
rural labor force. 26
Conscription in the cities was no less disruptive. Superintendent of Negro
Labor Thomas W. Conway, former chaplain of the 79th USCI, reported “squads
of soldiers” in New Orleans “arresting colored men of every description, laborers,
printers, and clerks.” “The harsh manner in which the thing is done gives offense
to very many who declare themselves perfectly willing to fight for the flag
if called into the service in any of those forms observed in the case of white men
all over the country,” he maintained. “I have no doubt the intention is to arrest
only those . . . who loiter about spending most of their time in idleness; but . . . in
many instances men have been taken from shops, stores and factories, by force.”
Many of New Orleans’ black residents would gladly serve, Conway thought, if
subjected to the Union draft instead of press gangs, but “the present harsh and
inexorable process of taking them by force will weaken their patriotism to a
dangerous extent.” 27
While press gangs riled Louisiana’s black residents and interfered
with the labor supply, both rural and urban, the federal presence itself was
enough to incense Southern whites. At this stage of the war, Union troops
often could not distinguish properly enrolled but poorly dressed Confederate
soldiers from guerrillas, or guerrillas from common bandits. Neither was it
entirely certain whether armed Southerners were pro-Confederate or merely
anti-Yankee. Whatever the root of its animus, home-grown opposition, not
the main Confederate armies, was the day-to-day worry of Union soldiers in
occupied Louisiana during the last year of the war. Colonel Frisbie reported
one expedition from Morganza toward the end of 1864 during which the 92d
USCI sighted some horsemen thought to be members of “the organized band
of guerrilla scouts operating on this side of the Atchafalaya River.” “These men
continued in sight most of the afternoon and twice fired at the advance guard,”
Frisbie wrote.
We camped at the plantation of J. R. Gayle, whose son is a [guerrilla], and
. . . who fired at the advance guard and then fled into the swamp on the bayou. A
large number of hogs and chickens were here gathered for the purpose of giving
our boys a big Christmas, so they were appropriated as contraband of war. . . . In
returning we came through the swamp to the residence of Mr. Winston, an outlaw,
whose wife now keeps a rendezvous for guerrillas, and . . . she . . . was told that
a perseverance in her evil courses would leave her homeless. . . . A small force of
26 OR, ser. 1, 15: 666–69 (“Officers and,” p. 667); vol. 26, pt. 1, pp. 704, 741–42; vol. 34, pt.
2, pp. 111, 227–31. Capt H. E. Kimball to Maj Gen N. P. Banks, 20 Aug 1864 (“fabulous price”)
(K–291–DG–1864); Maj S. Hamblin to Maj G. B. Drake, 23 Aug 1864 (H–979–DG–1864); both in
Entry 1756, Dept of the Gulf, LR, pt. 1, RG 393, NA.
27 T. W. Conway to Maj G. B. Drake, 16 Aug 1864 (C–793–DG–1864), Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG
393, NA.