Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1863–1865 137
follow them. . . . We took on board everything we could find, working throughout
the night.” 32
The next day, Potter and fifteen artillerymen were off again, rescuing ten people
and some ninety head of livestock. Men of the 98th USCI aboard the Ohio
Belle made five trips later in the month. Ninety-eight black people were among
the 153 rescued. “It is the mission of the army now to assist in the restoration of
law and order, confidence, and good feeling among the people,” Maj. Gen. Francis
J. Herron declared while leading Union troops toward Shreveport on 4 June. “In
every way, therefore, the utmost care will be taken to teach the inhabitants that
we are their friends and not their enemies, and that wherever the authority of the
United States exists there is ample security for persons and property.” Despite the
general’s words about “law and order” and “ample security,” the fact that black
persons rescued were described as “32 Colored Persons” or “16 Contrabands,”
while white adults appeared by name with the title “Mr.” or “Mrs.” clearly reflected
the attitudes of the reporting officers and augured ill for future relations between
the races in the South. 33
Elsewhere in the Department of the Gulf, black soldiers spent the last year
of the war in raids and other coastal operations. On 1 April 1864, about one
hundred fifty officers and men of the 20th Corps d’Afrique Infantry boarded
a steamer at the eastern end of Lake Pontchartrain and made their way up the
western branch of the Pearl River. Finding the channel blocked by driftwood,
they landed about three-quarters of their strength and sent the boat downstream
while the shore party marched overland in search of the J. D. Swaim, a steamer
that Confederates had run up the eastern branch two years earlier, at the time
Union troops occupied New Orleans. The next day they found the steamer full
of water and its engine out of order, but they decided to try to raise it. By the
morning of 5 April, they had the Swaim afloat, “and the prospects of getting
her down the river,” wrote the expedition’s commander, “were rather favorable
than otherwise.” They cast off and drifted about three miles downstream, carried
by the current, until they ran into “a bed of sunken logs” and were stuck
for fifty-six hours. Torrential rain raised the river, and by the morning of the
eighth the Swaim was able to float free. The next day, farther downstream, they
found the boat that had brought them up the western branch. It towed them
back to Fort Pike, taking with them sixty-four escaped slaves who had joined
the expedition. Fort Pike’s garrison used the refurbished Swaim in similar raids
later in the year. 34
Farther east along the Gulf Coast, Union soldiers clung to posts at Pensacola
and Key West that had not been abandoned to the Confederates in 1861. In the
spring of 1864, their garrisons included the 2d USCI at Key West and the 25th,
82d, and 86th USCIs at Fort Barrancas near Pensacola. The 2d had been organized
at Arlington, Virginia; the 25th at Philadelphia; the 82d (formerly the 10th
32 1st Lt C. H. Potter to 2d Lt W. H. Stillman, 13 May 1865 (“About 40”), filed with Brig Gen R.
A. Cameron to Maj W. Hoffman, 16 May 1865 (C–392–DG–1865), Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG 393, NA.
33 OR, ser. 1, vol. 48, pt. 1, pp. 271–72, and pt. 2, pp. 769–70 (“It is the”); Brig Gen R. A.
Cameron to Maj W. Hoffman, 29 May 1865 (C–427–DG–1865), Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG 393, NA.
34 OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 1, pp. 869–70 (quotations); vol. 41, pt. 1, pp. 756–58.