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
fifteen miles north of Pensacola, the force dispersed three companies of enemy
cavalry. Asboth reported having undergone “brisk fire,” “repeated skirmishes,” and
a “determined stand” by the Confederates; but the day’s casualties on the Union
side totaled one man of the 82d USCI wounded in the arm. Confederate prisoners
told Asboth that the raiders he expected to welcome had destroyed twenty-four
miles of rail line and then turned back to rejoin Sherman’s army instead of continuing
on toward the gulf. On 23 July, after burning what captured supplies they could
not move, the troops moved north toward Pollard, Alabama, just over the state line.
Asboth planned to destroy the railroad there, but heavy rain and reports of massing
Confederates brought his expedition to an end halfway to its destination. 42
On 2 August, just a week after Asboth’s return to Pensacola, General Canby
launched a strike against two Confederate forts that stood on either side of the main
entrance to Mobile Bay. The small expedition included, besides four Midwestern
infantry regiments that had formerly belonged to the XIII Corps, the 96th and
97th USCIs (formerly the 2d and 3d Corps d’Afrique Engineers). Despite the regiments’
new designations, the nature of their duties was made clear in an exchange
between a Department of the Gulf inspector and Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, commanding
the land force. When the inspector complained that black soldiers came
in for more than “their fair share of fatigue duty,” Granger replied: “Details for fatigue
duty have been principally made from the white regiments, the colored troops
being employed almost exclusively upon engineering service.” He may have meant
that white troops were unloading supplies while black troops worked on construction
projects. Although one nineteenth-century dictionary of military terms included
“work on fortifications . . . , in cutting roads, and other constant labor,” as forms
of “fatigue duty,” the final decision as to whether pick-and-shovel work constituted
“fatigue duty” or “engineering service” rested with the senior officer present. 43
Asboth marched most of the Pensacola garrison toward Mobile on 13 August
to learn whether any Union troops had come ashore. The first day’s march took his
force twelve miles “through a marshy country, mostly overflowed in consequence
of the frequent heavy rains.” The next day, Confederate deserters brought word that
five thousand federal soldiers had landed. Satisfied with that, Asboth headed back
to Pensacola rather than splash any farther through the swamps. 44
At this point, despite Canby’s promise to supply food and forage to welcome
Sherman’s raiders, scurvy began to appear in the Pensacola garrison. The commissary’s
cornmeal was “wormy and sour,” so even the arrival of fifty pounds of
potatoes was worth reporting. During the first three weeks of September, forty men
died in the 25th, 82d, and 86th USCIs. White troops, too, suffered “to a considerable
extent.” Nevertheless, the black regiments were able to contribute 300 men
to a 700-man expedition up the west arm of Pensacola Bay in late October. The
general commanding at Pensacola submitted weekly intelligence reports to Gen-
42 OR, ser. 1, vol. 35, pt. 1, pp. 416–18 (“brisk fire,” p. 417); vol. 38, pt. 5, p. 85 (“leave horses”);
vol. 39, pt. 2, p. 183.
43 Ibid., vol. 41, pt. 2, p. 566 (“their fair”); Endorsement, Maj Gen G. Granger, 15 Sep 1864
(“Details for fatigue”), on Maj G. B. Drake to Maj Gen G. Granger, 30 Aug 1864 (G–36–DG–1864),
Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG 393, NA; Henry L. Scott, Military Dictionary (New York: D. Van Nostrand,
1864), p. 283.
44 OR, ser. 1, vol. 35, pt. 1, p. 426.