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
Col. Hiram Scofield of the 47th U.S.
Colored Infantry commanded one of the
black brigades in the final assault on Fort
Blakely, 9 April 1865.
all day and in the worst mud I
ever saw,” Merriam recorded in
his diary. “In some places . . .
mules had to be taken from the
wagons and the wagons boosted
along for half a mile by the
men alone.” At nightfall on 22
March, the army had moved
just fifteen miles beyond Pensacola.
58
Early the next afternoon,
General Steele reported, the
advance found a bridge washed
out and had to wait a day and a
half while the troops replaced
it with a new one three hundred
yards long, “built on piles
which the men sunk by hand,
diving under the water to start
them.” The army crossed on 25
March, moving through a forest
that 1st Lt. John L. Mathews of
the 47th USCI considered “the
poorest country I ever traveled
over.” “It is a barren sandy soil
covered with pines almost as
thick as they can stand,” he
wrote. “The inhabitants are of
the poorest class, and how they
manage to exist is more than I can tell; they have an abundance of pale children
and yellow dogs, everything else appears scarce.” The lieutenant’s impression was
correct: the four Florida and Alabama counties on the line of march produced less
than half as much cotton, on average, as neighboring counties did. Consequently,
whites outnumbered black slaves by more than 50 percent. 59
Along the way, some soldiers were able to kill and eat cattle that ranged in the
woods; but heavy rain, deep mud, and short marches upset the expedition’s timetable.
By 26 March, commissary supplies were running out and the troops were on
half rations. Despite the shortage, they marched nine miles on 28 March through “a
monstrous swamp.” Colonel Merriam was proud of his regiment: “For the first time
during the campaign we had two men sick in the ambulance train. . . . It surpasses
58 Merriam Diary, 21 Mar 1865; Scofield to Andrews, 1 Apr 1866.
59 OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 1, p. 280 (“built on”); Scofield to Andrews, 1 Apr 1866; J. L. Mathews
to Dear Father, 5 Apr 1865, John L. Mathews Papers, State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City.
Statistics for Florida’s Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties and Alabama’s Baldwin and Conecuh
Counties (all on the line of march), as well as neighboring Covington, Mobile, and Monroe Counties
(in Alabama) and Walton (in Florida) are in Census Bureau, Agriculture of the United States in
1860, pp. 3, 19, and Population of the United States in 1860, pp. 8, 54.