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
sleep of the tired ranks, the deep silence of that field of strife, the visits, long
apart, of the ambulance coming out there into that deep echoless wood.
His reverie ended some time after midnight, when an order arrived instructing
the regiment “to draw five days rations and 60 rounds per man of ammunition
& be ready to march at day break.” 78
As it turned out, the Union Army made no immediate move. Instead, before
dawn on 11 April, a signal from the opposite shore indicated that the Confederates
had evacuated Mobile. Two divisions of the XIII Corps crossed the
bay the next morning to occupy the city. On 14 April, the XVI Corps set out
for Montgomery by road. The Colored Troops Division followed by riverboat
six days later. 79
The division was still at Blakely when word arrived of the Confederate
surrender in Virginia. The capitulation of the South’s most successful army
raised hopes that the end of the war was at hand. Some officers reflected on
their recent service and its meaning, both for themselves and for their men. It
was, Lieutenant Chapman wrote to his brother,
a peace most manfully struggled for but which will amply compensate us for
our obstinate perseverance. In this struggle the Nigger has shown himself on
the battle-field, to be the equal of the best soldiers that ever stepped. . . . [W]
hen we first took our company in I was feeling pretty dubious about them,
they went in rather skeary, but after a while when they could distinguish the
enemy, they got perfectly reckless, and at night they were anxious to sneak up
and [illegible] over some of them. I was delighted with them.
Captain Crydenwise took a larger view. “The bright happy day of peace
appears near its dawning. God speed its coming,” he told his parents. “The Colored
troops in the assault & capture of this place on the 9th done a great thing
for the cause & for themselves & have again shown that the men will fight &
fight bravely.” 80
April 1865 ended with General Canby’s Military Division of West Mississippi
still negotiating surrender terms with Confederate commanders. The Colored
Troops in the division were scattered along the coast from Key West (two
regiments) to Pensacola (one regiment) to Brazos Santiago, near the mouth of
the Rio Grande (two regiments). Eighteen regiments garrisoned posts in Louisiana,
with nine more just across the Mississippi River at Natchez and Vicksburg.
Twelve regiments were in Alabama, at Mobile and Montgomery. 81 They had
proven their ability during the war. The era that was about to begin would offer
new challenges to the Colored Troops and to black people throughout the South.
78 OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 1, pp. 98, 283, 294, 298 (“less than”); Crydenwise to Dear Parents & All,
10 Apr 1865; Densmore to Andrews, 30 Aug 1866; Merriam Diary, 12 Apr 1865.
79 OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 1, pp. 99–100, 117, 136.
80 Merriam Diary, 13 and 17 Apr 1865; W. A. Chapman to Dear Bro, 16 Apr 1865, Chapman
Papers; H. M. Crydenwise to Dear Parents & All, 13 Apr 1865, Crydenwise Letters.
81 OR, ser. 1, vol. 48, pt. 2, pp. 248–29, 253–57, 260–61.