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
charge of 5,000 black refugees at Cairo, Illinois; 3,900 in and around Memphis;
3,700 at Corinth; 2,400 at Lake Providence, Louisiana; and about 7,000 at other
places in the department. 17
West of the Mississippi River, in the fall of 1862, General Curtis commanded
the Department of the Missouri, which included Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and
the Indian Territory. His opponent, Confederate Maj. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes,
complained to him of reports that Union officers were arming Arkansas slaves, but
Curtis was unmoved. “The enemy must be weakened by every honorable means,
and he has no right to whine about it,” he wrote to the officer commanding at
Helena. “The rebellion must be shaken to its foundation, which is slavery, and the
idea of saving rebels from the consequences of their rebellion is no part of our
business. . . . Free negroes, like other men, will inevitably seek weapons of war,
and fearing they may be returned to slavery, they will fight our foes for their own
security. That is the inevitable logic of events, not our innovation.” 18
Five hundred miles northwest of Helena, James H. Lane was taking steps to
employ former slaves more radical than those taken by any federal official outside
Louisiana and South Carolina. A veteran of both the Mexican War and the
Bleeding Kansas struggle, as well as one of the new state’s first U.S. senators, Lane
had begun to recruit black soldiers at Fort Leavenworth. At the beginning of July
1862, the president had called for two hundred thousand volunteers to strengthen
the Union armies. Although the call had been addressed to state governors, Lane
received an appointment later in the month as “commissioner of recruiting” to
organize at least one brigade of three-year volunteers. The appointment came just
five days after passage of the Militia Act, which authorized “persons of African
descent” to perform “any military or naval service for which they may be found
competent.” Lane took the bit in his teeth. “Recruiting opens up beautifully,” he
told Secretary of War Stanton the day after he began. “Good for four regiments of
whites and two of blacks.” 19
Lane’s action, like General Hunter’s in South Carolina and General Butler’s
in Louisiana, went beyond what the administration in Washington was willing
to accept. General Halleck pointed out that according to the Militia Act only the
president could authorize the enlistment of black soldiers and Lane’s attempt was
therefore void. Yet, the day after Halleck delivered his opinion, a telegram from
the Adjutant General’s Office seemed to acknowledge the validity of Lane’s enlistments
by telling the disbursing officer at Fort Leavenworth that recruits “for
negro regiments will under no circumstances be paid bounty and premium,” the
financial incentives that were offered to white volunteers. Meanwhile, the governor
of Kansas, like other state governors throughout the North, saw an opportunity to
17 OR, ser. 1, vol. 17, pt. 2, p. 278; Grant Papers, 6: 316 (quotations); WGFL: LS, pp. 626–27,
686.
18 OR, ser. 1, 13: 653, 727, 756 (quotation). The department soon grew to include the territories
of Colorado and Nebraska (p. 729). Sickness was widespread among Union soldiers in garrison
there, too. Rhonda M. Kohl, “‘This Godforsaken Town’: Death and Disease at Helena, Arkansas,
1862–63,” Civil War History 50 (2004): 109–44.
19 OR, ser. 3, 2: 187–88, 281 (“persons of African”), 294 (“Recruiting opens”), 959; Albert E.
Castel, A Frontier State at War: Kansas, 1861–1865 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958),
p. 90.