Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

188
Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
General Walker reported; “but . . . Col. [William H.] Parsons . . . encountered a force
of 113 negroes and their 3 white officers . . . , and when the officers proposed to surrender
upon the condition of being treated as prisoners of war, and the armed negroes
unconditionally, Colonel Parsons accepted the terms. The position . . . was of great
strength, and would have cost much time and many lives to have captured by assault.”
The company officers, in other words, assured themselves of treatment according to the
laws of war and let their men depend on the Confederates’ goodwill. 80
Surviving regimental records list eighty enlisted men and three officers taken prisoners
of war at “the Mound Plantation.” Of the enlisted men, 8 escaped and rejoined the
regiment during the next twelve months; 8 died while held prisoner; 22 returned to the
regiment late in 1865, while it was serving in Texas; and the fate of the rest remained
unknown when company officers completed their descriptive books before muster-out
in January 1866. A Confederate captain selected Pvt. Samuel Anderson as a personal
servant and took him to Hill County, Texas, north of Waco. Like many Southerners,
the captain intended to keep black people in a state as close to slavery as possible for
as long as possible; and Anderson did not get a chance to escape until 1867. Just as
unusual was the case of Pvt. Benjamin Govan of the same company, who was captured
at the Mound Plantation before his name was entered in the company books. After his
release from captivity in 1865, Govan had to convince an entirely new set of officers
that he did in fact belong to the regiment. 81
“All of the officers in my Co[mpany] were put in prison after we got to Monroe
[Louisiana],” Private Anderson told pension examiners thirty years after the war, “and
two or three weeks afterwards they were paroled, but I never heard that any of the
colored men of my co[mpany] were paroled.” Capt. William B. Wallace and 2d Lt.
John M. Marshall of Company E and 1st Lt. John East of Company G, the three officers
who surrendered, gave their paroles later that year and returned to the regiment.
Wallace resigned that November and Marshall in February 1865. East’s exact movements
are obscure. Company G’s descriptive book shows him missing in action, while
the regimental descriptive book lists him as exchanged in May 1865 for a Confederate
officer of equal rank. The adjutant general’s published record shows East still with
the regiment at the time of its muster-out in January 1866. But the officers’ imprisonment,
parole, and exchange are of secondary interest. What the surrender at the Mound
Plantation shows is that Confederate troops did not slaughter all black soldiers who fell
into their hands as a matter of policy. Black enlisted men stood a good chance of surviving
capture if the surrender took place while Confederate officers still had their men
under control. Once the opposing sides closed, policy went by the board and frenzied
hatred often governed men’s actions. 82
80 OR, ser. 1, vol. 24, pt. 2, pp. 450, 466 (“I consider”); Lowe, Walker’s Texas Division, pp.
107–08 (“The torch”).
81 Deposition, Samuel Anderson, 23 Jun 1896, in Pension File SC959813, Samuel Anderson,
46th USCI, CWPAF, RG 15, NA; Descriptive Books, Companies E and G, 46th USCI, and HQ
46th USCI, SO 65, 2 Dec 1865, both in 46th USCI, Regimental Books, RG 94, NA. On white
Southerners’ attempts to continue slavery by other means, see Ira Berlin et al., eds., The Destruction
of Slavery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 341, 411, 518; WGFL: LS, p. 75;
Moneyhon, Impact of the Civil War, pp. 207–21.
82 Deposition, Samuel Anderson, 23 Jun 1886; Descriptive Book, Company G, and Regimental
Descriptive Book, 46th USCI, Regimental Books, RG 94, NA; ORVF, 8: 219.