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
Capt. James M. Bowler told his wife that “little can be done until the army moves
again.” He hoped for an advance “Texasward” at some future date, in September,
he thought at first; but as the months dragged on, he began to suppose that
it might come in February or March. By February 1865, he had given up trying
to predict a date. When the seven companies of the 113th merged with the nine
companies of the 11th and 112th that April to make one full-strength regiment,
Bowler became its major. 53
Despite the Union Army’s static posture along the Arkansas River, some men
from outlying counties managed the trip to the closest federal garrison and enlisted.
In March 1864, Henry Powers learned that his master planned to move
with his slaves from Lawrence County in northeastern Arkansas to Texas, where
many slaveholders sought to safeguard their human property. Powers and four
companions took mules and horses and rode fifty miles overnight to Batesville,
hoping to enlist. “We would have been killed if we had been caught,” he said.
“The rebels accused me of conspiring with the colored people of our section
to escape & go to the federals. My brother and me was about the only colored
people in our part that could read any, and they looked upon us as troublesome.”
Union officers at Batesville allowed Powers and his companions to enlist in the
113th USCI, but not before impounding their mounts. 54
At Dardanelle in 1863, a slave named John Aiken “had been quietly organizing
about 60 of the most reliable colored men,” intending to join the Union
Army at the first opportunity. That fall, Confederate officers heard of his activities
and he had to move quickly. His owner, who was also his aunt (her brother
was Aiken’s father), warned him to escape. He spoke to her briefly before he
left. Jackson Lewis, another slave who left with Aiken, was present. “I . . .
heard her ask him if he was going off with the nasty stinking Yankees instead of
going to Texas. [H]e said he was.” Besides two of his brothers and Lewis, Aiken
eventually persuaded more than one hundred twenty men from Yell County
to follow him into the 11th USCI. He became a company first sergeant before
the war ended. 55
Federal posts along the Arkansas River required supplies, and these had to
travel for hundreds of miles. By the summer of 1864, Arkansas had been ravaged
for three years by the marches and countermarches of opposing armies; agriculture
was at a standstill. The only railroad still operating in the state was the
forty-nine miles of track that connected Duvall’s Bluff on the White River with
Little Rock on the Arkansas. Rivers afforded the cheapest way to move supplies,
but navigation throughout most of the state was seasonal. Steamboats could go
as far west as Fort Smith for only a few months of the year. Early in August, a
boat might ascend the Arkansas River “nearly” to the fort, Brig. Gen. John M.
Thayer reported. Six weeks later, the water had sunk too low for supplies to be
53 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 3, p. 163 (“I had hoped”); NA M594, roll 206, 11th USCI, and roll 216,
112th and 113th USCIs; ORVF, 8: 181, 292–94; J. M. Bowler to Dear Lizzie, 10 Jul 1864 (“little can”)
and 11 Dec 1864, both in J. M. Bowler Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
54 Testimony, Henry H. Powers, Dec 1872, in Case File 15,480, Henry H. Powers, Entry 732,
RG 217, NA.
55 Depositions, John Aiken, Nov 1871 (“had been”), and Jackson Lewis, May 1874 (“I . . .
heard”), both in Case File 9,877, John Aiken, Entry 732, RG 217, NA.