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
reported, “and we expected to be separated from them on the next day, they were
instructed how to proceed to make their escape.” The men might have needed to
be told where to report when they rejoined the Union army, but the officers were
talking to the heirs of a long and persistent tradition of escape who needed little
instruction or encouragement to get away from their captors. The prisoners began
to leave at once. Pvt. David Steele, a pension applicant in 1907, testified: “I made
my escape immediately and went back to Chattanooga and staid there until the
officers were paroled and came there and recruited up the regiment.” Pvt. William
McColley also “had a chance to get away and took to the woods,” finding his way
to regimental headquarters. “The men are escaping daily and reporting to Camp,”
an officer recorded at the end of the month. 59
Other enlisted men escaped but did not report. By the second week in November,
five of the regiment’s paroled officers had to visit stations along the railroad
between Chattanooga and Atlanta to collect soldiers who had found their
way there. “Quite a number of men are at these different points and some are yet
coming in daily,” Johnson told the department’s adjutant general. Still others did
not return at all and six months later turned up as teamsters and officers’ servants in
Sherman’s army, which by that time had marched through Georgia and the Carolinas.
Clearly, not all of the former slaves in the 44th USCI saw military service as a
necessary way station on the road to freedom, but enough men escaped from captivity
to reconstitute a skeleton force by late November. One company numbered
only thirty-five men. 60
Small numbers of Union officers, like those from the 44th USCI, were able to
move freely along the Western and Atlantic Railroad a month after the capture of
Dalton because Sherman acted aggressively after Hood’s raid, forcing the Confederates
out of northern Georgia, where the opposing armies had nearly stripped the
country of food and forage, and west into Alabama. Hood’s army reached Gadsden,
Alabama, on 20 October and turned northwest toward the Tennessee River.
This movement marked the beginning of the last Confederate offensive of the war.
Its destination was Tuscumbia, where Hood’s quartermasters were gathering supplies
for a march north into Tennessee. 61
The Confederate army struck the Tennessee River at Decatur, Alabama, some
seventy miles northwest of Gadsden, on 26 October. Decatur stood on the south
bank where the Memphis and Charleston tracks crossed the river, a mile or two
southwest of that line’s junction with the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad, which
Halsted, 23 May 1864 (“bitter,” “no negro,” “recently”) (M410–CT–1864), Entry 360, RG 94, NA.
For other incidents involving white Tennessee Unionists, see Capt R. D. Mussey to 1st Lt G. Mason,
14 Mar 1864 (M–223–CT–1864), Entry 360, RG 94, NA; Capt R. D. Mussey to 1st Lt G. Mason, 18
Apr 1864 (M–26–AG–1864), Entry 363, LR by Adj Gen L. Thomas, RG 94, NA.
59 OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, pp. 719–23 (“As no guards,” p. 723); Deposition, David Steele, 3 Sep
1907 (“I made”), in Pension File SC189837, David Steele, CWPAF; Depositions, William McColley,
7 Nov 1899 (“had a chance”) and James Taylor, 13 Nov 1899, both in Pension File SC821866,
McColley; NA M594, roll 210, 44th USCI (“The men”).
60 OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, p. 720; Col L. Johnson to Brig Gen W. D. Whipple, 8 Nov 64 (“Quite
a number”), and to Col C. W. Foster, 3 May 65, both in 44th USCI, Entry 57C, RG 94, NA; NA
M594, roll 210, 44th USCI.
61 OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 1, pp. 799, 806, 811, and pt. 3, pp. 823, 845–46, 853; Bailey, Chessboard
of War, p. 39.