Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Mustering In—Federal Policy on Emancipation and Recruitment 11
accepted the services of the Native Guards, black New Orleans regiments that had
begun the war on the Confederate side. The first two black infantry regiments organized
in Tennessee were numbered the 1st and 2d United States Colored Infantries
(USCIs), even though 1st and 2d USCIs had already been raised in Washington,
D.C., earlier in the year. Although the main impetus for recruiting black soldiers
was federal, state governments and private organizations played a part, as they had
done in raising white regiments during the first two years of the war. 23
The force known generally as the U.S. Colored Troops was organized in regiments
that represented the three branches of what was then known as the line of the
Army: cavalry, artillery, and infantry. It grew to include seven regiments of cavalry,
more than a dozen of artillery, and well over one hundred of infantry. The precise
number of these infantry regiments is hard to determine, as the histories of two regiments,
both numbered 11th USCI, indicate. The 11th USCI (Old) was raised in Arkansas
during the winter of 1864 but consolidated in April 1865 with the 112th and
113th, also from that state, as the 113th USCI. The other 11th USCI, organized in
Mississippi and Tennessee, began as the 1st Alabama Siege Artillery (African Descent
[AD]), then became in succession the 6th and 7th U.S. Colored Artillery (Heavy)
before being renumbered in January 1865 as the 11th USCI (New). The simultaneous
existence for three months of two regiments with the same designation, one east
of the Mississippi River and one west of it, is an extreme instance of the ambiguities
and difficulties that stemmed from a regional, decentralized command structure. The
authority of Union generals in Louisiana, Tennessee, and the Carolinas to raise regiments
and to nominate officers equaled that of the Colored Troops Division of the
Adjutant General’s Office in Washington or of state governors throughout the North. 24
The composition of the new regiments was much more uniform than their numbering
and was the same as that of white volunteer organizations. Ten companies
made up an infantry regiment, each company composed of a captain, 2 lieutenants,
5 sergeants, 8 corporals, 2 musicians, and from 64 to 82 privates. A colonel, lieutenant
colonel, major, surgeon, two assistant surgeons, chaplain, and noncommissioned
staff constituted regimental headquarters, or, as it was called, “field and staff.” Cavalry
and artillery regiments included twelve companies and employed two additional
majors because of tactical requirements. The minimum and maximum strength of
cavalry companies was slightly smaller than those of the infantry, that of artillery
companies considerably larger (122 privates). A volunteer regiment had no formal
battalion structure; any formation of two companies or more, but less than an entire
regiment, constituted a battalion. Generals commanding geographical departments,
especially Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks in the Department of the Gulf, might have
23 Jan, 2 Feb 1864; to R. Yates (Illinois), 19 Feb 1864; to O. P. Morton (Indiana), 19 Feb 1864; to J.
Brough (Ohio), 7 Mar 1864; all in Entry 352, Colored Troops Div, Letters Sent, RG 94, Rcds of the
Adjutant General’s Office (AGO), NA.
23 The Tennessee regiments eventually received the numbers 12 and 13, but some of their early
papers are still misfiled with those of the 1st and 2d United States Colored Infantries (USCIs). Entry
57C, Regimental Papers, RG 94, NA. They are easily distinguishable by their Tennessee datelines
and by comparing signatures with officers’ names in Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force
of the Unites States Army, 8 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Adjutant General’s Office, 1867), 8: 169–70,
183–84 (hereafter cited as ORVF).
24 ORVF, 8: 181–82; Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (New York:
Thomas Yoseloff, 1959 [1909]), pp. 997, 1721–22, 1725–26.