Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

North Carolina and Virginia, 1861–1864 307
suffered a few days’ suspension from duty for declaring at a private gathering
in February 1863 that he would rather lose the war than fight alongside black
troops. Although Wild, when he heard of the remark, called it “treasonable language,”
the authorities decided not to institute formal proceedings and restored
Stevenson to duty. At Plymouth, three white members of the garrison assaulted
three of Wild’s recruiters, black men themselves, including Assistant Surgeon
John V. DeGrasse and Chaplain William A. Green. Regardless of impediments,
recruiting went on. 18
As a Massachusetts abolitionist, Wild was able to call on extra help in securing
men for the new regiments. One of his most important associates was Abraham
H. Galloway, a North Carolina native. Galloway escaped from slavery by sailing
from Wilmington to Philadelphia with a cargo of turpentine in 1857, when he was
twenty years old. He returned to North Carolina early in the war and put his local
knowledge to work gathering intelligence for the Union occupiers. His contacts
were so extensive by 1863 that he could engineer his mother’s escape from slavery
in Confederate-held Wilmington, bring her within Union lines, and then enlist
the aid of high-ranking officers to ship her farther north. With the understanding
that federal authorities would guarantee support for black soldiers’ families and
provide schooling for their children, Galloway went to work for Wild. Recruiters
ranged through every coastal enclave held by Union occupiers. “I send you a party
of well drilled men,” Wild wrote to one of his officers who planned to attend a twoday
religious meeting at Beaufort. “By thus making an exhibition of a specimen
of our forces, you will prove to the colored people of that vicinity that we are in
earnest, and you will greatly encourage recruiting.” Wild himself visited Hatteras
Island and returned with one hundred fifty recruits. The 1st North Carolina Colored
Infantry was full by late June. 19
While recruiting for Wild’s second regiment got under way during the first
week of July, twenty men of the 1st North Carolina took part in a raid inland by
more than six hundred cavalry. The objective was the Wilmington and Weldon
Railroad, the same line that Burnside’s expedition had aimed at eighteen months
earlier. The black soldiers acted as pioneers, building bridges and repairing roads
for the advancing cavalry. When the raiders reached the railroad, though, the white
troopers were slow to organize dismounted crews to tear up the track. In their
haste, they left the work of destruction only half done, allowing trains to begin
running again soon after their departure. As usually happened when federal troops
visited parts of the South where they had not been before, several hundred slaves
18 OR, ser. 1, 9: 358; 18: 723 (“to afford”). Maj G. O. Barstow to Maj Gen D. Hunter, 16 Feb 1863
(f/w S–1562–AGO), NA Microfilm Pub M619, LR by the Adjutant General’s Office, 1861–1870, roll
219; Brig Gen E. A. Wild to Brig Gen H. W. Wessells, 12 Jul 1863 (“treasonable language”), Wild
Papers; Reid, “Raising the African Brigade,” p. 278.
19 Brig Gen E. A. Wild to Capt J. C. White, 17 Jun 1863 (quotation), and Maj G. L. Stearns
to Brig Gen E. A. Wild, 26 Jun 1863, both in Wild Papers; E. A. Wild to My Dear Kinsley, 30
Nov 1863, E. A. Kinsley Papers, Duke University (DU), Durham, N.C.; Reid, “Raising the African
Brigade,” pp. 280–83; Cecelski, Waterman’s Song, pp. 182–87.