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
Maryland slaveholders, for human beings had declined sharply in value after the
Emancipation Proclamation. At an estate sale in Rockville that May, the Evening
Star noted, “negroes sold at remarkably low prices.” Thirteen of them, “for the
most part likely young boys,” fetched a sum “less than one thousand dollars.” Two
months later, after Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson,
seven “likely, full-grown young negroes brought in all one hundred and twenty-six
dollars, an average of only eighteen dollars a head,” according to a report that appeared
in several Northern newspapers. Toward the end of the year, a slaveholder
in Charleston, West Virginia, offered to sell the Army five “stout active fine looking
men. . . . I will take less than one half of . . . what they would have sold for previous
to this rebellion.” With federal armies moving forward all across the South, human
property was becoming a poor financial risk and the Army was likely to offer owners
the best bargain. 39
Despite the War Department’s attempt to impose order on black enlistments
in the border states, voluntary enlistments soon declined. By that fall, as a result,
recruiting in Maryland had become as rough and tumble a business as it was anywhere
else in the South. Boarding oyster boats in Chesapeake Bay, 2d Lt. Joseph
M. Califf and a squad of men from the 7th USCI “knocked at the cabin door—
‘Captain—turn out your crew’—As soon as they came on deck, asked each one—
‘Are you a slave’—‘Yes sir’—‘Get into that boat.’ . . . There was a fine fellow on
board who said he was free,” Califf wrote in his dairy.
I left him, but when I had pushed off, one of the recruits told me he was a
slave—I returned, but he still persisted and the Captain said he would take his
oath, he was free. I left again, but the boys still said he was lying to me and told
me his Master’s name. I returned a second time, . . . jumped down into the hold,
and heard something rattling among the oyster shells. I called for a light, when
I found the fellow, crawled back on the oysters. I had him into my boat in short
order. . . . During the day we got over 80 men.
Energetic recruiters brought in 1,372 men during November, filling Maryland’s
second and third black regiments, numbered the 7th and 9th USCIs. 40
Enough opposition to black enlistment existed to make it a risky business for
both officers and recruits. When free black farmers signed on, white neighbors
sometimes removed the fence rails that surrounded their cornfields, allowing
livestock to ravage the crops. The arrest of a civilian recruiting agent in Frederick
was complicated by his lack of military status, which made it more difficult for
military authorities to work for his release. Other agents faced threats of legal
action and physical harm. Far more serious was the death in tobacco-producing
Charles County of 2d Lt. Eben White, 7th USCI, at the hands of two slavehold-
39 OR, ser. 3, 3: 861; (Washington) Evening Star, 12 May 1863 (“negroes sold”). The Associated
Press story appeared in the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer on 31 July 1863 and the New
York Tribune on 4 August 1863. J. T. Caldwell to Secretary of War, 10 Nov 1863 (“stout active”)
(C–339–CT–1863), Entry 360, RG 94, NA.
40 J. M. Califf Diary typescript, 29 Nov 1863 (quotation), Historians files, U.S. Army Center of
Military History; Rpt, Col W. Birney, 3 Dec 1863 (B–648–CT–1863, f/w B–40–CT–1863), Entry
360, RG 94, NA.