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
edly back and forth across the same narrow stretch of country, concentrating on
each other’s movements rather than on sweeping raids that made it possible for
hundreds of slaves to escape bondage. Each army usually operated within a few
days’ march of its base of supply and did not rely on foraging as often or as completely
as did the western armies. 49
The attitudes of 1st Lt. Elliott F. Grabill of the 5th USCI had been shaped
by two years of such warfare. Grabill joined the Oberlin company of the 7th
Ohio in June 1861 and served with it in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign the
following spring and in all the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac through
the summer of 1863, ending with the occupation of New York City after the
Draft Riots. Appointed to the 5th USCI, he became the adjutant; Lt. Col. Giles
W. Shurtleff, who had been his company commander in the 7th Ohio, became
the regiment’s second-in-command. Grabill came from one of the most fervently
abolitionist towns in Ohio, and having served in the Army of the Potomac, he
did not like what he saw during Wild’s foray into North Carolina. When the
5th USCI moved across the James River and camped near Yorktown, Grabill
condemned the “contraband stealing expedition” in a letter to his fiancée, calling
it “a most disgraceful affair.”
In all my experience . . . of army life I have never before seen or taken part
in an expedition of which I was so heartily disgusted. It was a grand thieving
expedition. Our Colonel used every effort to prevent his command from
indulging in this unsoldierly conduct; but when the other troops of the brigade
were permitted almost unbridled license and the General himself gave the
encouragement of example and even on several occasions gave directions to
further . . . such robbery, it was difficult to promote the best of discipline in
our regiment. . . . We were not organized into an armed force for this little
petty stealing. It is subversive of military discipline and makes an army a mob
with all its elements of evil. . . . In Gen. Wilds Brigade we were with N.C.
Colored Vol[unteer]s—contrabands picked up . . . on the plantations not remarkable
for intelligence or quickness of discernment and skilful performance
of military duty. Nor were their officers of that culture and general knowledge
which the Military Boards of Examination pass. They were appointed on the
mere recommendation of Gen. Wild. We are appointed because we are proven
worthy of appointment by our examination. They are N.C. Volunteers; we are
United States Colored Troops.
Grabill and Col. Robert G. Shaw of the 54th Massachusetts were the same age
(both born in 1837), shared abolitionist convictions, and had served for two years
in Virginia in the body of troops that became the XII Corps of the Army of the
Potomac, Grabill with the 7th Ohio, Shaw with the 2d Massachusetts. A ferocious
49 Mark Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern
Civilians, 1861–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 105–11; Sam B.
Hilliard, Atlas of Antebellum Southern Agriculture (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1984), pp. 34, 36, 49–56, 61–62, 66–67, 76; Lynda J. Morgan, Emancipation in Virginia’s
Tobacco Belt, 1850–1870 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), pp. 19–22, 26–27, 36–
43, 105–06, 111–13.