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
Behind the trenches, trees supplied both shelter and firewood. Stumps surround the camp
of a black regiment from Ohio—either the 5th U.S. Colored Infantry or the 27th—during
the siege of Petersburg.
of the best of veterans. . . . Of course the Copperhead press will now make a great
blow about ‘nigger troops’ in the Abolition War.” 66
After a four-hour truce on the morning of 1 August to allow Union troops to
bury their dead and remove their wounded, who had lain in the open for two nights
and a day, the siege resumed its routine. In the 5th USCI, Lieutenant Grabill called
it “easier times than we used to have. Now we are in the trenches but about half
the time and our fatigue work is not so great as it used to be.” He noted that the
Confederates no longer tended to waste their ammunition, but that with the enemy
lines “in plain sight . . . two or three hundred yards in our front,” movement in the
open was dangerous. 67
Sniper fire presented a threat throughout the day. Men in the trenches saw
sharpshooters “loafing about,” as one officer put it, with special sights on their
rifles, “peeping through the loop holes & watching for a shot.” One of them ap-
66 S. A. Carter to My own darling Emily, 31 Jul 1864; Fleetwood Diary, 30 Jul 1864; E. F.
Grabill to My Own Loved One, 1 Aug 1864, Grabill Papers; G. W. Shurtleff to My darling Girl, 1
Aug 1864, Shurtleff Papers; R. N. Verplanck to Dear Mother, 1 Aug 1864, Verplanck Letters.
67 OR, ser. 1, vol. 40, pt. 3, p. 821; E. F. Grabill to My own dear Anna, 12 Aug 1864, Grabill Papers.