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
theft but that he had just learned of it. “At the time, I was not on duty with my
Co. or Regt.,” he explained. 45
Without officers attending to their needs through official channels, enlisted
men were forced to take care of themselves, staving off scurvy, for instance, by
pillaging vegetable gardens. Civilians across the occupied South, from South
Carolina to Mississippi, complained of these raids. When it came to taking
food, soldiers did not care whether the growers were white or black. Men of the
26th USCI were accused of taking “Corn, Watermelons, etc.,” from black residents
of Beaufort, South Carolina, those of the 108th USCI of robbing “colored
men who are planting in the vicinity of Vicksburg.” It is not surprising to see
scurvy reported at remote posts in Texas, but to find it in the heart of Kentucky
in the spring or Louisiana at harvest time is startling. 46
Besides a tendency to “wander about the neighborhood” in search of food
and firewood, the Colored Troops’ discipline suffered from carelessness with
firearms, both those that the government issued them and those that they carried
for their own protection. The propensity of black soldiers to carry personal
weapons is revealed in dozens of regimental orders forbidding the practice.
The need for protection is plain from the historical record. When Emancipation
caused black people to lose their cash value, their lives became worth nothing
in the eyes of many Southern whites. Assaults and murders became everyday
occurrences, especially as Confederate veterans returned from the war. A
Union officer serving in South Carolina after the war observed: “My impression
is that most of the murders of the negroes in the South are committed by
the poor-whites, who . . . could not shoot slaves in the good old times without
coming in conflict with the slave owner and getting the worst of it.” Black
people in the North were well acquainted with antagonism—the New York
Draft Riot was only an extreme instance—and many of them carried weapons
to discourage assailants. In garrison at Jeffersonville, Indiana, men of the 123d
USCI were “daily subject to abuse and violent treatment from white soldiers”
and civilians. When the men armed themselves, their officers confiscated the
weapons. Black Southerners, as soon as they were able to, also began to carry
concealed weapons. At Natchez, men of the 6th U.S. Colored Artillery owned
enough pistols by 1864 to inspire a ban and confiscation. 47
Regimental orders issued in all parts of the South attest to the prevalence of unauthorized
weapons. Just as disturbing for discipline was the troops’ mishandling of
their Army-issue firearms. “The men must be cautioned repeatedly,” the adjutant of
45 Capt P. J. Harrington to Col W. D. Green, 4 Aug 1864, 57th USCI, Entry 57C, RG 94, NA.
46 Capt S. M. Taylor to Commanding Officer (CO), 26th USCI, 20 Aug 1864, 26th USCI; HQ
12th USCA, Circular, 4 May 1865, 12th USCA; 1st Lt C. S. Sargent to CO, 65th USCI, 17 Oct
1864, 65th USCI; A. F. Cook to CO, 108th USCI, 30 Aug 1865, 108th USCI; all in Entry 57C, RG
94, NA. 1st Div, XXV Corps, GO 60, 18 Sep 1865, Entry 533, pt. 2, RG 393, NA.
47 HQ 75th USCI, GO 8, 6 Mar 1864 (“wander about”), 75th USCI, Entry 57C; Capt D. Bailey
to Maj J. H. Cole, 1 Jul 1865 (“daily subject”), 123d USCI, Entry 57C; Capt G. H. Travis to
CO, 123d USCI, 14 Aug 1865, 123d USCI, Entry 57C; HQ [6th USCA], GO 6, 28 Jan 1864, 6th
USCA, Regimental Books; all in RG 94, NA. Brackets in a citation mean that the order was issued
under the regiment’s earlier state designation, in this case the 2d Mississippi Artillery (African
Descent [AD]). John W. DeForest, A Union Officer in the Reconstruction (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1948), pp. 153–54 (“My impression”). Ira Berlin et al., eds., The Black Military