Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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390 Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867 USCI. His divisional commander, Brig. Gen. William Birney, “promise[d] that I shall not be put into the field until I have had time to organize & drill somewhat,” Weld told his mother, “several weeks at least.” Two more companies of the 41st joined later in the year, but the last two did not arrive until February. Only then was the regiment up to strength. 25 Butler was not alone in wanting his men prepared for battle. The 127th USCI also reached Virginia in October and at once took up fatigue duty at Deep Bottom. General Birney, to whose division the regiment belonged, asked for it to be relieved from this duty and sent to him. “The regiment is new, and the men have not yet been drilled in the ‘loadings and firings,’” he wrote. “If it is the intention to have them take an active part in the present campaign, it is absolutely necessary that opportunity be afforded for drilling and disciplining them. . . . I would prefer not to put this regiment under fire, until the men are taught how to load and fire, and have attained some proficiency in drill.” Both the 127th USCI and Weld’s 41st came from Camp William Penn, and the officers and men probably had heard of the disaster that resulted when another untried Philadelphia regiment, the 8th USCI, went into action at Olustee, Florida, that February. 26 When General Butler told his aide that Weld’s newly arrived troops should be “put . . . on no duty that can be helped,” he was probably referring to the Dutch Gap Canal, an excavation that occupied labor details from at least seven black regiments in the Army of the James during the late summer and fall of 1864. Five hundred feet long, the canal cut across a neck of land formed by one of the many bends in the river. Its purpose was to afford passage for U.S. Navy gunboats past a stretch where the water at low tide was only eight feet deep, half as much as the draft of the vessels required, and where the fire of Confederate batteries could reach them. Such a canal, Union generals hoped, would also allow them to move troops more quickly by water than the Confederates could by land. 27 Butler tried to begin his project with a call on 6 August for twelve hundred volunteers “to do laborious digging[,] to work 7 1/2 hours a day for not more than twenty days.” Two shifts would labor all the daylight hours. Volunteers would receive eight cents an hour, an amount that would nearly double a private’s monthly pay, and an eight-ounce ration of whiskey daily or its cash equivalent. Company commanders were to read the order to their men at two consecutive daily parades, 25 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 2, p. 1044. Lt Col L. Wagner to Maj C. W. Foster, 10 Oct 1864 (W–811–CT–1864); 21 Oct 1864 (W–848–CT–1864); 7 Dec 1864 (W–950–CT–1864); all in Entry 360, Colored Troops Div, Letters Received (LR), RG 94, NA. NA M594, roll 209, 41st USCI; L. L. Weld to My dearest Mother, 17 Oct 1864 (quotations), L. L. Weld Papers, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 26 Brig Gen W. Birney to 1st Lt W. P. Shreve, 8 Oct 1864, Entry 7035, 3d Div, X Corps, Letters Sent (LS), pt. 2, Polyonymous Successions of Cmds, RG 393, Rcds of U.S. Army Continental Cmds, NA. 27 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 1, p. 657. NA M594, roll 206, 4th and 6th USCIs; roll 208, 22d USCI; roll 216, 118th USCI; roll 217, 127th USCI. Weld to My dearest Mother, 17 Oct 1864 (quotation); Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 30 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894–1922), ser. 1, 10: 345 (hereafter cited as ORN); Dyer, Compendium, pp. 1724, 1727, 1730, 1739; Benjamin F. Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler (Boston: A. M. Thayer, 1892), pp. 743–44; John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 30 vols. to date (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967– ), 12: 446.
Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia, 1864–1865 391 White troops as well as black toiled from August through December 1864 to dig the Dutch Gap Canal, a shortcut for Union shipping to avoid Confederate batteries on the James River. record the names of volunteers by 8 August, and have the party ready to march the next day. “Anyone who is lazy or inattentive will be sent back to his company without pay,” the order warned. Soon afterward, men of the 4th, 6th, and 22d USCIs reported to Dutch Gap and began to dig. 28 Butler meant well, but he underestimated greatly both the number of men and the length of time the job required. Work dragged on into the fall, and took many men, not all of them volunteers. In mid-October, the commanding officer of the 4th USCI complained that his regiment was short seven of the ten second lieutenants it was entitled to. Moreover, 196 recruits who had been assigned to him were instead “at work in the canal at Dutch Gap. These men are wholly without drill or discipline and in their present condition totally unfit for service against the enemy and with our present depleted list of officers, I am unable to do ought to improve their condition.” The situation remained unchanged at the end of the month. Before 28 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 2, p. 70; Edward G. Longacre, A Regiment of Slaves: The 4th United States Colored Infantry, 1863–1866 (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2003), pp. 110–14; James M. Paradis, Strike the Blow for Freedom: The 6th United States Colored Infantry in the Civil War (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Books, 1998), pp. 61–67.
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FREEDOM BY THE SWORD THE U.S. COLOR
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ARMY HISTORICAL SERIES FREEDOM BY T
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ARMY HISTORICAL SERIES Reina J. Pen
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No. Page 4. Along the Mississippi R
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x Page Swampy woods near Petersburg
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The Author William A. Dobak receive
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off-duty behavior, a book about bla
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Daoust, and John G. Saint, descenda
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Chapter 1 Mustering In—Federal Po
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Mustering In—Federal Policy on Em
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Chapter 2 The South Atlantic Coast
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The South Atlantic Coast, 1861-1863
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100 Freedom by the Sword: The U.S.
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Chapter 5 Southern Louisiana and th
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Chapter 6 The Mississippi River and
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The Mississippi River and its Tribu
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Table 1—Black Regiments Organized
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Chapter 7 Along the Mississippi Riv
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Along the Mississippi River, 1863-1
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Chapter 8 Arkansas, Indian Territor
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Chapter 9 Middle Tennessee, Alabama
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Chapter 10 North Carolina and Virgi
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Chapter 11 Virginia, May-October 18
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Chapter 15 Conclusion Although the
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Conclusion 499 than twelve thousand
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Conclusion 501 Americans on the pat
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Index 539 Brown, 1st Lt. Matthew C.
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Index 551 64th USCI (7th Louisiana)
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