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
of cotton, and military supplies that remained in Wilmington and evacuated the city.
As Paine’s division marched in the next morning, the city’s black residents rushed
to greet them. “Men and women, old and young, were running through the streets,
shouting and praising God,” Commissary Sergeant Norman B. Sterrett of the 39th
USCI wrote to the Christian Recorder. “We could then truly see what we had been
fighting for.” Captain Brown noticed “very few white people . . . as we came through
but the contrabands filled the streets & welcomed us by shouts of joy. ‘We’re free!
We’re free!’ ‘The chain is broke!’ &c. ‘This is my boy now’ said one old man as he
held his child by the hand.” The troops did not stop in the city, but pushed on another
ten miles before dark, securing a bridgehead on the Wilmington and Weldon
Railroad across the Northeast Branch of the Cape Fear River. There they waited for
supplies to reach Wilmington and for General Schofield to gather a train of wagons
to move them inland. 68
The occupation of Wilmington presented Army officers, especially those of the
U.S. Colored Troops, with new opportunities and difficulties. As occurred everywhere
in the South, the arrival of a Union Army attracted thousands of black residents from
the surrounding country. In February, the Subsistence Department issued rations to
7,521 black adults and 1,079 children at six sites along the North Carolina coast. Two
days after federal troops entered the city, the officer commanding the 6th USCI asked
permission to enlist one hundred twenty men to bring his regiment up to strength.
General Terry approved the request, and the regimental chaplain, one captain, and five
enlisted men began recruiting. New men from North Carolina would provide useful
local knowledge for a newly arrived regiment that hailed from Philadelphia. 69
Less helpful was General Terry’s suggestion a few weeks later that he could
organize three new regiments among the black refugees gathered at Wilmington.
Union authorities were unprepared for the influx, as they so often were throughout
the war and in every part of the South. “They are pressing upon us severely,
exhausting our resources and threatening pestilence,” the district commander
complained. Terry proposed to use the refugees to strengthen Paine’s division,
which contained only ten regiments. Unfortunately for his plan, high-ranking
Union generals had known since 1862 that organizing new regiments was an
inefficient way to use recruits and that it was far better to put the new men in
existing regiments and let them learn by example from their comrades. Besides,
at this stage of the war, the last thing the Union army wanted was large masses of
untrained men who did not know their officers and whose officers did not know
them. Nothing came of Terry’s suggestion. 70
By 8 March, Sherman’s army was in North Carolina. He wrote to Terry in
Wilmington, saying that he would reach Fayetteville in three days and asking
for bread, sugar, and coffee. Terry sent as much as he could load in a shallow-
68 OR, ser. 1, vol. 47, pt. 1, pp. 911, 925, and pt. 2, pp. 559, 593–94, 619, 635–36, 654, 672, 683,
693–94; Christian Recorder, 1 April 1865; H. H. Brown to Dear Parents, 27 Feb 1865, Brown Papers.
69 Maj A. S. Boernstein to Capt A. N. Buckman, 24 Feb 1865 (B–42–DNC–1865), and
Endorsement, Capt W. L. Palmer, 15 Mar 1865, on Surgeon D. W. Hand to Maj J. A. Campbell, 7
Mar 1865 (H–65–DNC–1865), both in Entry 3290, Dept of North Carolina and Army of the Ohio,
LR, pt. 1, Geographical Divs and Depts, RG 393, NA.
70 OR, ser. 1, vol. 47, pt. 2, pp. 625, 978 (quotation); Maj Gen A. H. Terry to Lt Col J. A.
Campbell, 13 Mar 1865 (T–33–DNC–1865), Entry 3290, pt. 1, RG 393, NA. On leading Union