Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

South Texas, 1864–1867 439
ther north. Sergeant Cole of the 29th
Connecticut praised the hospitality of
Brownsville’s Mexican residents in
the pages of the Christian Recorder,
and Sgt. Maj. Thomas Boswell of the
116th USCI predicted a few weeks
later, “If our regiment stays here
any length of time we will all speak
Spanish, as we are learning very
fast.” The commanding officer of the
19th USCI reported, “The Mexicans
are without much prejudice against
the negroes on account of color and
if let alone by the whites would give
no trouble.” 37
The situation was different north
of the Nueces River, where slavery
had been the basis of the social and
economic order. One of Grant’s staff
officers on a tour of Sheridan’s command
landed in Galveston and wrote
to the chief of staff:
German-speaking Edelmiro Mayer (shown
here as major of the 7th U.S. Colored
Infantry) was lieutenant colonel of the 45th
U.S. Colored Infantry when he crossed the
Rio Grande to harangue Austrian troops in
the Imperialist army. The 45th, like other
regiments raised in the North, mustered out
not long afterward, and Mayer never faced
punishment for his breach of neutrality.
One man an ex-Confederate navy
officer was very savage on a negro
regiment brought here for fatigue
duty—denounced it as an outrage
and intended humiliation of the people—would
evidently like the privilege
of shooting them. . . . A squad of
them were marching down [a] street
the other day and met some white men who did not give way . . . . [O]ne of the citizens
thinking a negro hit him with his elbow in passing, struck the soldier with his
cane whereupon soldier No. 2 hit citizen an astonisher under the ear. Of course this
was an outrage and in good old times the negroes would have been lynched—in the
present case investigation showing the negroes not in fault the citizens were advised
to let the soldiers alone in future—to their great indignation and disgust.
Officers of the XXV Corps regiments at Corpus Christi, Indianola, and towns
inland meanwhile busied themselves with administering loyalty oaths to former
Confederates who sought full restoration of their civil rights. In contrast, troops
along the Rio Grande merely kept an eye on the conflict between Imperialists and
37 Col J. G. Perkins to Lt Col D. D. Wheeler, 7 Apr 1866 (“The Mexicans”), 19th USCI,
Regimental Books, RG 94, NA; Christian Recorder, 9 September 1865; Redkey, Grand Army of
Black Men, p. 203 (“If our regiment”).