Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Reconstruction, 1865–1867 493
manned coastal forts in North Carolina. Only five of the regiments that remained
in the former Confederate states had much to do with enforcement of Reconstruction
policies: the 56th USCI, headquartered at Helena, Arkansas; the 65th, at Lake
Providence in northeastern Louisiana; the 80th, at towns along the Red River in
western Louisiana and northeastern Texas; the 82d, at Pensacola; and the 128th, in
South Carolina. 80
The presence of black regiments as far west as New Mexico resulted from
General Grant’s wish, expressed to General Sherman early in 1866, “to get some
colored troops out on the plains.” White volunteers, many of them from western
states and territories, had manned forts along major routes to California, New
Mexico, and Oregon for most of the war, and they brought with them their local attitudes
toward American Indians. Colorado militia had attacked a village of peaceful
Cheyennes in 1864, igniting more than two years of warfare. Grant hoped that
“colored and regular troops,” with no special axe to grind, could guarantee “the
rights of the Indian . . . [so] as to avoid much of the difficulties . . . heretofore experienced.”
As it turned out, only two black regiments were available for assignment,
and they served in New Mexico at a time when it was one of the quietest parts
of the West. Scattered companies of the regiments undertook repairs on the forts
where they served and sometimes pursued Indian stock thieves. In this, they were
no more successful than the black infantry regiments on the lower Rio Grande or
infantry in the South chasing mounted white terrorists. 81
Early in the summer of 1866, two noteworthy events occurred in Washington.
On 3 July, General Howard wrote to General Grant from Freedmen’s Bureau
headquarters in Washington, mentioning three shootings of Bureau officers and
freedmen that had occurred recently in Georgia, Mississippi, and Virginia. “The
civil authorities have failed, and are afraid to act,” Howard told Grant. “The simple
issuing of an order . . . would go far to prevent these attacks upon officers of the
Government.” Three days later, Grant issued a general order that authorized “Department,
District and Post Commanders” in the South to arrest and detain anyone
charged with “offenses against officers, agents . . . and inhabitants of the United
States, irrespective of color,” when civil authorities failed to act. Army officers
were to hold the prisoners “until . . . a proper judicial tribunal may be ready and
willing to try them.” The legal status of the occupation force in the South had been
ambiguous since the president had declared the rebellion at an end in April. Grant’s
language left the execution of the order to the judgment of local commanders and
did little to clarify the situation while exposing Army officers to endless civil law-
80 Dyer, Compendium, pp. 1720–40; see also order books and letter books of regiments named
in Regimental Books, RG 94, NA.
81 Lt Gen U. S. Grant to Maj Gen W. T. Sherman, 3 Mar 1866, in The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant,
ed. John Y. Simon, 30 vols. to date (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1967– ), 16: 93 (“to get some”) (hereafter cited as Grant Papers); Lt Gen U. S. Grant to Maj
Gen W. T. Sherman, 14 Mar 1866, in Grant Papers, 16: 117 (“colored and”). For black soldiers in
the field in New Mexico, see Capt G. W. Letterman to Post Adj Ft Cummings, 5 Oct 1866, and Capt
R. B. Foutts to Maj C. H. De Forrest, 24 Nov 1866, 125th USCI, Entry 57C, RG 94, NA. Francis B.
Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1903), 2: 427–30, shows only six engagements in New Mexico during
the time the 57th and 125th USCIs served there.