By early Spring 1863, the recruitment of black soldiers into the Union Army was finally getting underway in earnest. Although it would not be difficult for most black men of military age at that moment to appreciate the importance of their military service with millions of their race yet in bondage, nonetheless it was important for African-American leaders to encourage them to act on the desire to free the slaves by enlisting.
One important black leader making that call that spring was none other than Frederick Douglass. After briefly toying with the idea of emigration during in the early days of the Lincoln administration, as the President had swung toward emancipation, Douglass became a supporter of the war and black participation in it as soldiers. In early March 1863, he issued a strident speech to this end that was published later the same month in his periodical, Douglass’s Monthly. It read:
In March 1863, Frederick Douglass was recruiting specifically for the 54th Massachusetts, the first northern black regiment, in which his sons, Charles and Lewis, would serve. He lightly castigated his adopted state, New York, for not taking the lead in recruiting black soldiers (it eventually would do so), and encouraged northern African Americans to join the 54th promising them they would be treated the same as white soldiers (they wouldn’t be, but that is the story for another time). He finished with the stirring words:
Besides Douglass’s stirring oration there also existed in the North in March 1863, a noticeable curiosity about black troops. The military service of African Americans was not unprecedented as they had fought in both the Revolutionary War (on both sides) and the War of 1812 (most famously with Andrew Jackson at Battle of New Orleans), but few whites were aware of these facts. So, the northern press eagerly supplied images, both illustrative and imaginative, of the seemingly novel sight of African Americans in Union blue to satisfy the northern public’s interest. Below are four examples from March 1863.
The first two images of black soldiers come from March 7, 1863 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, one of several national publications loaded with illustrated news stories (forerunners of the photographic news magazine), which were popular with Americans in the second half of the nineteenth century. The first is a conventional and somewhat flattering image (of the soldier at attention at least) of the First Louisiana Native Guards, the earliest colored regiment organized for the Union from among free people of color in New Orleans (I discuss the background of a predecessor Confederate unit in my piece in Disunion from February 2012).
“Pickets of the First Louisiana ‘Native Guard’ Guarding the New Orleans and the Great Western Railroad,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, March 7, 1863. Source: http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/photo_credits.asp?photoID=87.
The next image also comes from the same issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, a cartoon which sought to capture the shock which many white Southerners, slaveholders especially, must have experienced at seeing for the first time black soldiers in federal uniform. Titled “A Queer Recontre,” it depicted an armed black soldier surprised to encounter his stunned former owner, who had come to the camp in the hopes of recapturing him. The cartoon is captioned: “SLAVE CATCHER (who has strayed into a Federal camp)–‘You arn’t seen a boy o’ mine named Caesar have you? (Aside) Darn’d if it arn’t the black nigger himself.’ COLORED SENTRY–‘Who goes dare–advance and gib the countersign. (Aside) Golly if dat arn’t my old massa.’ (Sensation.)”
“A Queer Recontre,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, March 7, 1863. Source: http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/37697.
The other two images come from the March 14, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly, the most prominent of the illustrated periodicals of the Civil War era. The first appeared on the issue’s cover, depicting white officers training black soldiers in the use of their muskets, an image that might have seemed controversial if not the one that followed.
“Teaching the Negro Recruits the use of the Minie Rifle,” Harper’s Weekly, March 14, 1863. Source: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/negro-soldeirs.htm
The last illustration was truly provocative, a double-page illustration of black soldiers engaged in large-scale, hand-to-hand combat, something that still would have considered incendiary in some quarters of the Civil War North, and especially in the South, where whites still liked to equate African Americans in federal uniform with servile insurrection.
“First Black Troops in Combat,” Harper’s Weekly, March 14, 1863. Source: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/march/first-black-troops-combat.htm
Harper’s Weekly explained to its readers that the last illustration depicted the first use black troops in battle the previous October at Island Mound, Missouri, where the First Kansas Colored Infantry (then unrecognized by the federal government) successfully fended off multiple assaults rebel militia and guerrillas. While sensationalizing what was essentially a two-day skirmish, the illustration unintentionally captured the bloody combat that would be coming soon for black Civil War soldiers at Port Hudson (May 1863) and Milliken’s Bend (June 1863) in Louisiana, and at Fort Wagner (July 1863) in South Carolina. These battles all were all costly failed assaults by African-American troops, the typical result of men charging in the Civil War at enemies equipped with rifled musket and cannons firing canister at close range. Yet while the Union Army would waste the lives of black men in these battles (as they would many times as well with white troops), nonetheless they were a morale victory for African Americans as they showed black soldiers were every bit as brave and disciplined as their white counterparts, ready to sacrifice themselves in deadly and futile frontal assaults. Race advancement at a horrific human cost.
Sources: 1) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1863-frederick-douglass-men-color-arms; 2) http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/march/first-colored-troops-combat.htm
Great images! No wonder the Rebs were shaking in their boots, imagining impending slave insurrections, when Douglass cites such men as Vesey, Turner, and Brown. I don’t think I’ve seen that last image before – very striking.