T. G. Steward - The Colored Regulars in the United States Army

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The black man passed through the trying baptism of fire in the Sixties
and came out of it a full-fledged soldier. His was worse than an
impartial trial; it was a trial before a jury strongly biased against
him; in the service of a government willing to allow him but half pay;
and in the face of a foe denying him the rights belonging to civilized
warfare. Yet against these odds, denied the dearest right of a
soldier--the hope of promotion--scorned by his companions in arms, the
Negro on more than two hundred and fifty battle-fields, demonstrated
his courage and skill, and wrung from the American nation the right to
bear arms. The barons were no more successful in their struggle with
King John when they obtained Magna Charta than were the American
Negroes with Prejudice, when they secured the national recognition of
their right and fitness to hold a place in the Standing Army of the
United States. The Afro-American soldier now takes his rank with
America's best, and in appearance, skill, physique, manners, conduct
and courage proves himself worthy of the position he holds. Combining
in his person the harvested influences of three great continents,
Europe, Africa and America, he stands up as the typical soldier of the
Western World, the latest comer in the field of arms, but yielding his
place in the line to none, and ever ready to defend his country and
his flag against any and all foes.

The mission of this book is to make clear this evolution, giving the
historical facts with as much detail as possible, and setting forth
finally the portrait of this new soldier. That this is a prodigious
task is too evident to need assertion--a task worthy the most lofty
talents; and in essaying it I humbly confess to a sense of unfitness;
yet the work lies before me and duty orders me to enter upon it. A
Major General writes: "I wish you every success in producing a work
important both historically and for the credit of a race far more
deserving than the world has acknowledged." A Brigadier General who
commanded a colored regiment in Cuba says to me most encouragingly:
"You must allow me--for our intimate associations justify it--to write
frankly. Your education, habits of thought, fairness of judgment and
comprehension of the work you are to undertake, better fit you for
writing such a history than any person within my acquaintance. Those
noble men made the history at El Caney and San Juan; I believe you are
the man to record it. May God help you to so set forth the deeds of
that memorable first of July in front of Santiago that the world may
see in its true light what those brave, intelligent colored men did."

Both these men fought through the Civil War and won distinction on
fields of blood. To the devout prayer offered by one of them I
heartily echo an Amen, and can only wish that in it all my friends
might join, and that God would answer it in granting me power to do
the work in such a way as to bring great good to the race and reflect
some glory to Himself, in whose name the work is undertaken.

CHAPTER I.

SKETCH OF SOCIAL HISTORY.

The Importation of the Africans--Character of the Colored
Population in 1860--Colored Population in British West
Indian Possessions--Free Colored People of the South--Free
Colored People of the North--Notes.

Professor DuBois, in his exhaustive work upon the "Suppression of the
African Slave-Trade," has brought within comparatively narrow limits
the great mass of facts bearing upon his subject, and in synopses and
indices has presented all of the more important literature it has
induced. In his Monograph, published as Volume II of the Harvard
Historical Series, he has traced the rise of this nefarious traffic,
especially with reference to the American colonies, exhibited the
proportions to which it expanded, and the tenacity with which it held
on to its purpose until it met its death in the fate of the
ill-starred Southern Confederacy. Every step in his narrative is
supported by references to unimpeachable authorities; and the
scholarly Monograph bears high testimony to the author's earnest
labor, painstaking research and unswerving fidelity. Should the
present work stimulate inquiry beyond the scope herein set before the
reader, he is most confidently referred to Professor Du Bois' book as
containing a complete exposition of the development and overthrow of
that awful crime.

It is from this work, however, that we shall obtain a nearer and
clearer view of the African planted upon our shores. Negro slavery
began at an early day in the North American Colonies; but up until the
Revolution of 1688 the demand for slaves was mainly supplied from
England, the slaves being white.[1] "It is probable," says Professor
DuBois, "that about 25,000 slaves were brought to America each year
between 1698 and 1707, and after 1713 it rose to perhaps 30,000
annually. "Before the Revolution the total exportation to America is
variously estimated as between 40,000 and 100,000 each year."
Something of the horrors of the "Middle Passage" may be shown by the
records that out of 60,783 slaves shipped from Africa during the years
1680-88, 14,387, or nearly one-fourth of the entire number, perished
at sea. In 1790 there were in the country nearly seven hundred
thousand Africans, these having been introduced by installments from
various heathen tribes. The importation of slaves continued with more
or less success up until 1858, when the "Wanderer" landed her cargo of
500 in Georgia.

During the period from 1790 to the breaking out of the Civil War,
shortly after the landing of the last cargo of slaves, the colored
population, both slave and free, had arisen to about four million, and
had undergone great modifications. The cargo of the "Wanderer" found
themselves among strangers, even when trying to associate with those
who in color and hair were like themselves. The slaves of 1860
differed greatly from the slaves of a hundred years earlier. They had
lost the relics of that stern warlike spirit which prompted the Stono
insurrection, the Denmark Vesey insurrection, and the Nat Turner
insurrection, and had accepted their lot as slaves, hoping that
through God, freedom would come to them some time in the happy future.
Large numbers of them had become Christians through the teaching of
godly white women, and at length through the evangelistic efforts of
men and women of their own race. Independent religious organizations
had been formed in the North, and large local churches with Negro
pastors were in existence in the South when the "Wanderer" landed her
cargo. There had been a steady increase in numbers, indicating that
the physical well-being of the slave was not overlooked, and the
slaves had greatly improved in character. Sales made in South Carolina
between 1850 and 1860 show "boys," from 16 to 25 years of age,
bringing from $900 to $1000; and "large sales" are reported showing an
"average of $620 each," "Negro men bringing from $800 to $1000," and a
"blacksmith" bringing $1425. The averages generally obtained were
above $600. A sale of 109 Negroes in families is reported in the
"Charleston Courier" in which the writer says: "Two or three families
averaged from $1000 to $1100 for each individual." The same item
states also that "C.G. Whitney sold two likely female house servants,
one for $1000, the other for $1190." These cases are presented to
illustrate the financial value of the American slave, and
inferentially the progress he had made in acquiring the arts of modern
civilization. Slaves had become blacksmiths, wheelwrights,
carriage-makers, carpenters, bricklayers, tailors, bootmakers,
founders and moulders, not to mention all the common labor performed
by them. Slave women had become dressmakers, hairdressers, nurses and
the best cooks to be found in the world. The slave-holders regarded
themselves as the favored of mankind because of the competence and
faithfulness of their slaves. The African spirit and character had
disappeared, and in their place were coming into being the elements of
a new character, existing in 1860 purely in a negative form. The slave
had become an American. He was now a civilized slave, and had received
his civilization from his masters. He had separated himself very far
from his brother slave in St. Domingo. The Haytian Negro fought and
won his freedom before he had been civilized in slavery, and hence has
never passed over the same ground that his American fellow-servant has
been compelled to traverse.

Beside the slaves in the South, there were also several thousand "free
persons of color," as they were called, dwelling in such cities as
Richmond, Va., Charleston, S.C., and New Orleans, La. Some of these
had become quite wealthy and well-educated, forming a distinct class
of the population. They were called Creoles in Louisiana, and were
accorded certain privileges, although laws were carefully enacted to
keep alive the distinction between them and the whites. In Charleston
the so-called colored people set themselves up as a class, prided
themselves much upon their color and hair and in their sympathies
joined almost wholly with the master class. Representatives of their
class became slave-holders and were in full accord with the social
policy of the country. Nevertheless their presence was an
encouragement to the slave, and consequently was objected to by the
slave-holder. The free colored man became more and more disliked in
the South as the slave became more civilized. He was supposed by his
example to contribute to the discontent of the slave, and laws were
passed restricting his priveleges so as to induce him to leave.
Between 1850 and 1860 this question reached a crisis and free colored
people from the South were to be seen taking up their homes in the
Northern States and in Canada. (Many of the people, especially from
Charleston, carried with them all their belittling prejudices, and
after years of sojourn under the sway of enlightened and liberal
ideas, proved themselves still incapable of learning the new way or
forgetting the old.)

There were, then, three very distinct classes of colored people in the
country, to wit: The slave in the South, the free colored people of
the South, and the free colored people of the North. These were also
sub-divided into several smaller classes. Slaves were divided into
field hands, house servants and city slaves. The free colored people
of the South had their classes based usually on color; the free
colored people of the North had their divisions caused by differences
in religion, differences as to place of birth, and numerous family
conceits. So that surveyed as a whole, it is extremely difficult to
get anything like a complete social map of these four millions as they
existed at the outbreak of the Civil War.

For a quarter of a century there had been a steady concentration of
the slave population within the cotton and cane-growing region, the
grain-growing States of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia having become
to a considerable extent breeding farms. Particularly was this the
case with the more intelligent and higher developed individual slaves
who appeared near the border line. The master felt that such persons
would soon make their escape by way of the "Underground Railroad" or
otherwise, and hence in order to prevent a total loss, would follow
the dictates of business prudence and sell his bright slave man to
Georgia. The Maryland or Virginia slave who showed suspicious
aspirations was usually checked by the threat, "I'll sell you to
Georgia;" and if the threat did not produce the desired reformation it
was not long before the ambitious slave found himself in the gang of
that most despised and most despicable of all creatures, the Georgia
slave-trader. Georgia and Canada were the two extremes of the slave's
anticipation during the last decade of his experience. These stood as
his earthly Heaven and Hell, the "Underground Railroad," with its
agents, conducting to one, and the odious slave-trader, driving men,
women and children, to the other. No Netherlander ever hated and
feared the devil more thoroughly than did the slaves of the border
States hate and fear these outrages on mankind, the kidnapping
slave-traders of the cotton and cane regions. I say kidnapping, for I
have myself seen persons in Georgia who had been kidnapped in
Maryland. If the devil was ever incarnate, I think it safe to look for
him among those who engaged in the slave-trade, whether in a foreign
or domestic form.

Nothing is more striking in connection with the history of American
Slavery than the conduct of Great Britain on the same subject. So
inconsistent has this conduct been that it can be explained only by
regarding England as a conglomerate of two elements nearly equal in
strength, of directly opposite character, ruling alternately the
affairs of the nation. As a slave-trader and slave-holder England was
perhaps even worse than the United States. Under her rule the slave
decreased in numbers, and remained a savage. In Jamaica, in St.
Vincent, in British Guiana, in Barbadoes, in Trinidad and in Grenada,
British slavery was far worse than American slavery. In these colonies
"the slave was generally a barbarian, speaking an unknown tongue, and
working with men like himself, in gangs with scarcely a chance for
improvement." An economist says, had the slaves of the British
colonies been as well fed, clothed, lodged, and otherwise cared for as
were those of the United States, their number at emancipation would
have reached from seventeen to twenty millions, whereas the actual
number emancipated was only 660,000. Had the blacks of the United
States experienced the same treatment as did those of the British
colonies, 1860 would have found among us less than 150,000 colored
persons. In the United States were found ten colored persons for every
slave imported, while in the British colonies only one was found for
every three imported. Hence the claim that the American Negro is a new
race, built up on this soil, rests upon an ample supply of facts. The
American slave was born in our civilization, fed upon good American
food, housed and clothed on a civilized plan, taught the arts and
language of civilization, acquired necessarily ideas of law and
liberty, and by 1860 was well on the road toward fitness for freedom.
No lessons therefore drawn from the emancipation of British slaves in
the West Indies are of any direct value to us, inasmuch as British
slavery was not like American slavery, the British freedman was in no
sense the equal of the American freedman, and the circumstances
surrounding the emancipation of the British slave had nothing of the
inspiring and ennobling character with those connected with the
breaking of the American Negro's chains. Yet, superior as the American
Negro was as a slave, he was very far below the standard of American
citizenship as subsequent events conclusively proved. The best form of
slavery, even though it may lead toward fitness for freedom, can never
be regarded as a fit school in which to graduate citizens of so
magnificent an empire as the United States.

The slave of 1860 was perhaps, all things considered, the best slave
the world had ever seen, if we except those who served the Hebrews
under the Mosaic statutes. While there was no such thing among them as
legal marriage or legitimate childhood, yet slave "families" were
recognized even on the auction block, and after emancipation legal
family life was erected generally upon relationships which had been
formed in slavery. Bishop Gaines, himself born a slave of slave
parents, says: "The Negro had no civil rights under the codes of the
Southern States. It was often the case, it is true, that the marriage
ceremony was performed, and thousands of couples regarded it, and
observed it as of binding force, and were as true to each other as if
they had been lawfully married." * * * "The colored people
generally," he says, "held their marriage (if such unauthorized union
may be called marriage) sacred, even while they were slaves. Many
instances will be recalled by the older people of the life-long
fidelity which existed between the slave and his concubine" (Wife,
T.G.S.)" ... the mother of his children. My own father and mother
lived together over sixty years. I am the fourteenth child of that
union, and I can truthfully affirm that no marriage, however made
sacred by the sanction of law, was ever more congenial and beautiful.
Thousands of like instances might be cited to the same effect. It will
always be to the credit of the colored people that almost without
exception, they adhered to their relations, illegal though they had
been, and accepted gladly the new law which put the stamp of
legitimacy upon their union and removed the brand of bastardy from the
brows of their children."

Let us now sum up the qualifications that these people possessed in
large degree, in order to determine their fitness for freedom, then so
near at hand. They had acquired the English language, and the
Christian religion, including the Christian idea of marriage, so
entirely different in spirit and form from the African marriage. They
had acquired the civilized methods of cooking their food, making and
wearing clothes, sleeping in beds, and observing Sunday. They had
acquired many of the useful arts and trades of civilization and had
imbibed the tastes and feelings, to some extent, at least, of the
country in which they lived. Becoming keen observers, shut out from
books and newspapers, they listened attentively, learned more of law
and politics than was generally supposed. They knew what the election
of 1860 meant and were on tiptoe with expectation. Although the days
of insurrection had passed and the slave of '59 was not ready to rise
with the immortal John Brown, he had not lost his desire for freedom.
The steady march of escaping slaves guided by the North star, with the
refrain:

"I'm on my way to Canada,
That cold but happy land;
The dire effects of slavery
I can no longer stand,"

proved that the desire to be free was becoming more extensive and
absorbing as the slave advanced in intelligence.

It is necessary again to emphasize the fact that the American slaves
were well formed and well developed physically, capable of enduring
hard labor and of subsisting upon the plainest food. Their diet for
years had been of the simplest sort, and they had been subjected to a
system of regulations very much like those which are employed in the
management of armies. They had an hour to go to bed and an hour to
rise; left their homes only upon written "passes," and when abroad at
night were often halted by the wandering patrol. "Run, nigger, run,
the patrol get you," was a song of the slave children of South
Carolina.

Strangers who saw for the first time these people as they came out of
slavery in 1865 were usually impressed with their robust appearance,
and a conference of ex-slaves, assembled soon after the war,
introduced a resolution with the following declaration: "Whereas,
Slavery has left us in possession of strong and healthy bodies." It is
probable that at least a half-million of men of proper age could then
have been found among the newly liberated capable of bearing arms.
They were inured to the plain ration, to labor and fatigue, and to
subordination, and had long been accustomed to working together under
the immediate direction of foremen.

Two questions of importance naturally arose at this period: First, did
the American slave understand the issue that had been before the
country for more than a half-century and that was now dividing the
nation in twain and marshalling for deadly strife these two opposing
armies? Second, had he the courage necessary to take part in the
struggle and help save the Union? It would be a strange thing to say,
but nevertheless a thing entirely true, that many of the Negro slaves
had a clearer perception of the real question at issue than did some
of our most far-seeing statesmen, and a clearer vision of what would
be the outcome of the war. While the great men of the North were
striving to establish the doctrine that the coming war was merely to
settle the question of Secession, the slave knew better. God had hid
certain things from the wise and prudent and had revealed them unto
babes. Lincoln, the wisest of all, was slow to see that the issue he
himself had predicted was really at hand. As President, he declared
for the preservation of the Union, with or without slavery, or even
upon the terms which he had previously declared irreconcilable, "half
slave and half free." The Negro slave saw in the outbreak of the war
the death struggle of slavery. He knew that the real issue was
slavery.

The masters were careful to keep from the knowledge of the slave the
events as well as the causes of the war, but in spite of these efforts
the slave's keen perception enabled him to read defeat in the dejected
mien of his master, and victory in his exultation. To prevent the
master's knowing what was going on in their thoughts, the slaves
constructed curious codes among themselves. In one neighborhood
freedom was always spoken of as "New Rice"; and many a poor slave
woman sighed for the coming of New Rice in the hearing of those who
imagined they knew the inmost thoughts of their bondwomen. Gleefully
at times they would talk of the jollification they would make when the
New Rice came. It was this clear vision, this strong hope, that
sustained them during the trying days of the war and kept them back
from insurrection. Bishop Gaines says: "Their prayers ascended for
their deliverance, and their hearts yearned for the success of their
friends. They fondly hoped for the hour of victory, when the night of
slavery would end and the dawn of freedom appear. They often talked to
each other of the progress of the war and conferred in secret as to
what they might do to aid in the struggle. Worn out with long bondage,
yearning for the boon of freedom, longing for the sun of liberty to
rise, they kept their peace and left the result to God." Mr. Douglass,
whom this same Bishop Gaines speaks of very inappropriately as a
"half-breed," seemed able to grasp the feelings both of the slave and
the freeman and said: "From the first, I for one, saw in this war the
end of slavery, and truth requires me to say that my interest in the
success of the North was largely due to this belief." Mr. Seward, the
wise Secretary of State, had thought that the war would come and go
without producing any change in the relation of master and slave; but
the humble slave on the Georgia cotton plantation, or in the Carolina
rice fields, knew that the booming of the guns of rebellion in
Charleston was the opening note of the death knell of slavery. The
slave undoubtedly understood the issue, and knew on which side liberty
dwelt. Although thoroughly bred to slavery, and as contented and happy
as he could be in his lot, he acted according to the injunction of the
Apostle: "Art thou called being a servant, care not for it; but if
thou mayest be made free, use it rather." The slaves tried to be
contented, but they preferred freedom and knew which side to take when
the time came for them to act.

Enough has been said to show that out of the African slave had been
developed a thoroughly American slave, so well imbued with modern
civilization and so well versed in American politics, as to be
partially ready for citizenship. He had become law-abiding and
order-loving, and possessed of an intelligent desire to be free.
Whether he had within him the necessary moral elements to become a
soldier the pages following will attempt to make known. He had the
numbers, the physical strength and the intelligence. He could enter
the strife with a sufficient comprehension of the issues involved to
enable him to give to his own heart a reason for his action. Fitness
for the soldier does not necessarily involve fitness for citizenship,
but the actual discharge of the duties of the soldier in defence of
the nation, entitles one to all common rights, to the nation's
gratitude, and to the highest honors for which he is qualified.

In concluding this chapter I shall briefly return to the free colored
people of the South that the reader may be able to properly estimate
their importance as a separate element. Their influence upon the slave
population was very slight, inasmuch as law and custom forbade the
intercourse of these two classes.

According to the Census of 1860 there were in the slave-holding States
altogether 261,918 free colored persons, 106,770 being mulattoes. In
Charleston there were 887 free blacks and 2,554 mulattoes; in Mobile,
98 free blacks and 617 mulattoes; in New Orleans, 1,727 blacks and
7,357 mulattoes. As will be seen, nearly one-half of the entire number
of free colored persons were mulattoes, while in the leading Southern
cities seventy-five per cent. of the free colored people were put in
this class. The percentage of mulatto slaves to the total slave
population at that time was 10.41, and in the same cities which showed
seventy-five per cent, of all the free colored persons mulattoes, the
percentage of mulatto slaves was but 16.84. Mulatto in this
classification includes all colored persons who are not put down as
black.

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