On October 16, 1859, the storm clouds of sectional tension collided over Harpers Ferry, Virginia. That evening, abolitionist John Brown and twenty-one of his followers crossed the Potomac River and attacked the federal arsenal. They planned to seize 100,000 rifles and muskets in an effort to lead a slave insurrection. Two free black men from Oberlin, Ohio, accompanied Brown that fateful night. Lewis Sheridan Leary and his nephew, John Copeland, believed passionately in Brown’s mission to end slavery. Leary said good-bye to his wife and their six-month-old daughter without disclosing his plans. Copeland, a former Oberlin College student, left behind his beloved parents and siblings so that he could offer his life for a higher purpose.1 Their actions shocked Americans, and their failed revolt pushed the United States closer to a seemingly irrepressible conflict. The entire nation’s political, economic, and social structure would be forever changed, and as a result of the African American role in Brown’s raid and the war that followed, the lives of many Ohio blacks would be dramatically transformed.
Federal and Virginia state troops led by Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee captured Brown, Copeland, and the other wounded survivors. They killed Leary when he tried to escape. Virginia officials charged Brown with treason, murder, and insurrection, and upon finding him guilty, ordered his execution. Most Northerners condemned Brown’s violent act but did not believe that he deserved the death penalty called for by outraged Southerners. Many pleaded for mercy on his behalf, claiming that Brown was insane. It did not matter to the people of the slaveholding state of Virginia, and the court found him guilty of conspiring with slaves to commit treason and murder. On December 2 the tolling of church bells in Oberlin signaled John Brown’s hanging. Residents in Cadiz rang the town bells for two hours. In Akron people flew their flags at half mast, the court of common pleas adjourned early, and many stores and businesses closed for the day. Local Republicans shared “expressions of sympathy” for Brown with a group of five hundred Clevelanders. Cincinnati, a city of tense and often violent race relations, honored the martyred abolitionist when a mixed group of German and black admirers gathered the following week.2
In addition to the Northern outcry against Brown’s execution, Ohioans also paid solemn attention to John Copeland’s fate. Virginians charged the Oberlin native with the same crimes as Brown. The court found him guilty of the murder and insurrection counts but concluded that based on the Dred Scott decision that denied citizenship rights to blacks, he could not be tried for treason. In a letter to his family, Copeland asked, “How dear brother, could I die in a more noble cause?” The Lancaster Ohio Eagle reported that leaders in Charleston, Virginia, requested two dozen military companies to control the crowds they anticipated for the hangings of Copeland and another black conspirator, Shields Green. On December 16, over sixteen hundred people watched as the two men “paid the forfeit of their lives.” The New York Times described the crowd as five times the size that witnessed Brown’s execution. Local authorities placed both bodies in poplar coffins and returned them to the jail to await claim or internment. Oberlin College professor and abolitionist James Monroe tried unsuccessfully to retrieve Copeland’s body for the bereaved parents. Instead, a group of medical students from Winchester claimed both of the bodies in the name of scientific research. On Christmas Day over three thousand people attended funeral services for Copeland and Leary at the First Church in Oberlin.3
Despite this local reaction, most in Ohio did not approve of militant actions from its black population. Overall, the attitude toward African Americans was ambivalent at best. Before the Civil War, antislavery activity and overt racism competed in all aspects of the state’s social and political culture. The 1787 Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in the states carved out of the Northwest Territory, Ohio being the first in 1803, yet black settlers faced a second-class status enforced legally and by social practice. Midwesterners promoted white supremacy more than any other area outside of the slave South. As a result, Ohioans were more committed to keeping the state’s population white than protecting or advancing black rights. Even with significant factions of abolitionism and the complex web of “underground railroad” activity across the North, most did not welcome blacks into their communities. As part of the Compromise of 1850, a more stringent federal fugitive slave law contributed to growing concerns for free blacks and runaway slaves who remained in the state. On the eve of the Civil War, the increased threat of capture and the declining social and economic conditions for African Americans in the North led many to continue their flight to Canada. In 1860 blacks made up less than 2 percent of the state population.4
For those who chose to stay, black community growth depended largely upon earlier white settlement patterns. From the late colonial period and continuing in the early years after statehood, emigrants tended to move westward along isothermic patterns. Southerners seeking climate, land, and agriculture similar to the Upper South region created communities along the Ohio River. During the antebellum period, this area contained the largest number of black settlements, and by 1860 the fourteen counties that border the Ohio River contained 34.5 percent of the state’s black population.5 While some of the white Southern-born settlers opposed slavery, all shared the belief that blacks should remain in a subordinate position in American society. Although the number of African Americans who moved to the state remained low, the already tenuous relations between the races deteriorated as the struggle for low-paying day labor positions brought blacks into direct competition with poor whites and immigrants.
Blacks in this area lived in a transitional space between freedom and slavery. Their location along the Ohio River, directly across from slave-holding states, threatened their safety. In Scioto County, for instance, displeased whites worked against blacks regardless of their status, and runaway slave notices appeared in local newspapers from 1820 until at least 1855. Southerners, as well as Ohioans who hired slave workers from Kentucky, submitted these notices to retrieve their property and labor. The economic competition led over one hundred citizens to sign a petition in January 1830, promising they would not employ any black who did not comply with state Black Laws. Between 1804 and 1807 early state assemblies had created Black Laws to help prevent the influx of runaway slaves and to discourage free persons of color from coming to Ohio.6
These laws created a second-class status for blacks in the years preceding the Civil War by restricting their civil rights, and any black person who entered the state after 1804 had to have free papers. Those already present had to register with the county clerk and pay a small filing fee. White residents could not employ any black without the proper papers or registration and could be fined $10 to $50 if they did. By 1807 legislators had amended these laws to be even more restrictive, and county officials in charge of the local poor became responsible for enforcing the new policy. The registration fee for blacks entering the state increased to a $500 bond, and if blacks could not provide self-support and had failed to post their bond, they could be forced to leave the state. The fine for white citizens who harbored such persons increased to $100, and additional legislation forbade blacks from giving evidence in court against white citizens. On January 21, 1830, white Portsmouth residents used these codes to expel all blacks from their city, forcibly removing approximately eighty people, who had little time to collect their possessions or arrange for new lodgings. Two years later former governor Allen Trimble cautioned Ohioans about the growing black population, and a state legislative committee warned of the potentially “serious political and moral evil” African Americans brought to Ohio.7
Fig. 1. Ohio counties. (From Ohio and Its People by George W. Knepper. Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press, 1989)
Blacks often found a more hospitable environment near Quaker settlements. These strongly committed antislavery groups from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina tended to settle in Ohio’s central and upper southern counties, sometimes transplanting entire congregations. In 1815 Quaker Benjamin Lundy of St. Clairsville organized the first antislavery society in Ohio, and in 1817, in nearby Mount Pleasant, Quaker Charles Osborn began editing the antislavery newspaper The Philanthropist. White reformers such as these men helped to create a fairly safe atmosphere for black activists, which allowed David Nickens to organize the First Regular African Baptist Church of Christ in 1824. The Chillicothe house of worship soon became the First Anti-Slavery Baptist Church. The highest percentage of blacks per capita settled in and around these areas. By 1860, blacks composed 8 percent of Ross County’s population and 7 percent of Gallia County. Jefferson, Belmont, Lawrence, Jackson, Franklin, Pickaway, Fayette, Pike, Greene, Brown, Clark, Mercer, Logan, Champaign, Clinton, and Highland counties all had between 3 and 6 percent black residents, well above the state average. Although most free blacks in the United States before the Civil War resided in urban areas and worked as unskilled laborers, the majority of these Ohioans supported themselves by farming their own land or by working as farm laborers for others. Over 70 percent of blacks in the central and southern parts of Ohio lived in rural communities.8
Yet even in the sparsely populated areas of central Ohio, free blacks repeatedly faced opposition, especially when large numbers arrived to live together in settlements. The 1818 will of Samuel Gist, a wealthy British immigrant, manumitted and provided land for 350 of his Virginia slaves. Some of them moved to Brown County, but they received little support from local residents when they ran low on supplies. As a result, they were forced to abandon the property. Virginian John Randolph’s 1833 bequest provided for the freedom and resettlement of his 400 slaves to Mercer County, but local whites objected so strongly that the freedmen separated and moved into surrounding communities in the counties of Miami, Shelby, and Greene. Some of the freedmen found themselves financially unable to maintain their land holdings, and 37 slaves sent to Lawrence County received only enough funds from their former master to provide for their first year of freedom. Other groups were deceived by administrators or local populations who convinced the emigrants to sell their land for below market rates. But there were successful resettlements, like the Gist Settlement in Highland County and the Warwick Settlement in Logan County. Several groups of free blacks hoping to find a more hospitable environment also came to Ohio, including families from Virginia and Maryland who purchased land for the Lett Settlement in Muskingum County.9
The more radical antislavery element of the state’s population tended to come from the New England area. Most settled in northeastern Ohio, known as the Connecticut Western Reserve. The fewest number of blacks moved to this area though, and in contrast to the central and southern parts of the state, blacks in the Western Reserve tended to live in more urban settings. In 1860, 894 blacks lived in Cuyahoga County, mostly in Cleveland, but they comprised just over 1 percent of the population. Lorain County had fewer than 2 percent African Americans, most of who lived in close proximity to Oberlin College. In 1833 New England Presbyterian clergymen John Shipperd and Philo Stewart founded the separatist Christian community, with a school dedicated to training missionaries. After the 1835 decision to admit students “irrespective of color,” the college and community became committed to abolitionist activities, and within five months townspeople had organized the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society.10
During the antebellum years, Northerners inspired by the Second Great Awakening sought to reform American society. As a result, the number of individuals who questioned the moral and political legitimacy of slavery grew, both nationally and within the state. By 1837 Ohio had 15,000 members in the American Anti-Slavery Society, second only to New York, and their influence contributed to the 1849 repeal of most of the Black Laws that had restricted black settlement during the previous decades. The following year legislators passed personal liberty laws that prohibited slave catchers and local authorities from using state and local jails to house captured runaway slaves. This amended course by white leaders came more from their outrage over federal attempts to strengthen the fugitive slave laws, which restricted their own rights, than from a newfound sense of duty to open Ohio to runaways or to protect the state’s black population. Most Ohioans shared the belief that only certain God-given rights extended to blacks, such as the right to be free, the right to enjoy the fruits of one’s own labor, and the right to have a family. They did not expand this understanding to social or civil rights, as evident in the 1850 revision of the state constitution. Despite the repeal of some of the Black Laws, Ohio continued to deny black residents suffrage, participation in the militia or in jury duty, state-funded poor relief, and equal education. State law also prohibited interracial marriage.11
Ohio created a public education program in 1821 and in 1825 began collecting taxes to support the system. Although blacks living in the state were required to pay the assessments, most schools excluded their children. Black parents pressured the state to correct the situation, which led to new legislation in 1829 that required local governments to use all monies collected from African Americans to support their children’s education. Many urban areas were able to comply, and with the help of private contributions, most of the children in larger towns and cities with a concentrated black community had access to at least limited schooling; by 1841 Columbus blacks had established two schools for their 336 school-age children. Yet despite the new law, white citizens in Cincinnati denied blacks any access to public education. The law also failed to clearly define the responsibility for small towns and rural areas, where most of the antebellum black population lived, but in 1848 an act for common schools opened the door for African American education in Ohio. If a school district prohibited black children from attending its academies, it was required to release appropriations for separate schools in locations where 20 or more black children resided. Black taxpayers had the right to build and maintain their own schools, as well as the responsibility to elect directors. If there were less than 20 black children in the school district, white schools had to either allow black attendance or refund the taxes collected from African Americans.12 Some black communities had large enough populations to take advantage of the new legislation, although most wanted equal access to existing educational programs.
Throughout the antebellum period the Ohio legislature continued to make the educational process difficult for black inhabitants. Many feared that a positive environment for black education might promote more black emigration into the state, something most residents would not tolerate. State lawmakers reorganized the educational system again in 1853, increasing the number of black children necessary for separate schools to 30 or more, and a new provision stated that if attendance dropped under 15 at any time, the school could be closed. Legislators also gave white school boards control over the segregated facilities, thus decreasing the black community’s influence and use of the funds. The law made no provision if the number of pupils fell between 15 and 30, creating confusion and allowing for further legal discrimination. That year 6,862 black school-age children resided in the state, but only 22 black schools operated for the 702 registered students. Not all districts complied with the exact wording of the state laws. In Cleveland and Oberlin, black children continued to attend white local schools. Clevelanders even hired several black schoolteachers. Some whites in the Western Reserve believed in equal educational opportunities for both races, but more supported black attendance in their schools because they believed that the state would benefit from an educated working class.13
Legal and financial restrictions did not stop blacks from seeking education for their children, and taxpayers sued in a challenge to the application of the 1853 school law. Both the state supreme court and the state legislature affirmed that education was a right of all children, regardless of color, and as a result the act was revised. By 1854 the number of black schools in the state increased to 48, and in 1860 the state commissioner of common schools counted 159 separate black institutions. Enrollment numbers also rose dramatically, and 2,439 of the 9,756 black children aged five to twelve received some form of instruction in 1854. Within six years the numbers increased to 6,512 and 13,632 respectively, and in 1860 156 black educators applied for teaching certificates. But economic circumstances led to second-rate conditions in most of these schools, resulting in shorter school sessions and lower salaries for instructors. And the new legislation actually increased segregation, with some districts blatantly denying blacks any educational opportunities. Cincinnati citizens created a different system altogether, and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in the city’s favor in 1859 when it declared that “distinctly colored” children were not entitled to attend public schools.14
In Urbana, where blacks comprised close to 10 percent of the town’s population, children attended separate schools. Forty-five-year-old Joseph Stillgess and his wife, Jane, had eight children. Five of these attended school in 1860, including Isaac, aged sixteen. A white neighbor, farmer Philip Stover, also had five school-age children. None of them attended in 1860, nor did the six children of a black neighbor, John Moss. All three men owned their homes and lived in nuclear family units. Of the 1,505 family dwellings noted in the Urbana census that year, most reported their children attended school, whether black or white. The only significant number of black children not attending school tended to reside with white families, usually as their servants.15
Blacks found different educational opportunities in rural Gallia County, where they composed 16 percent of the 289 families in Springfield Township in 1860. Just over 73 percent of white families sent their children to school, whereas only 40 percent of black families with school-age children reported attendance. Like most residents, black and white, sixty-year-old Pleasant Bunch farmed for a living. Born into slavery in Virginia, neither he nor his wife, Betsy, could read or write. Even though four of their five children were old enough in 1850, none attended school while living in nearby Raccoon Township. In addition to the Bunch family, there were 17 other black households in a township of 249 total dwellings. Only one seven-year-old, the child of North Carolina “mulattos,” attended school. After they moved to the city of Springfield, which had a much larger percentage of African Americans, William, Elijah, and Stephen Bunch attended school in 1860.16
A significant number of Ohio colleges advocated black enrollment during the antebellum years. This support came largely from evangelical reformers who worked to meet their own reform goals rather than because they believed black students could achieve the intellectual abilities of whites. In 1835 Oberlin College opened its doors to black men and women, becoming the first American institution of higher learning to be both coeducational and coracial. Other colleges in Ohio that educated blacks included Antioch in Yellow Springs, Mount Union in Alliance, and Otterbein in Galena. In 1856 white philanthropists from the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church opened Wilberforce in Xenia. The school educated hundreds of African Americans before the Civil War, many of whom were the mixed-race children of Southern planters, making it the most successful Ohio antebellum educational institution for blacks.17
Financial support contributed to the decision by Oberlin College trustees to admit black students. Arthur and Lewis Tappan, New York philanthropists and abolitionists, offered to provide funds for the theological institute and salaries for eight professors if the institution agreed to allow black enrollment. John Shipperd convinced his associates to consent to the arrangement by arguing that opening the doors to the students did not mean they accepted that blacks were equal to the white scholars. Instead, they could further their own cause by training blacks to help in the abolition crusade and to contribute to the “salvation of their colored brethren.” Shipperd questioned how Oberlinians could believe they belonged to a Christian community if they did not comply. As a result, Charles G. Finney, one of the most influential Second Great Awakening evangelists, came to Oberlin to teach theology. The decision also led over thirty disgruntled scholars with strong abolitionist beliefs from the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati to pursue their educational goals in Oberlin. Several years later, Shipperd’s wife Delia took in the newly freed slave children of white plantation owner Charles Younger from Missouri. His will provided for the education of Simpson and Catherine at Oberlin.18
Despite the increased opportunities for public education and college admittance, by 1860 blacks were still facing serious educational limitations. The Sixth Annual Report of the State Commissioner of Common Schools admitted that “great injustices” were “sometimes done to the colored children of the state by those who should be guardians of their interests.” It concluded that black schools had inferior teachers, supplies, and buildings. Furthermore, black property owners were forced to pay taxes in many locations that denied education to their children.19 African Americans understood that the cost to their community extended beyond the misappropriated tax dollars. Educational discrimination threatened the future economic success and the potential for better living conditions for their race.
Most Ohio blacks faced difficult economic circumstances. The growing numbers of African Americans and immigrants caused heightened tensions over low-paying jobs and led to increased violence against blacks, and the situation escalated into race riots in several Northern cities. One of the most serious of these conflicts occurred in Cincinnati in 1841. White citizens fired three cannon shots into “Little Africa,” the black neighborhood on the city’s eastern edge. Blacks armed themselves for self-protection, and as a result the police took more than three hundred residents into custody to prevent them and the white rioters from harm. The difficulty of obtaining an education and the increasing racist reactions contributed to a significant decline in the black Cincinnatians’ economic situation and to an increase in quasi-segregated living arrangements. Frederick Douglass, one of the nation’s most prominent abolitionists, observed that although Northern states did not sanction slavery, African Americans as a group served as the “slaves of the community.”20
Yet many black Ohioans found that hard work could lead to property ownership. Some even prospered. Sometime before 1840, Virginian Abraham Depp brought his family to Delaware County, where over the next twenty years he became a successful farmer. In 1860 his widow held over $12,000 in property in Concord Township. Her five daughters and twenty-one-year-old son John lived at home, and her son Aurelius, aged twenty-seven, lived next door. The two men farmed the land, while their three youngest sisters attended school. Another man, Jethro Hurst, represented the more common economic situation for Ohio blacks who were able to purchase a home. The fifty-year-old day laborer from Tennessee owned a house valued at $300. He lived with his seventeen-year-old son, Jethro, in Xenia, in a neighborhood with both black and white residents. They lived between two other homeowners, a black shoemaker with a house valued at $100 and an Irish immigrant with property worth $500. On the other side of his neighbors lived renters of both races. In Xenia’s first ward, 75 percent of black households reported some real or personal estate, whereas 78 percent of white dwellings had some property. The actual value per household differed greatly, though. The average value of real estate for blacks in the ward who owned homes equaled $627 compared to $4,028 for white landowners. The value of personal property reported by blacks averaged just over $101, compared to $1,473 for whites who placed a value on their material possessions.21
Despite the often adverse circumstances, the larger Ohio black community refused to passively accept the white populations’ repressive and discriminatory practices. Instead they actively pursued change through their own established social institutions. The family served as the basic unit of support, providing the social, economic, and psychological means necessary to survive and prosper in such difficult circumstances.22 Black families worked hard to attain a better life, seeking land ownership and economic security through education and their labor.
Yet the reality of Northern racism often limited or restricted their desired gains. Because the state legally prohibited African Americans access to public alms, the situation for those who found themselves without familial support could be dire. Antebellum citizens provided benevolence only to those who “deserved” help. Ohioans often denied blacks assistance because whites assumed that the destitute had not attempted to provide for themselves or their families. Therefore, many blacks opened their own homes to orphans and the elderly. In urban areas, extended families received aid from black self-help associations such as fraternal organizations and mutual aid societies that recognized the plight of the needy. Xenia and Cincinnati both had Colored United Associations, which provided aid to the ill and burial assistance for families, and in 1849 Prince Hall Masons granted the first Ohio charter for a grand lodge in Cincinnati. Freemasonry spread, and the national organization granted charters to African Americans for the St. Mark’s Lodge of Columbus in 1852, the Eureka Lodge in Cleveland in 1855, and the Wilberforce Lodge in Xenia in 1859. Cleveland blacks founded the first Grand United Order of Odd Fellows west of New York in 1855.23 In addition to economic support, these associations provided organizational and leadership opportunities for members.
Black institutional development and participation in organized reform activities in Ohio’s antebellum urban centers also led to a growing sense of a shared identity. Leaders fought tirelessly to encourage and organize local populations to fight for their rights as Americans. In 1845 prominent black Cleveland ministers called on all clergymen of the city to petition for the repeal of the Black Laws. They sent over four hundred signatures to the state legislature. Influential black Ohioans, including John Mercer Langston, Charles Langston, and William H. Day, joined national leaders such as Frederick Douglass in the National Negro Convention Movement. The most well-known of these men, John Mercer Langston, received his education at Oberlin College. Although denied entry to law school, he became the first black attorney in Ohio after passing the bar in 1854. In addition to his reform activities with state and national antislavery groups, Langston became the first black elected official when Brownhelm Township residents in Lorain County voted him into office.24
Older brothers Charles and Gideon Langston were the first blacks enrolled in the Oberlin preparatory school and college. Charles, a teacher and dentist, devoted his time to education and reform activities. In 1849 he presided over the state black convention in Ohio, but he was most well known for his 1859 arrest and conviction for participation in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. Langston intentionally ignored the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 when he helped Oberlin runaway John Price escape from slave catchers in 1858. In 1860 the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society elected Langston as one of its lecturers.25
William H. Day moved to Cleveland after graduating from Oberlin College in 1847. There he spent the decades before the Civil War actively engaged in the Cleveland Anti-Slavery Society, fighting for African American suffrage, and working to repeal the Black Laws. In 1852 Day organized a reunion of black War of 1812 veterans in the city, and during the late 1850s he assisted runaway slaves living in Canada and associated with John Brown before the deadly Harpers Ferry attack.26
In the late 1840s and throughout the 1850s, these men helped to organize conferences, called Conventions of the Colored People of Ohio, in several cities across the state. At these meetings, prominent Northern blacks discussed and created strategies to contend with slavery, colonization, civil and economic rights, and black education. In January 1860 black reformers participated in the annual assembly of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in Xenia. For those who could not attend, the emergence of black newspapers helped to circulate ideas and debates generated at the meetings, and, combined, they contributed to the development of a national political consciousness. By the late 1850s black leaders acknowledged the substandard conditions forced upon their race but also touted the moral and social achievements that had created a more tolerable living condition than only a decade before.27
But most Ohio blacks lived outside the urban centers, and for these people the black church offered the greatest opportunity for organized activity. The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) served the largest sector of Ohio black worshipers, but there was also a strong Baptist following. Areas with a larger concentration of blacks supported both of these denominations. The tenuous economic situation made it difficult for the churches, which also had to serve as schools and recreational, meeting, and social centers, as well as burial grounds. In many communities it took until late in the antebellum era to organize. For example, Pike County, with a 6 percent black population, had six black churches by 1860. Three of the churches were in Jackson Township, where just fewer than 50 percent of the total Pike County black population resided. Blacks composed 30 percent of the total population in the township. Rev. Nelson Satterwhite helped to organize the earliest religious services, and in 1855 Satterwhite and Rev. William Evans created the Mt. Sinai Baptist Church with only ten members. The Philadelphia Missionary Baptist Church started in 1858 with fifteen members, as did the United Brethren of Christ in 1859, and the AME in neighboring Seal Township organized in 1856. Peeble Township had an 18 percent black population, with 30 percent of the total county’s black population residing within its borders. The African Baptist Church in Peeble Township, whose members created the first black house of worship in the county in 1848, built a new structure in 1857 under Satterwhite’s leadership. The AME of Peeble organized in 1853 and met in the Barnett School.28
The cautious optimism that grew from the slow but steady improvements in black life, such as the increasing number of churches, could not mask the reality that most white Ohioans held strong reservations about the black inhabitants. Mostly, they feared that Ohio would become a haven for African Americans if conditions became too advantageous, and they continued to worry about future black migration into the state despite the low population numbers and the restrictive policies already in place. In 1858 Xenia residents petitioned the general assembly to bar admittance to any more free blacks. The home of Wilberforce University, the city was also the seat of Greene County and had the highest concentration of blacks in the state per capita. The Democratic majority in the assembly seriously considered the request but failed to pass any legislation on the matter.29
Lawmakers turned their attention to another restrictive policy after Salmon P. Chase, a champion of black rights, won the 1857 gubernatorial race over Henry B. Payne. Chase, a former United States senator and founding member of the Liberty, Free Soil, and Republican parties, was the incumbent. To Democrats, Payne, a Cleveland attorney and former Ohio state senator, represented a necessary change, and many believed that Chase only won because blacks had illegally voted in the election. The original state constitution limited suffrage to white males, giving the courts the power to define “white,” and in 1842 the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that qualified individuals needed a “preponderance” of white blood to vote. Western Reserve delegates to the 1850 constitutional convention attempted to grant the right to all adult males, but the proposal failed sixty-six to twelve. Instead, the constitutional changes that took effect in 1851 further defined citizenship to white males.30
Causing even more concern, in Lorain County an overwhelming majority of Brownhelm Township whites elected John Mercer Langston as their township clerk in 1855. Bolstered by the 1857 Dred Scott decision that denied persons of African descent any citizenship rights and angered by the Chase and Langston victories, Ohioans passed the Visible Admixture Law. It allowed election judges to challenge and reject the vote of anyone found to be partly or wholly of African heritage. The law further defined the meaning of “Negro” to be any person commonly known to be so, regardless of their actual parentage. With this move, Ohio Democrats clearly defined themselves as the “white” party in opposition to the “black” Republicans. Despite the Ohio Supreme Court’s 1859 decision that invalidated the Visible Admixture Law, the end of the decade left many African Americans concerned about their status in the Northern free state. While many significant changes had occurred that allowed some in the black community to have confidence and hope for the future, the daily reality of their second-class status and the racial beliefs held by most white Ohioans could not be denied.31
As the 1860 presidential election approached, Ohio politicians temporarily suspended their angst over local problems concerning African Americans and redirected their attention to the mounting national debate over slavery. Nationally the Democratic Party split over the issue of slavery and failed to agree on a united platform. As a result, two Democratic candidates ran for the executive office. Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas offered the nation the choice of popular sovereignty, while Kentucky’s John C. Breckinridge vowed federal protection for slavery. The Republicans selected Abraham Lincoln of Illinois and made a variety of promises that attracted the broadest base of Ohio voters. In addition to the tariff and homestead policies, the Republicans pledged to maintain slavery where it already existed and to prevent any future spread of the institution into the territories. The Constitutional Union Party offered a fourth candidate, John Bell of Tennessee, and avoided the issue of slavery with a platform that focused on the Constitution, the union of states, and the enforcement of law.
Ohio proved to be an important state in the election. Only New York and Pennsylvania had more electoral votes at stake. While the election was a four-way contest nationally, Ohioans for the most part concentrated on two candidates. Democrats reverted to their earlier accusations that the “black” Republicans would seek black equality if voters elected Lincoln. Southern Democrats threatened a more serious consequence if he won; they would leave the Union. Many Ohioans considered the Southern threat ridiculous, believing instead that Lincoln’s victory would settle the secession and slavery issues once and for all. The state awarded twenty-three electoral votes to the Republican ticket, based on the 231,610 ballets for Lincoln to 187,232 votes for Stephen A. Douglas. Bell mustered only 12,193 votes, and Breckinridge, who placed second nationally with the support of Southerners, gathered only 11,405 ballots.32
The ominous clouds hanging over the United States since the Harpers Ferry incident descended upon the nation after Lincoln’s election. Ohioans could no longer flippantly dismiss Southern threats of disunion and actively pursued a nonviolent solution. Western Reserve antislavery advocates who wanted the state to sever ties with slaveholders believed that Southern states should be allowed to leave the Union. So too did Ohio River valley businessmen, who sought to safeguard their beneficial trading arrangements. The majority, though, believed that the Union should be preserved. The editor of the Fremont Journal summarized Ohio’s position when he reported that “the people are patient but they are resolute. They will wait long, but when they rise and strike for the Union, then woe to traitors wherever they are found.” On January 7 Governor William Dennison denied the right of Southern secession and proclaimed that Ohio would remain loyal and “demand the employment of all the constitutional powers of the Federal Government to maintain and preserve the Union.” The state legislature followed with a joint resolution that echoed Dennison’s sentiments.33 Despite significant attempts by leading Ohioans to achieve a compromise, the Southern leaders made good on their threat to reject the president-elect from Illinois. South Carolina initiated the secession movement, and in February 1861 seven states created the Confederate States of America in Montgomery.
Abraham Lincoln remained fairly quiet on the subject until his March 1861 inaugural address, when he announced his resolute determination to preserve the Union. After Southerners attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, he demonstrated the seriousness of his pledge by ordering a military response. Lincoln called for volunteer enlistments, believing as leaders did on both sides that it would be a short affair. Ohio’s initial quota required the state to provide 13,000 of the 75,000 total enlistees, who would be enrolling for ninety days. Approximately 30,000 Ohioans offered their service to protect the state and to save the Union.34
The state’s black male population promptly and eagerly offered their assistance to the nation. They also sought the opportunity to claim their roles as equal citizens and to help abolish slavery. To remind African Americans that they had played a part in the nation’s military past, the Christian Recorder, a newspaper that served members of the AME, printed articles on blacks who had participated in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Students at Wilberforce raised a full company of men, but when they contacted Gov. William Dennison, he refused to accept them. In Albany, a community with members who aided fugitive slaves, Milton M. Holland helped to raise a military company named the Attucks Guards. With this naming the Athens County blacks invoked the memory of the runaway slave and martyr Crispus Attucks, the first man to die in the revolutionary cause in the 1770s. Pastor William Waring of Toledo’s Colored Baptist Church declared, “From the hour of the uprising, the Negro was a new man.” From small towns, large urban areas, and the rural countryside, blacks from Oberlin, Xenia, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and elsewhere attempted to answer Lincoln’s call.35
Ohio refused these men, as most people believed that the war’s only purpose was to reunite with the seceded states in order to preserve the nation. Allowing black men to assist would be tantamount to acknowledging that the white army could not accomplish the task alone, and adding the issues of slavery and African American civil and political rights to the conflict might complicate their attempt to put down the rebellion. In 1861 the socially constructed notions regarding race did not allow Northerners to accept the first premise and made the latter issues irrelevant. Furthermore, federal law forbade black men from service in the federal military and state militias. This was reaffirmed by the Ohio constitution. Ohioans therefore adamantly denied the free black population a military role in the national crisis.
Citizens expressed this belief in word and deed. Gov. William Dennison, who acted quickly to create military training camps and mobilize recruits, rejected the black volunteers. State adjutant general Henry B. Carrington, an anti-slavery Whig who helped to organize the Republican Party and the man responsible for mustering and organizing Ohio’s regiments early in the war, reminded patriotic black Clevelanders that the Ohio constitution held no provision for the state’s acceptance of their April 19 offer to join the military. In Cincinnati, when a violent mob ripped the American flag from a makeshift black recruiting station, a policeman defended the action by telling the building owner that “we want you damned niggers to keep out of this; this is a white man’s war.”36 African Americans, for decades engaged in numerous conflicts within the state, now had new battles to fight. Local and state black leaders worked from the beginning of the conflict to win the right for men in their communities to enlist in the Union army. They understood that by doing so they would help to preserve their nation and earn recognition that might lead to the equal civil rights they had spent decades trying to obtain. There were over five thousand black men who were ready to help them take advantage of the situation.
The previous decade had ended with a pragmatic optimism; while there had been significant gains for African Americans living in the state, the challenges had not subsided and appeared to be increasing. As a result, prominent black Ohio leaders mobilized to seize the opportunities presented by the national conflict. The Union disaster at Bull Run on July 21, 1861, made it clear that the rebellion would be more difficult to stop than anticipated. President Lincoln requested an additional 500,000 men for three-year enlistments. Upon hearing that Ohio’s quota came to just over 67,000, a number of Cleveland activists responded to the state’s needs while seeking to achieve their own goals for Ohio’s African American population. In October John Malvin and Charles Langston held a meeting at the National Hall on Cleveland’s Public Square at which the group offered Governor Dennison financial, military, and devotional support in order to show their allegiance and worthiness to the United States. In November William T. Boyd and James T. Alston wrote to Secretary of War Simon Cameron explaining that Ohio could easily raise a regiment of able and patriotic blacks. They begged the federal government to “allow us the poor privilege of fighting and, if need be, dying.” Langston was not the only one with experience and connections, and together he, Malvin, Boyd, and Alston were more than capable of fulfilling their promises. Malvin had participated in multiple black conventions at both the state and national level since 1848, and in 1851 he addressed the state constitutional convention, requesting that the members strike the word “white” from the governing document in order to allow black men suffrage rights. In 1860 he joined Langston as a lecturer for the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. Alston was a propertied barber and Boyd had ties with the local black Masons. Backing the war effort and proving that Ohio blacks were loyal citizens and capable soldiers could be mutually beneficial to them and the state.37
Government leaders promptly dismissed the proposals made to them, which were similar to the offers from the black community following the Fort Sumter incident, and Cameron dealt with the requests by replying that the men should contact their state military officials. But as the war intensified, local whites remained committed to their refusal to accept the help of free blacks. To arm such men, prominent and influential or not, would require recognition that they were equal to white soldiers, a change that Anglo-American society was yet unwilling to consider. Warnings against any attempt to redefine the American social hierarchy had begun before the start of the war. Democrats harangued that the state would become a haven for blacks, which would lower wages and cost southern Ohioans and immigrant residents their jobs. Some claimed that as many as two to three hundred thousand slaves would migrate to the state and further denigrate the already “indolent or criminal” black population. During the summer of 1861, emancipation rumors further heightened anxieties for Ohio citizens. Some reactions were extreme, as exemplified by the incident in May when a Hocking County mob tarred and feathered three men and ordered the rest of the black settlers to move within six months. The Columbus Crisis disapproved of the violent tactics but cautioned other Ohio blacks to heed the warning.38
Tensions continued to flare throughout the year and into the next. An estimated forty thousand petitions flooded the state legislature, requesting that Ohio forbid any future black immigration and that it consider the removal of some of those already in the state. Democratic representative Samuel S. Cox of Columbus advised Congress in a June 3, 1862, speech that although slavery was an evil in society, outlawing the institution would have severe repercussions for Ohio, possibly doubling the black population. Local Democrats used the press to exacerbate fears, and by summer they were formally demanding a ban on black migration into the state. Instead of calming white fears, public officials intensified the situation. In June Thomas Ewing, former Republican senator and William Tecumseh Sherman’s father-in-law, reported that the recent influx of black settlers into his hometown of Lancaster troubled the working classes, and Cox played on laborers’ anxieties in his June 3 speech “Emancipation and Its Results—Is Ohio to be Africanized?” in which he claimed workers’ pay would fall 50 percent. On July 10 an argument over wages between white and black dockworkers in Cincinnati led to violence. Over a thousand Irish and German immigrants who feared they would lose their jobs to lesser-paid blacks, especially as the cost of living increased during the war, descended upon the black settlement in the town. During the following weeks, angry whites randomly attacked black workers, and with inadequate police protection, it became increasingly dangerous for African Americans in certain parts of Cincinnati. Tensions rose in other parts of the state as well; frustrated white workers killed one black and destroyed multiple homes in Toledo.39
Republicans grew more concerned as the summer passed. Although they were able to prevent the anti-immigration legislation, they understood the political and economic consequences of their position and attempted to calm their constituents’ fears. The editor of the Sandusky Register made it clear that the party did not like nor did they have any intentions of supporting blacks when he proclaimed that “we would be glad if there was not one in the State.” Many focused on the belief that once slavery was abolished, all blacks would move to the South. Republican representative Albert G. Riddle of Cleveland believed that Ohio blacks would leave and argued that since Southerners were responsible for bringing slaves to the country, then they should have to deal with them. William D. Bickham, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial, told Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s newly appointed secretary of the treasury, that he thought Ohio newspapers should promote the idea that “our free colored population would go South if they were secure from sale into slavery.” Chase explained this theory to Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, who was in New Orleans commanding the Department of the Gulf. The secretary further suggested that the Union military should prevent liberated slaves from leaving the South. The Republican committee of the Ohio legislature and federal congressman John Sherman gave their renewed support to colonization. Lincoln considered this a viable option, and looked at Florida, the Indian Territory, and places out of the country as possible relocation sites.40
Ultimately, however, Abraham Lincoln opted for a more practical use for the growing number of runaway slaves who trailed along behind Union army camps. Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act and the Militia Act on July 17, 1862, which gave the president the ability to use blacks for military and naval service. For Lincoln the laws worked “doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us.” Yet he remained cautious and announced that he did not propose to actually use the men as soldiers. The commander in chief made it clear that he only intended to “employ as laborers” the runaway slaves or contraband. But in private he was already contemplating a larger role for former slaves and free blacks. Lincoln sought advice from his cabinet but decided to wait for a major military victory before expanding this new weapon of war. His decision to move toward emancipation was in part because of the actions of Northern and Southern blacks, as well as a host of other peoples and events. The results extended far beyond his initial goal, dramatically shifted the war objectives, and ultimately led to the most radical change ever to American society.41
Many in the black community found it difficult to be as patient as the president. Upon hearing of the Confiscation Act, the editor of the Christian Recorder wasted no time sharing his disappointment. Although Elisha Weaver recognized the right of the government to call on its people, he reminded readers of the underlying hypocrisy. Weaver railed, “What provision has Congress made, or empowered the President, in relation to guarantying to the colored people of this country full protection from her laws, and the privilege of enjoying all the rights accorded to other human beings in the United States of America?” In August Rev. James H. Payne penned his frustrations. On the first day of the month, while his followers in Hillsboro celebrated the anniversary of the 1834 British emancipation of West Indies slaves, he sat at home in solitude, painfully contemplating when his government would do the same. More troubling to Payne, though, was the Union Party’s conundrum between freeing slaves and the fear that those blacks might move to Ohio. The AME leader could not understand why his flock or his government did not work harder to break the “dark chain or spell of despotism.”42
After the bloodiest single day of the war on September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek, Maryland, Lincoln took the pivotal step to do just that when he issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The presidential decree, which freed those slaves in the states that remained in rebellion after January 1, 1863, made the abolition of slavery a major focus of the war. When the proclamation went into effect that winter it also provided for the recruitment of black troops. Combined, Lincoln’s radical actions were revolutionary. Anticipating disapproval, he defended his far-reaching move by stating that it was an “act of justice warranted by the Constitution … upon military necessity.” He carefully left the border states out of the declaration in order to placate slaveholding populations remaining in the Union. Yet public outcry grew after the release of the amended proclamation, from both those opposed to it and others who wanted more. The president angered abolitionists and black leaders who recognized the limitations of the pronouncement, both the failure to free all slaves and the temporary nature of a wartime measure. Those who hoped for political gain used opposition to the controversial plan for their own goals as well as to push Ohioans further against arming Northern blacks.43
Despite the president’s forceful argument that emancipation was a military decision, not a promotion for black equality, Democrats used the move to validate their antiblack rhetoric. The editors of the Lancaster Ohio Eagle explained that the “only objection that Democrats, and all other people of right-thinking minds, have against the employment of negro soldiers is, that they are a disgrace to the Government that employs them—a reproach to our cause.” They alleged that some Republicans seemed to forget that the Declaration of Independence listed the British use of blacks as one of the reasons American colonists were justified in creating the United States. The strongest accusations came from the Peace Democrats, often called Copperheads. Clement L. Vallandigham of Dayton was the most radical politician in this faction, whose stance against the rebellion gained new energy from the claim that the proclamation was an attempt to make the war about black freedom and equality and that it was no longer about preserving the Union—or at least not how the Copperheads understood the union of states. Vallandigham wanted an America of “forty years ago.” In May 1863 he challenged Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, commander of the Department of the Ohio, who had released an order against any “expressed or implied” sympathy with the Confederacy. The Copperhead stirred up Knox County residents in Mount Vernon with claims that the war sought to defeat liberty and replace it with despotism, freeing blacks while enslaving whites. Soon after, Burnside sent soldiers to arrest Vallandigham at his Dayton home. A military court in Cincinnati convicted him less than a week later.44
Ohio Republicans faced increased challenges from their opponents’ criticisms, before and after Vallandigham’s questionable arrest and Lincoln’s decision to exile his loudest political critic. The party’s failure to refute the verbal attacks became obvious as early as the fall 1862 elections. Voters elected Democrats to a majority of the contested state legislative seats. Thomas Ewing, who had earlier joined prowar Democrats to create the Union Party, and other disheartened Republicans blamed Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation for the election results.45 However, voters had more on their minds than just the abolition issue when they withheld their support for Republicans. Many civilians and soldiers did not care for Lincoln’s decision to use black soldiers in the war effort.
While it appeared that the setback might weaken Northern support for the wartime administration, African Americans welcomed the national debate over their military participation and black Ohioans intensified their campaign to force the state’s leaders to accept their involvement. In August 1862 John Mercer Langston delivered a speech to over 3,500 in Xenia. Inspired by his rhetoric, a large number of men in the audience pledged their assistance. Afterward Langston went to Columbus, where he sent word to Gov. David Tod that he was prepared to lead a black regiment for the state. Tod, a Youngstown Democrat who had backed Stephen A. Douglas for president, had joined the Union Party once the war began, and in 1861 Ohioans elected him as their next governor after he committed his support to the Lincoln administration. Despite his change in allegiance, Tod rejected black military service. He also had no interest in an offer by Columbus blacks to serve as sentinels at Camp Chase. Later that month, Clevelander William E. Ambush suggested that the state use black guards at the rebel prison camp on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie. Before the war the prominent African American barber had been a member of the Fugitive Aid Society, but during the national conflict he shifted his attention from helping runaway slaves to raising black troops. Tod refused Ambush’s offer as well. Nonetheless, movements toward change were already underway.46
At the national level, Lincoln, prior to the release of the formal declaration in January 1863, had already begun implementing measures that shaped the provision to recruit blacks. Initially he focused on employing the contraband as laborers, and he refused to commit to making them soldiers as he tested public and military reactions. Abolitionists and influential black leaders, including Frederick Douglass, prodded Lincoln to address the issue of arming blacks. Douglass wrote a strong editorial in his Douglass’ Monthly, in which he criticized the president and the Union for rejecting the free black American offers to help, proclaiming that “a man drowning would not refuse to be saved even by a colored hand.” Lincoln could no longer ignore the issue of blacks in the army, especially after several Union generals moved in that direction on their own.47
Some in the military did not have the civilian luxury of debating the consequences of using blacks to bolster the Union cause. In May 1861 Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler declared that runaway slaves were “contraband of war,” and soon he was employing the fugitives at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Butler used these men as servants and also to free white soldiers from fatigue duty. Some Northerners believed that the runaways should be returned if their owners supported the Union cause. Over time the number of black camp followers grew at an alarming rate, causing some Union regiments to serve as a refuge by offering food, clothing, education, and protection. By August Congress had legitimized the actions with the first Confiscation Act. The law allowed the Union army to acquire any Confederate property, including slaves, that aided the enemy in rebellion. In the spring of 1862, abolitionist Maj. Gen. David C. Hunter formed a regiment of contraband on the South Carolina Sea Islands to help his forces after he declared martial law and freed slaves in the areas of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina under his control. Although Lincoln ordered they be disbanded, the War Department later allowed the men to serve. Kansas senator and general James H. Lane began recruiting black soldiers for his state in July 1862. The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry participated in battles in the western theater before the government officially accepted the regiment in early 1863. Further, as the commander of New Orleans in August 1862, Butler announced that he would accept members of the Native Guards, the state militia previously under the Confederate States of America, and any other free blacks who wanted to volunteer. Three of the four regiments raised by Butler had black officers, but within a year most had resigned or been removed by Butler’s replacement in New Orleans, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks.48
Ohioans also found it necessary to use the black population as part of their defensive strategy. In the summer of 1862 rumors of a possible Confederate invasion of Cincinnati spread throughout the southern part of the state; across the river, Confederate forces under Col. John Hunt Morgan and Gen. Kirby Smith were threatening Kentucky. On September 1 Gen. Lewis Wallace declared “Citizens for labor; soldiers for battle” when he placed the city under martial law, and the next day Mayor George Hatch called upon every man to assist. For black men like twenty-seven-year-old Allen Cruse, it was a confusing time. Cincinnati had repeatedly rejected their offers to help, leading many to wonder if they should get involved. By that evening it became clear that he and others would have no choice. Wallace ordered the urban population, including black adult males, to assist his military forces.49
Under the command of local attorney and abolitionist William Martin Dickson, what became known as the Black Brigade toiled from September 4 to September 20 without arms, and the first week of that time without pay. Cruse worked with forty-one other black men in the 1st Regiment, Company F, including Thomas Bowman, a twenty-five-year-old boatman born and raised in Cincinnati. Over a thousand black men served in seventeen companies and three regiments, often with black men serving as their officers. They spent most of the time working in Covington, Kentucky, flying an American flag presented to them with “The Black Brigade of Cincinnati” sewn across it. When camp commandant James Lupton, a hardware merchant by trade, presented the flag, he explained the importance of working under the national emblem. He told the men that they would now help protect the symbol of liberty, and he promised that if they asserted their manhood in this way, it would help to end slavery and create “a land of the free—one country, one flag, one destiny.” Three weeks later when they were discharged, Dickson complimented the men for their hard labor and successful efforts at building fortifications for the protection of the city. But it was clear to most whites that these men were a military fatigue attachment only. Despite their achievements and service, and obvious pride in themselves, the official recognition stopped with their commander’s acknowledgment.50
Most Ohioans had no intention of allowing the men or any other blacks to trade their laborer’s tools for weapons. Democrats renewed the argument that blacks were incapable of organized military service, and they also refused to consider the possibility of forcing brave and honorable white soldiers to associate with black men in uniform. Sentiments against black military involvement came from within the black community as well. William H. Parham, a schoolteacher from Cincinnati, told a friend that as far as he was concerned the whites were welcome to their own fighting. A man from Chillicothe offered a more venomous response, claiming that if any “colored people” offered to defend a government that “despoils them of their rights” they deserved to be oppressed by such a government. Early in the war, the AME expressed its opposition to service in the Christian Recorder. Some commentary focused on how the “paltry causes” of the conflict, those over territory and politics, concerned only Northern and Southern whites. More alarming was the evidence that the war was sinful, as men who had sworn to protect the country were now breaking their obligation to preserve the United States, and that those involved “must appear in judgement before the all-wise Creator, to account for every … deed.” The clergymen suggested that black prayer would be a better solution than arming their men.51
Most blacks in Ohio did not agree and instead argued that they should participate in the war effort as fully as possible. Oberlin College graduate James G. Mitchell of Cincinnati warned that their liberties were threatened by the “fierce and bitter contest between freedom and despotism.” The black schoolteacher called on African Americans to recognize the historical moment and chastised them not to be “idle spectators” during the crisis. Pastor John R. Bowles explained in a letter to the Scioto Gazette that the First Colored Baptist Church of Chillicothe was “loyal to the government, without an exception.” Bowles, who served as a schoolteacher before becoming a minister, acted upon his declaration and joined the 55th Massachusetts along with many of his neighbors. He served the regiment as a commissioned chaplain.52
Gradually, many white Ohio leaders began to change their position. Gen. William Tecumsah Sherman did not look forward to having his soldiers associate with blacks, but with reluctance he posited that since African Americans were the cause of the conflict they should be put to use to end it. His brother, Sen. John Sherman, gave a somewhat more supportive endorsement. He believed that neither party should throw away the opportunity to gain an additional weapon against the Confederate government. In February 1863 Republican representative William Parker Cutler of Washington County reflected on the issue in his diary. After spending the day listening to his fellow congressmen, he chastised Democrats for turning the debate over a national draft into a black equality issue. He noted that their actions were simply a political tactic that “made every effort to rouse up the worst prejudices of the army & the people” in order to build up the “peace party.”53
One of speakers that day, Darke County representative William Allen, told Congress that the “proposition of raising these regiments of negro soldiers to fight the battle of the country is so absurd and ridiculous as a military measure” that he could not vote for it, finishing his speech crying, “The Union as it was, under the Constitution as it is.” Cutler saw it quite differently. An abolitionist, Cutler described the House passage of Thaddeus Stevens’s amendment to the Enrollment Act as a sign of progress, as it assured the inclusion of black men. Yet the reality of such a radical redefinition of military participation did not come from his antislavery leanings alone. Cutler’s belief that the vote served as recognition of “Negro manhood” reflected nineteenth-century social ideals that combined masculinity and martial action.54
Ohio blacks certainly understood the significance. On January 16, 1863, black Clevelanders celebrated the issuance of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Featured speakers included Frederick Douglass and John Mercer Langston. Once again, Langston’s rhetoric focused on the masculine right and duty of black men as he warned that ‘“sooner or later’ black Ohioans would fight for freedom and citizenship.” They did not have to wait much longer. Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew, one of the leading proponents of free black participation, swiftly took action after the proclamation went into effect. Despite the state’s small black population, Massachusetts promptly began enlisting blacks. They recruited local men as well as those from the remaining loyal states and Canada into the 54th Massachusetts and then the 55th. Other Northern states began seeking permission to recruit new regiments of USCT as the enthusiasm for African American enlistment spread and federal quota requirements increased.55
Northern public attitudes toward black military participation shifted slowly but steadily. Several reasons accounted for the new willingness to arm both Northern free men and former Southern slaves. In part there was a growing sense of compassion for the suffering of innocent blacks subjected to increasingly violent measures, especially after the July 1863 New York draft riots left dozens of blacks dead and hundreds wounded. And many whites disapproved of the Confederate atrocities against black soldiers that they read about in the Northern press. But most important were the positive reports concerning black military performances in 1863 at Port Hudson in May, Milliken’s Bend in June, and Fort Wagner in July. The overwhelming praise from white commanders and soldiers assured Northerners that Lincoln’s course might be the best for the Union after all. Additionally, the rising death toll of white men alarmed Ohioans. The Union Party candidate for governor, John Brough of Cleveland, courted Dayton voters by declaring that he was “indifferent how we whip these men down South” and would rather the Union arm blacks than “send any more of our sons and brothers down there.”56
Democrats, alarmed at the growing public approval, switched to a new tactic to agitate white Northerners. Politicians chastised the federal government for disgracing the civilization of the world by employing “barbarians,” and they warned Ohioans that once blacks served in the military, Republicans would grant them citizenship and possibly suffrage. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that soon after the federal government granted Ohio blacks the right to join the army, they “assumed an effrontery and impudence that is positively unbearable.” As hard as they tried, however, opponents could not stem the tide of changed opinion. While serving as the commanding officer of the Army and Department of the Tennessee, Ohio native Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant expressed his approval of using black soldiers, promising that he would order officers under his authority to “take hold of the new policy of arming the negroes and using them against rebels with a will.” In August he wrote to Lincoln, sharing his opinion that the Army’s use of blacks combined with the Emancipation Proclamation “is the heavyest blow yet given the Confederacy.”57 The course was set, and Ohio black men could finally serve their nation.
In May 1863 the War Department created the U.S. Bureau of Colored Troops to provide federal control over the process of black recruitment, organization, and standardization. During the rebellion, the bureau grew to include over 160 regiments of infantry, cavalry, and heavy artillery. As a result, approximately 179,000 black men served in the Union army, and roughly 38,000 gave their life during the war. To appease white skeptics, the bureau allowed only white men to serve as commissioned officers, a practice that angered many blacks, who were already displeased with the segregation of troops, inferior supplies and treatment, lower pay, and relegation to fatigue duty. In August 1863 Frederick Douglass resigned as a recruiter over these inequalities. Yet despite the unfavorable circumstances, most realized the significant victory they had achieved. The enlistment of black men offered the promise of so much more to the individual soldiers as well as to the African American community. One worried Democrat, Rep. Chilton A. White of Brown County, understood that once men became soldiers it would be necessary to extend equality to them. The Mexican War veteran, who grew up in Georgetown, Ohio, at the same time as Ulysses S. Grant, could not deny the powerful social implications of military service regardless of his political allegiance.58
Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew acted upon the public debate over the recruitment of black men in Ohio. He obtained the services of Oberlinian John Mercer Langston, who in turn sought assistance from his brother Charles and his brother-in-law O. S. B. Wall to recruit Ohioans for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments. Wall, who owned a boot-making business, helped Charles during the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and practiced law with John Mercer. Two of the soldiers that Wall recruited, his brothers John and Albert, enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts. The men targeted their own communities first, recruiting heavily in Lorain and Cuyahoga counties in the Western Reserve. Then they traveled to other parts of the state. In Toledo fifty men volunteered after they heard Wall speak, and in Clinton County he received twenty more enlistees. By May the 54th was a full regiment. Such a large number of blacks from Ohio took advantage of the opportunity to join the Union army that Gov. David Tod requested that Andrew place them together “into companies by themselves.”59
In order to further increase volunteers for the 55th, Andrew’s recruiters expanded into Illinois and Indiana. They also sought volunteers from the most concentrated centers of black population in central and southwestern Ohio, including James W. Bray, a barber from Bellefontaine. Bray mustered into service at Camp Meigs in Readville, Massachusetts. The twenty-one-year-old joined Company C of the 55th, but soon the officers placed him on detail as an orderly at regimental headquarters. Although he spent most of his life in the state of his birth, Ohio did not get credit for his enlistment, Massachusetts did. Over 350 Ohioans served in the 55th Massachusetts, more than from any other state. The black community’s desire to participate in the Union’s war effort was overwhelming.60
Andrew’s and the recruiters’ success forced the Ohio governor to recognize that he was losing valuable numbers of enlistees who could have been credited to his state’s quota. David Tod encouraged John Mercer Langston to increase his recruitment of Ohio men but suggested that if enough men joined Langston should create Ohio companies for the Massachusetts regiments. Tod believed that would earn Ohio credits toward the national draft. Langston refused, and the federal government awarded Governor Andrew the credit for the black men forwarded by Langston. Tod’s displeasure grew when Ohioans failed to get the commissioned officer appointments for these regiments. Yet as late as May 11, 1863, he remained reluctant to accept black volunteers, declaring that he did “not propose to raise any colored troops.” Tod believed that he was unable to consider the help of blacks because it would drive away white volunteers, and he made it clear that Ohio soldiers did not need the black man’s assistance to defend a white man’s government.61
It took the combination of decreasing numbers of white volunteers and the negative reactions to the draft to force the governor to finally allow Ohio’s blacks to enlist in the state. In early July 1862 the federal government called for an additional 300,000 soldiers, and a month later Lincoln announced that the Union army required yet another 300,000 volunteers. As a result, Tod had to find 74,000 more men. Unfortunately, the initial excitement that followed the April and July 1861 calls had long since subsided, and recruitment had slowed considerably. Citizens had willingly signed over enough of Ohio’s sons, fathers, and husbands. In an attempt to avoid conscription measures, state officials divided the draft quota by counties, and then by township so as to apply local pressure to ensure sufficient volunteers. The move was not successful, so in July Tod approved the use of local bounties, a form of bonus pay, to encourage enlistment. Despite the financial enticements, only twenty-six of the state’s eighty-eight counties had filled quota requirements by October, and it was obvious that Ohio could no longer avoid the draft. Of the 12,251 men drafted in Ohio in 1862, only 2,400 were actually forced into service. Close to 4,800 of the drafted men purchased substitutes, 1,900 fled the state, and 2,900 were discharged as unfit for duty. After months of frustrating efforts, Ohioans finally met the state’s quota, but Tod had learned his lesson. In 1863, when the president once again required each state to send more men, Tod was able to keep Ohio out of the draft in part because of his reluctant change of heart concerning the use of black troops.62
Despite the Northern disillusionment with mounting battle losses and the growing tensions over federal conscription policies, black Ohioans persevered in their attempts to contribute to the Union cause. John Mercer Langston, who used his experience from recruiting for Massachusetts, helped to create war-meeting committees in Ohio’s black communities. Langston, who worked quietly and cautiously at first, waited until support for the regiments increased before acting publicly. He used his contacts with black leaders, often local ministers, to organize speeches and recruitment sessions. Women also became involved, forming Soldiers’ Aid Societies to raise money and supplies to support the men’s efforts. In some areas Langston faced hostile reactions, such as in Circleville and Lancaster, where local whites forbade him from entering their towns. Undaunted, on March 30, 1863, black leaders held their second wartime meeting in Cleveland. In order to be prepared if the chance should arise, they created a plan to recruit and drill black volunteers. William E. Ambush proposed they organize actual military companies that could fight for their own state or any state that would allow them the opportunity. The men promptly adopted his idea.63
The governor, who found it extremely difficult to encourage sufficient numbers of white volunteers, finally took the men seriously. Soon after the federal government created the U.S. Bureau of Colored Troops, organized as part of the Adjutant General’s Office in order to oversee the recruitment and organization of all black troops, Tod informed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton that a “regiment can be promptly raised in Ohio.” He reminded the War Department leader that Ohio had willingly sent recruits for the two Massachusetts regiments, but now he wanted to use future black volunteers for a black regiment that would be credited to Ohio. Stanton, a Steubenville native with a strong antislavery family background, acknowledged the state’s contribution to Governor Andrew’s efforts but requested that before forming its own regiment Ohio wait until the 55th Massachusetts had filled its ranks. Stanton urged Tod to be patient and to take the opportunity to learn from Andrew’s experiences, concluding with a promise that if Massachusetts was successful, then “there will be enough left to give you a regiment or more in Ohio.” Although the reply disappointed Tod, he was temporarily appeased by the suggestion that the secretary would eventually approve at least two black regiments that would be credited to Ohio’s draft quotas.64
By mid-June Tod had again requested Stanton’s permission to begin recruiting a black Ohio regiment. He anxiously explained that Governor Andrew’s agents were no longer taking recruits. On June 18, 1863, Stanton agreed and reported that directions would soon follow. The recently appointed chief of the U.S. Bureau of Colored Troops, Maj. Charles W. Foster, sent Tod the instructions. The Ohio governor received permission to raise one infantry regiment of three-year enlistments, but no federal bounties would be provided for these recruits. The War Department preferred a full regiment but might take single companies if circumstances required. Tod wasted no time putting the directive into effect.65
The good news could only partially console the governor. The day before, Tod had learned of the Union Party’s decision not to endorse his reelection in the upcoming fall contest. Despite his hard work, leading politicians and supporters were unhappy with his administration and blamed him for the expense and management difficulties of complying with the Union’s military calls. Instead they supported John Brough, president of the Bellefontaine and Indianapolis Railroad, as their candidate. Despite the personal setback, Tod remained committed to his gubernatorial duties, including increasing the number of Ohio recruits by allowing black men to enlist.66
On June 22 Tod announced that he would raise a black regiment, the 127th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). He ordered officers at Camp Delaware, twenty-eight miles north of Columbus, to prepare to receive the enlistees. Tod reminded citizens that Ohio law did not provide support for black soldiers or their families and urged them to contribute to a voluntary subscription fund. He called for county military committees to facilitate the fund-raising effort and asked railroad companies to donate transportation to the camp to help defer state expenses. The governor offered further enticement when he suggested that a second black regiment could be expected, noting that “it may be proper to add that our State will have credit on its quota for all colored troops raised.”67 Although willing and eager to enlist, the black men remaining in Ohio after the Massachusetts recruiting drive could hardly afford to place their families in the financial jeopardy that the limited economic terms offered.
David Tod appointed John Mercer Langston and O. S. B. Wall to help recruit men for the 127th, renamed the 5th USCT due to a restructuring change in the U.S. Bureau of Colored Troops that reflected the federalization of the black regiments. Although the first men had mustered in at Camp Delaware by late June, recruitment proved more difficult than Tod anticipated. The governor initially believed that it would take a mere thirty days to fill the regiment, but there were no bounty enticements and no state funds for impoverished black families in Ohio, so many Ohio blacks hesitated, while others looked for other opportunities. The decision was theirs to make. They were aware of their options and made decisions that suited their personal needs and interests. Men volunteered for the navy or with other states that offered additional financial benefits, like the group of twenty Zanesville men who went to Rhode Island because of the promise of a $275 bounty and equal pay to free black enlistees. Hundreds of black Ohio men chose to be employees of the U.S. Army, and worked as teamsters, laborers, and cooks, where they earned higher monthly pay than if they enlisted as soldiers. Slow recruitment was also compounded by the lack of contributions to the voluntary fund used to feed and transport the black soldiers and to provide help for their families. Tod tried to redirect the focus on the nonmonetary benefits of service. On June 17 he welcomed a group of men on the way to Camp Delaware to the State House in Columbus. The governor admitted that “there is and has been in Ohio and elsewhere a prejudice against the colored race” that denied the men civil and political rights. Military service was “the only way” for them “to enjoy these rights, and get rid of this prejudice.” The governor encouraged the soldiers to “fight for them,” and in return he promised that “in all respects” they would “be treated like the white soldier.”68
But problems only increased for Ohioans as they attempted to recruit black troops. Ten days after Tod’s speech, Stanton announced that the pay for black soldiers in the USCT would be $10 per month and that they could be charged $3 per month for clothing. In comparison, white privates earned $13 per month and were given a $3.50 clothing allowance. Three companies of black soldiers had already enlisted by the time the War Department released the disheartening news, and many feared the unequal treatment would extend to their entire military experience. Tod, concerned about losing valuable recruiting numbers, promised that would not be the case for his enlistees. He contacted the War Department several times, seeking clothing, camp supplies, subsistence, and funds for the effectiveness and comfort of the troops. Tod also argued for “equality so far as dollars and cents are concerned.” When the state ran out of money to compensate recruiters, Langston and Wall persevered without pay, believing in the cause more than they cared about their compensation.69 And despite the frustrations, black Ohioans continued to expand their role in the war. Too much was at stake to do otherwise.
Wall met with Athens County blacks in July, encouraging the men to prove their worthiness for equality and liberty. In early August Langston spoke to a receptive crowd in Xenia. His speech, “The Hour and the Duty of Colored Men to the Government,” succinctly expressed the belief held by mid-nineteenth-century blacks that military participation served as a key component to earning citizenship rights and proving one’s manhood. The people responded and offered to support the Union and collect funds to help with recruitment. They resolved that “it is the duty of the colored people of Ohio to fill up at once, by volunteering, the noble colored regiments now being formed at Camp Delaware.” Black Clevelanders also remained steadfast despite the setbacks. At a meeting in the Metropolitan Hall on August 22, the men offered themselves to serve in the 5th, promising that “The colored citizens … will do their duty.”70
In the first five weeks of recruiting, over 400 black men volunteered. Most came from the southern part of the state, including a large number from Hamilton and Athens counties. This was in part a reaction to the July 13 invasion by John Hunt Morgan and 1,700 or more Confederate cavalry. They terrorized Ohioans and destroyed their property, starting near Cincinnati and moving southeast across the state before heading northward into Columbiana County, where Union forces captured Morgan on July 26. But enlistments slowed in August. Langston continued his quest, and after speaking in Massillon on September 4 at least 14 Stark County blacks enlisted. But it took until late October 1863 for the regiment of nine partial companies to assemble at Camp Delaware, much longer than the thirty days Tod had predicted.71
Visitors to the camp reported to local newspapers on the black soldiers’ abilities and encouraged more men to enlist. Some comments, although positive, showed the widespread belief held by white Ohioans that these men were inferior. The Delaware Gazette shared one account that claimed that despite the influx of blacks into their community, “not a chicken coop has been robbed … not a fence destroyed.” Others paid more attention to the potential benefits of future black conscription, noting that making them soldiers was the “way to keep Negroes loyal.” In late September Tod advised the War Department that the 5th USCT had a nearly full regiment, but he also reminded officials that the men had been drilling with inferior equipment and requested a thousand Springfield rifles to rectify the situation. An appeal in the Delaware Gazette pleaded for more funds to pay recruiters who were working to fill the regiment, and to offer soldiers the same $300 bounty that the federal government offered white soldiers. On November 14, the 5th USCT left for Fort Monroe in Virginia with the governor’s trust that they would “do honor to themselves and the State.” The successful organization of Ohio’s first black regiment came as a result of a reluctant coalition of white and black supporters.72
With the departure of the black regiment, Tod feared losing the already waning recruiting momentum and even more so the valuable numbers toward the latest draft quota, so in December 1863 he sought authorization for a second black regiment. Maj. Charles W. Foster sent word on January 11, 1864, the first day of John Brough’s administration, that the War Department had granted Ohio permission to enlist black soldiers for the 27th United States Colored Troops. The state and federal governments threw their support behind the new regiment by denying the 5th USCT, which had left Camp Delaware with companies composed of only eighty men each, further access to Ohio men.73 This did not insure smooth recruiting, though, as the state’s most successful recruiter had since turned his attention to other matters.
John Mercer Langston believed that he could better serve the African American community by redirecting his wartime efforts. In early 1864 he concentrated on the fight for equal pay and the appointment of black commissioned officers, and he sought his own command of a black regiment. Langston argued that in order for the black community to prove its ability and make its case for an equal status in society, it must be allowed to have leadership roles in the USCT. He helped to encourage members of Congress to increase soldiers’ pay but failed at his other goals. His absence left the difficult task of filling the ranks of the 27th upon the shoulders of O. S. B. Wall. But this lasted only a short time, as Wall found the lure of an appointment too tempting to resist. He eventually received a captain’s commission in the 104th USCT, but disappointingly his chief responsibility remained recruiting, not leading, soldiers.74
The scarcity of press coverage on the formation of a second black Ohio regiment combined with the loss of the two influential and experienced leaders placed the organization of the 27th United States Colored Troops in jeopardy. But Ohio blacks once again rose to the challenge and proved their willingness to support their state, their nation, and their rightful place in both. Despite the preponderance of racially discriminatory practices within the state and in the nation’s military organization, Ohioans joined the effort to provide a second black regiment to assist the Union cause.