4

The Labors
of War

The men in the 27th United States Colored Troops reacquainted themselves with life in the Petersburg trenches as the summer of 1864 came to an end. The IX Corps’s new leader, Maj. Gen. John G. Parke, took the opportunity to review the organization of his command. On September 1 he reduced his four divisions to three. He disbanded the 1st Division, which had suffered more losses than the others, and sent the soldiers to the 2nd and 3rd divisions. Two weeks later he made the 3rd Division the new 1st Division and reassigned the 27th and the other black regiments in Gen. Edward Ferrero’s 4th Division to the new 3rd Division. The change meant little to the 27th’s leadership, which struggled to fill the officer positions in the regiment. Albert M. Blackman, who was promoted to colonel on September 1, worked to fill the vacancy of lieutenant colonel, and on September 3 he asked the assistant adjutant general of the Army of the Potomac if the captains Alexander S. Hempstead, Sanders M. Huyek, and Isaac N. Gardner would be permitted to appear before a board of examiners to determine who should be promoted. Although his request was granted, Gov. John Brough had already approved John W. Donnellan’s promotion from the 83rd OVI to become the new lieutenant colonel of the 27th USCT, and Donnellan mustered into the regiment on September 13. Blackman did obtain one officer of his choice, although Charles W. Foster of the Adjutant General’s Office pointed out that Blackman failed to follow the appropriate procedures. Albert G. Jones received a promotion to first lieutenant and adjutant while on a leave of absence. He returned to serve as the regiment’s adjutant on October 11.¹

The regiment still had vacancies. There was no major present, and no chaplain had been appointed. The surgeon Francis M. Weld had arrived in early May, but since July had spent most of his time at the division hospital. Battle losses and illness had reduced the number of company commanders. Albert G. Jones reported to the Ohio State Journal that only one of the seven captains who had left with the regiment in April still served. Likewise, the regiment’s noncommissioned support also suffered. Sgt. Maj. Charles F. Woodson had been sick all summer, spending most of his days in the hospital, and George L. Smith, the commissary sergeant, had only one month of experience in his position. There was some good news, though. The newly promoted captain Matthew R. Mitchell had recovered from the wounds that he received while on picket a month earlier and returned to Company H. But with much else the same, the soldiers in the Ohio regiment remained in the rear of Petersburg’s lines once again, where they carried axes and shovels instead of rifles.²

In September the Union finally had a concrete reason to celebrate. After commencing his march through the South, Gen. William T. Sherman captured Atlanta on September 2 and helped place Abraham Lincoln in a better position for the upcoming election. They celebrated along the Petersburg front by opening their artillery at midnight in a display that looked like fireworks. Then, on September 22, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered a one-hundred-gun salute fired upon the rebel front to announce Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s victory in the Shenandoah Valley over Gen. Jubal Early.³

For the men in the trenches it was otherwise fairly quiet, at least from military sounds. One concerned soldier remarked on the other noises present in camp, stating, “Profanity has reached such a pitch, that it very often shocks the ears of even wicked men.” Some of the men believed that the inability to hold regular religious meetings had facilitated the poor behavior of the black troops. The lack of an appointed chaplain to the 27th most likely also contributed. Despite the alarm over the situation, there was simply little energy or time to adequately administer to the soldiers’ spiritual needs.⁴

Throughout the month the 27th toiled continuously. They helped to construct and fortify supply lines that secured a more steady delivery of foodstuff from City Point. Some days they worked late into the early morning hours fortifying breastworks. Other than having a few assignments in the picket lines, the men provided the work force for the IX Corps, felling lumber more than Confederate soldiers. Yet throughout their labors they remained under a constant threat of attack and on more than one autumn night officers called the men to the ready.⁵

As the weather cooled in late September, Grant believed it was time to once again move against the Confederate entrenchments south and west of Petersburg. He directed Gen. George B. Meade and Gen. Benjamin F. Butler to coordinate a two-front attack to commence on October 5, but changing his mind based on events in the western theater, Grant decided to move before Gen. Robert E. Lee’s troops returned from the failed attempt to stop Sheridan. He also wanted to take advantage of the extra manpower provided by the recent arrival of fresh one-year recruits. First Grant sent Butler’s X and XVIII Corps to hit from the east, but this was mostly a diversionary tactic in order to facilitate Meade’s operation. Later, on September 29 and 30, Butler’s troops met the enemy near Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights, where black troops proved highly successful to the Union cause. Ohioans from the 5th USCT, Powhatan Beatty, Milton M. Holland, and Robert A. Pinn, received the Congressional Medal of Honor for their contributions.⁶

Meanwhile, the 27th prepared to participate under Parke’s command. His charge, to stop the Confederate supplies coming out of the Shenandoah Valley and entering Petersburg and Richmond on the Southside Railroad, was Grant’s primary interest. The Union took control of the City Point Railroad and the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad in June, and the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad in August, but Grant needed to further weaken Lee’s forces. He ordered Parke and the IX Corps to break through the westernmost line of Southern defenses. On September 25 Parke placed the divisions of Orlando B. Willcox and Robert B. Potter in reserve to prepare for the new assault. He moved the 27th and the 3rd Division into the front trenches to occupy the opening left by the white troops between Fort Davis and Fort Howard. The men once again traded their axes for firearms.⁷

This time the black soldiers performed more than defensive picket duty. Parke issued orders for several reconnaissance missions in order to locate the weakest point along the Confederate lines. On September 28 Edward Ferrero sent out a scouting party from the 1st Brigade of his 3rd Division. When they returned to camp, the men reported that they had come upon almost a mile of lightly protected rebel defenses near Vaughn Road, also saying that when they pushed to within 260 yards of the enemy lines, they saw only a few Confederate cavalry. Later that night rebel pickets fired upon the Northern soldiers as they changed duty. Ferrero prepared the 1st Division for a possible attack, but it proved to be a false alarm caused by overzealous reports from his underexperienced troops.⁸

The exaggerated claims of rebel activity from the USCT caused Ferrero to question the scouting reports, so the next morning he decided to check for himself. When he led 750 men from the 27th USCT into enemy territory, he discovered that the first party had not reached as far as they believed they had and had simply seen a group of rebel scouts. Ferrero and the black soldiers in the Ohio regiment found that the enemy actually had a highly fortified defensive position. Ferrero decided against an advance with his inexperienced troops and returned to camp to report his findings to Parke.⁹

As the 27th made their way back to the trenches, the white divisions of the IX Corps prepared to take a more direct action. Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg of the 2nd Cavalry Division reported that he was prepared to “demonstrate toward Poplar Spring Church or wherever” his men could find the enemy. Early Friday morning, Parke led his 1st and 2nd Divisions along with Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren and two divisions from his V Corps to support Gregg. A total of twenty-four thousand men marched toward the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad on the road leading to Poplar Spring Church. Although they were unable to break through, they extended the Union position westward toward the Southside Railroad.¹⁰

During the fighting, the 3rd Division remained in the trenches west of Jerusalem Plank Road between the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad and Fort Alexander Hays. The 27th and their comrades successfully held the Union position when just after noon on October 1 enemy fire hit their lines. This lasted only a brief time, but officers placed the soldiers at the ready. As the men waited, it began to rain. Then, just after 5:00 P.M. Maj. Gen. William Mahone’s men tried to attack the black troops. Although they had lined up for battle, most of the 3rd returned to the trenches to avoid the assault while the rain drove the Confederates back.¹¹

The wet and gloomy weather continued for the next several days, and heavy downpours stopped action for some time. Early on the dark, muddy morning of October 3, the 48th Mississippi of Brig. Gen. Nathaniel H. Harris’s brigade made a second attempt on the black picket lines near Jerusalem Plank Road. Even though the men had suffered from the cold and shortage of rations during the previous days, all the rebels could do was to startle the outposts of the 3rd Division. The black soldiers remained calm, and instead of challenging the rebels, some of the USCT retreated to seek assistance. The news of the Confederate effort spread quickly through the lines, and soon the black soldiers stationed farthest west on the line opened fire and sent the rebels back to their own trenches.¹²

Northern leadership failed to recognize the black soldiers’ ability to hold the line. In part it had to do with the information that came from several captured southerners who had reported to Union officials that during the attempted attacks by Confederates the rebels had successfully apprehended some of the black troops without any resistance. General Meade was furious and without any further confirmation lashed out at Ferrero. The stunned leader had no idea what his superior officer was talking about, as he knew only of a few USCT killed and injured. Later that morning Meade learned that in fact the line had held, but it did not change his overall view of the blacks in his command.¹³

Once again, Ulysses S. Grant had implemented a costly plan with only partial success. The Union paid with three times the casualties as the rebels. Near Richmond, Benjamin F. Butler’s troops took Fort Harrison and pushed the Union lines to Darbytown Road. Meade’s men extended their lines to Peebles’ Farm, west of the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad, and added a mile and a half to the network of trenches southwest around Petersburg. Although they failed to capture the Southside Railroad, the Northern troops stretched out Lee’s army to the point that the Confederate general openly discussed the possibility of losing Richmond if he did not get more men and supplies.¹⁴

The expansion of Union lines meant a return to fatigue duty for the men of the 27th. By October 5 Ferrero had followed orders to remove his 3rd Division from their position near Fort Alexander Hays. They marched west of the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad to relieve Maj. Gen. Gershom Mott’s division of the II Corps near Poplar Spring Church. Parke stationed the 27th in the rear of the IX Corps defenses, between Fort Cummings and Fort Dushane on Squirrel Level Road. Despite proving their military ability in the recent action, the black soldiers’ return to the back lines lasted for several weeks. They worked hard, building two redoubts on the front line, three redoubts along the flank, and two more on the rear line. In addition to the construction duty, they worked felling trees to create parapets protected by slashing timbers that connected each of the redoubts. Only a few of the men reported to picket duty. For Joseph G. Stevens of Company E, his time in the front lines resulted in a bullet wound to his right side. Doubt must have nagged at the tired soldiers in the 27th, who carried tools instead of muskets. Were they fighters or laborers for the Union army?¹⁵

Parke recognized his black soldiers’ accomplishments when he reported to his superiors that their conduct, with only a few exceptions, deserved praise. He was concerned about the “new material,” as they hurt the efficiency of his troops. They needed drilling and discipline, especially the conscripts and substitutes arriving in Petersburg. Parke also complained about the growing number of bounty jumpers. By the third year of the war an increasing number of blacks had joined for the financial rewards, especially since draftees could no longer pay a $300 commutation fee to avoid service. Substitutes could therefore demand higher payment, many of whom “skedaddled” not long after reaching the front.¹⁶

The Delaware Gazette reported in September that 300 more men left the black soldiers’ training camp for Petersburg. Successful recruiting in Ohio made the 27th USCT an overmanned regiment, even if some of the “new material” proved less than desirable. Unlike many of the black companies in the Army of the Potomac that had lost a significant number of men from both battle casualties and illness, the 27th had suffered comparatively little. Therefore, the extra men coming from the state had to be shared. The 4th USCT, which had over 1,000 men when it left Maryland in September 1863, had been reduced to just over 300 when state leaders employed recruitment brokers to help fill its ranks. The brokers sent 196 Ohioans to the 4th in August. On September 7 Charles W. Foster, chief of the Bureau of Colored Troops, wrote to the superintendent of volunteer recruiting services in Columbus that because both the 5th and 27th USCT regiments had full numbers, future black Ohioans who volunteered, substituted, or were drafted must be sent to the 16th, 17th, or 44rd USCT. To the relief of state government officials, Ohio could continue to count the numbers toward their quotas.¹⁷

On September 20 Foster informed Parke that the commanding officer of the 27th had reported to the War Department that his regiment had 1,100 men. Even though 250 of those were absent due to illness or battle injuries, the numbers still exceeded regulation. As a result, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton issued orders that 95 of the extra soldiers be transferred to the 23rd USCT of the 2nd Brigade. The 23rd, raised largely from the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., area, had seen more active duty than the 27th and had participated in heavy skirmishes in late May and early June while the rest of the black division guarded the supply trains. Consequently, the regiment had lost a significant number of men. Between October 17 and 20, 75 soldiers left the 27th. Albert M. Blackman and his officers carefully selected the transfers to ensure that the regiment sent mostly suspect recruits. Of the men, 31 were substitutes or draftees, and 60 percent of those reassigned had joined the regiment between July and September.¹⁸

Foster’s attention to rearranging and filling regiments came as part of his work to complete his annual statement on the USCT for the adjutant general of the U.S. Army. Foster noted that in his last report on October 31, 1863, there had been only 58 black regiments with 37,707 men. A year later, the USCT had grown to 140 regiments and 101,950 men. Ohio blacks made a significant contribution to the increase when the state raised its second regiment, the 27th, by filling the 5th, and by helping other regiments refill their ranks. Foster also reported that from the time the U.S. Bureau of Colored Troops began recruitment until October 20, 1864, losses by battle, disease, and desertion totaled 33,139. Although the 27th had lost just over 100 men by that date, they had fared significantly better than the overall USCT total.¹⁹ But another fight was already in their future, one that would place the soldiers in the Ohio regiment back on the battlefield and in the line of fire once again.

As an Indian summer blessed the Virginia countryside, Grant planned for the new offensive. He had grown increasingly uneasy about his failure to capture Richmond. Lincoln’s reelection bid was only weeks away, and the Northern population demanded another victory. Grant listened when Meade shared his ideas concerning the Southern defenses constructed between Hatcher’s Run and the fields south of Boydton Plank Road. In late October Meade learned that the newly manned Confederate lines were weak, and he believed that if he pushed hard enough his troops could break through near the road and make it to the Southside Railroad. Grant agreed and planned another joint movement by the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James to flank both ends of Confederate defenses extending from Richmond to southwest of Petersburg. He instructed Meade to create a new line of defense stretching from Peebles’ Farm to the railroad. Meade was to leave enough men to protect the present lines but take over forty thousand troops from the II, V, and IX Corps and David M. Gregg’s cavalry to gain the new ground. Meanwhile, Grant directed Butler to keep Robert E. Lee busy north of the James River near Bermuda Hundred. When Meade told John G. Parke to prepare for the offensive, he instructed the commander to leave the 2nd Division of his 1st Brigade in the Union trenches. The 27th, with the 3rd, would once again take the battlefield.²⁰

By late October rumors of another big movement had traveled across the camps and through the picket lines. On October 23 the men lined up for their inspection of arms. The next day, under the turning leaves of autumn, the officers drilled their troops. The events were so similar to the time leading up to the Crater it was easy to grow excited or nervous from all the talk. By the evening of October 25 it was no longer a question, as the IX Corps received their instructions to prepare for a march in the morning. The men obtained rations for six days and collected two hundred rounds of ammunition each. At 2:00 A.M. officers called their men to the ready, and within an hour the soldiers had packed their tents and were waiting for the order to move out. The 27th watched as the II and V Corps marched past. The inexperience of the new men showed as they claimed that the rebels would run before the black infantry arrived. Meanwhile, the soldiers who survived the mine debacle wrote letters to loved ones and made arrangements for their possessions. At 3:30 A.M. on October 27, orders came for the IX to move, and it was a cold and rainy morning when the men fell into ranks behind the 1st Division and marched down the road to join the Army of the Potomac several miles away.²¹

The black soldiers of the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Division faced their second battle with a new commanding officer, as Col. Joshua K. Siegfried had resigned from service. Col. Delevan Bates, senior officer of the 30th USCT, took command of their brigade on October 11 after recuperating from the injury he had received at the Crater. The twenty-four-year-old New Yorker was a survivor of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, Libby Prison, and the mine disaster. He did not want the responsibility of so many men, especially if they had to go into a fight. But now in late October he found himself in just that position. For the 27th, this meant three new officers leading them into their second battle, as the other two, Colonel Blackman and Lieutenant Colonel Donnellan had not been with the Ohio regiment at the Crater. While individually the leaders had military experience, Bates, Blackman, and Donnellan had not trained together, and Blackman and Donnellan had little time to develop any rapport with their black soldiers. Yet on they marched toward the enemy.²²

It was dark and gloomy when Parke’s IX Corps advanced toward the Southside Railroad. The narrow roads made travel slow and difficult, as the rain turned the paths into rivers of mud. It was almost impossible to keep the movement a surprise as planned, and soon rebel scouts reported the massive Union operation to their commanding officers. Nonetheless, Parke continued with his orders. Meade sent the IX to strike enemy lines near Boydton Plank Road, the location he believed to be the weakest. The soldiers marched south from Peebles’ Farm and then west on Boydton Plank Road. Parke directed Edward Ferrero to place the 27th and 1st Brigade to the right of Orlando B. Willcox’s 1st Division. They would confront the Confederates near Poplar Springs Church just north of Hatcher’s Run Creek. Robert B. Potter’s 2nd Division took up the position right of Ferrero and extended the new lines to the Union entrenchments south of Petersburg.²³

Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock prepared to push two divisions of the II Corps over Hatcher’s Run Creek further south near Vaughn Road. After fording the waterway, Hancock planned to proceed down Dabney’s Mill Road to flank the enemy near Boydon Plank Road. Warren’s V Corps was entrenched between Hancock and Parke near Duncan Road and the creek, with orders to support the IX if they broke through the Confederate lines or to back up Hancock’s men if not.²⁴

Soon after the engagement commenced, the 27th and the 3rd Division advanced toward the supposedly weak enemy lines. They had to travel almost a half mile through dense woods, and the underbrush, briars, and downed trees ripped their clothing and scratched their skin. Once they made it through the forested area, they came within a hundred yards of the enemy line of works when Confederate abatis and entrenchments prevented their further advance. Delevan Bates ordered his men to quickly build protective works, as he realized that if attacked they would not be able to make a fast or orderly retreat. The soldiers, under enemy fire, collected anything they could find to build breastworks and create some type of protection along the line.²⁵

Bates had his men probe the Confederate defenses along Boydton Plank Road to locate the best place to break through. After several skirmishes, officers had their men form a line of battle and move into the dense forest. To their surprise, they found the rebels well dug in and heavily manned. Through the trees came solid shot and exploding shells, although initially most went over the black soldiers’ heads. But it did not take long for the rebels to readjust their aim. As Blackman led his soldiers into the fray, a spent shell knocked him off his horse, fracturing a rib. Some of the men quickly moved their leader to the rear, where regimental surgeons Weld and Niedermeyer waited. Thirty minutes later, second-in-command John W. Donnellan received a more serious wound when hit in the right hip, and William F. Blanchard, one of the second lieutenants of Company F, felt a ball graze his left shoulder. Meanwhile, a bullet struck Com. Sgt. George L. Smith in the breast. Although stunned, the Bible in his pocket saved his life. Other soldiers were more seriously injured. Eighteen-year-old Orin D. Henry of Company E took a shot to the left side of his head and fell to the ground with a skull fracture. A bullet injured Cpl. James Whitfield of Company B in his left leg above his knee, separating the muscle from the bone. And nineteen-year-old Marion Robertson from Muskingum County, who had survived a gunshot wound to the head at the Crater, was hit on the right hand.²⁶

When the news reached Parke that the enemy lines were too strong to break, he sent orders to fortify the line and hold the Union position until the II and V Corps turned the Confederate flank. That night, as the men worked to strengthen their breastworks, it began to rain. Without their tents, the soldiers had to sleep on the wet, open ground in the heavy downpours. They tried to find cover in the trees, but near midnight they heard the rebel yell. When some of the black troops broke for the rear of the lines. Pvt. Henry Clay used his musket to convince them to stay, yelling, “Stand to the works, boys, and we will lick the whole d(amn) rebel army!” After the slaughter at the Crater, the men had to muster all of their courage to hold their position. The soldiers from the Ohio regiment wanted to prove their bravery and ability to their white officers, and they did not want to disappoint the black community at home. It was also their opportunity to change the perceptions held by white Northerners who had heard the misrepresentations about the USCT actions at the mine assault on July 30. Fortunately, the threat quickly subsided and the Union held the ground all night.²⁷

During the morning of October 28, the IX once again participated in minor skirmishes. The soldiers in the 27th believed that they would be sent on another advance when Parke ordered the black troops to move in force to the right of the enemy. But rebel fire proved too thick, and as a result the men had retreated by 12:30 P.M. Meanwhile, Warren’s troops failed to proceed, so command sent his V Corps to back up Hancock’s II Corps, which had experienced intense fighting and suffered heavy losses. The rains had made the roads almost impassable, so no reinforcements or resupply of ammunition could reach their defenses. Closer to Richmond, Maj. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel’s X Corps had also failed. Ulysses S. Grant, who was livid once again that he had received inaccurate information about the enemy, ordered a retreat.²⁸ Neither the Union, nor Lincoln, could weather another disaster with the election so close.

The IX followed the II Corps on the retreat. The soldiers arrived in camp near Peebles’ Farm around one on Friday afternoon. As more rain fell in Virginia, officers counted their troops. The black 3rd Division had suffered from the engagements at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road, or First Hatcher’s Run. The 43rd bore twenty-eight of the division’s eighty casualties, and at least three of the nine officers dead or injured from the 3rd came from the 27th USCT. The regiment also lost fifteen men, including two soldiers killed and thirteen wounded. Pvt. Charles W. Butler’s untimely death proved to be one of the more difficult for Lt. George L. Gilbert to report. The inexperienced officer, who served the first part of the war in the Veteran Reserve Corps away from the battlefield, had just joined Company A. Gilbert wrote to his soldier’s wife, Martha, that Butler “was killed while on skirmish line axcidentially by our own men . . and in his death we have lost a good soldier.” Gilbert tried to comfort the Marietta widow when he assured her that the men had given her husband a proper burial. The casualty numbers shifted when on November 15 Alexander Chavous died from his battle wounds. The Logan County soldier had been shot in the chest.²⁹

Most Ohioans received more favorable news. Quartermaster Nicholas A. Gray reported that the “sable soldiers of Uncle Sam” had gone into battle cheerfully, and that no one could question or criticize their performance. Albert M. Blackman, who would later receive a brevet to brigadier general for his “gallant and distinguished bravery” at Hatcher’s Run, said his officers “behaved splendidly,” and that other than the new recruits, his men “behaved excellently.” Gen. Ferrero reported that his officers and soldiers deserved “great praise” for their composure while carrying out orders. He specifically pointed out that he was “very much pleased with the conduct of the colored troops.” It redeemed the image of the 27th, tarnished by the events at the Crater. The men understood the value of the recognition, especially in light of the more successful black troops in Gen. Benjamin F. Butler’s XVIII Corps. But the regiment was once again left without commanding officers as Blackman left for a twenty-day leave of absence and Lieutenant Colonel Donnellan remained in the hospital.³⁰

Despite the favorable performance of the 27th and the other black troops in the IX Corps, Hatcher’s Run was another incomplete success for the Union. Unable to break through and cut off the Southside Railroad, Northern forces did extend their defensive lines westward and therefore further weakened the Confederate hold. But it would be the last major action along the Petersburg front in 1864, and with winter not far away, military operations slowed. The nights grew colder, and the leaves had already started to turn by the time the 27th rebuilt their camp. Soon the soldiers were, as one officer sarcastically remarked, “all comfortable again, enjoying the camp life.”³¹

In early November the IX Corps huddled along the lines near the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad, with the 3rd Division in the rear line of entrenchments between Fort Cummings and Fort Siebert. For the next several weeks, as an Indian summer blessed the men with temperate weather, the 27th spent most of the time on picket duty. Capt. Alexander S. Hempstead temporarily took charge of the regiment as Blackman and Donnellan recovered from their battle wounds. The twenty-six-year-old veteran from the 88th OVI reported, when preparing for the paymaster, that the condition of his men was “good.” But there were difficulties. At 4:00 A.M. on November 7, the 3rd Division prepared for a possible attack. They waited until nine that morning, but the enemy did not show. Tensions continued to increase, and friction grew between the officers and some of the men. When Lt. Charles Wilson ordered Pvt. James G. Gant of Company D to his tent in camp near Peebles’ Farm, Gant refused and retorted that he would not go unless he wanted to. It was not the first disciplinary issue for the private. On November 5 Capt. Frederick J. Bartlett had sent Gant to the commissary store for supplies, and the twenty-three-year-old barber had added a canteen of whiskey to Bartlett’s order. As a result of both infractions, Wilson drew up charges against Gant for disobedience of orders, disrespect for a superior officer, and conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline. Hempstead handled the matter by arranging for Gant to serve on detached duty with the Army of the James.³²

Another problem for some of the white officers was the inability to complete all of their administrative duties. In early November Edward Ferrero asked for permission for his division to employ regimental clerks. He explained that his officers could not catch up on all of their paperwork. Ferrero complained that no one could “find a single man capable of acting as clerk” within their black regiments to act proficiently as noncommissioned officers. Not all white men who served in the USCT necessarily shared that sentiment about their black assistants, however. Although some regiments legitimately suffered from the lack of qualified soldiers, the 27th had a sufficient number of literate men. The problem was too few white officers. The roster of commissioned officers for the 27th listed only five of seven members of the field and staff, eight of nine captains, seven of ten first lieutenants, and six of eight second lieutenants present in November. And a significant number of men, who for a variety of reasons and despite the difficulty of approval, had attempted to resign their commands—and in the 27th one officer found himself removed from his position. In September, Capt. Joseph J. Wakefield had sought a furlough in order to assist his family, which was under duress due to his wife’s illness. In his request he had explained that no one in Clinton County would help her, as she was “surrounded by a class of people politically opposed to the war.” Later, when Wakefield failed to return to the regiment, Blackman sought a general court-martial, stating that Wakefield was absent without leave. The captain was found guilty and cashiered out of service. This did not bother his peers, who, as Lincoln supporters, knew that Wakefield planned to vote for Democrat and former Union general George B. McClellan in November when Ohio commissioners visited the camp to take the soldiers’ votes for the presidential election.³³

Most black men did not have the privilege of voting in the 1864 presidential election. But Delaware County resident William Hannibal Thomas of the 5th USCT proudly cast his vote for Lincoln. As a result of the 1859 Ohio Supreme Court case, Alfred J. Anderson v. Thomas Millikin, et al., adult men who were of less than half African ancestry had the right to vote, which made it possible for some of the soldiers in the 27th and the 5th to cast their ballots. The African American newspaper correspondent to the Philadelphia Press, Thomas Morris Chester, reported on the polls held at Union camps in the Richmond area. It is unclear how he obtained the information, but he wrote that 194 soldiers from the 5th USCT voted for Lincoln. Other than the white officers of the black regiments in the 3rd Division, XVIII Corps, he provided no other information on USCT voting. Two soldiers from the 27th may have cast a ballot. In early November Levi Beer went to East Liverpool in Columbiana County to recover from the gunshot wounds to his right shoulder received at the Crater. Asst. Adj. Gen. H. H. Smith granted Beer’s furlough “to vote.” Thomas Cook, a private in Company I, received a furlough from Summit House Hospital in Philadelphia “to go to Ohio to vote.” At the morning inspection and dress parade on November 11, officers of the 27th USCT informed the men of the president’s reelection. The news, however, did little to change the soldiers’ present situation.³⁴

As William T. Sherman made his way to the sea, Blackman returned to his command to find his troops suffering from the growing cold. To protect themselves from the bitter rain, snow, and dropping temperatures, the soldiers built huts of wood and mud, some with chimneys. The conditions in the pits caused great discomfort. Sgt. Charles W. Taylor of Company H had to be hospitalized for frostbite to his feet, a condition that meant the forty-three-year-old would not return to duty. But no matter how bad it seemed, the black soldiers understood that the rebels just over the lines had it worse. Throughout the rest of the month the 27th struggled with the elements, homesickness, and fatigue along the Petersburg front. Then rumors began to circulate about another major offensive, one that would include the USCT.³⁵

Meanwhile, the regiment became part of a historic military experiment. In mid-November Grant decided to reorganize his Army of the Potomac. He announced that he would combine the white soldiers of the X and XVIII Corps into one and that all blacks in the Department of Virginia and the Department of North Carolina would move to a separate corps under Butler. Back in August, Butler had proposed to have the black troops of the IX Corps transferred to his army after he heard that they were demoralized by the events surrounding the failed mine attempt on July 30. He asked Grant if he could exchange a group of inexperienced white recruits from Pennsylvania with George B. Meade for the USCT in the IX, and on November 26 the 27th and the 3rd Division officially joined the Army of the James. Four days later Butler created the XXIV Corps for his white troops and the XXV Corps for his black troops. When approved by the War Department on December 3, the XXV became the first corps in American history composed entirely of black men. Butler transferred Cincinnati native Maj. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel from the XVIII Corps to lead the XXV. The twenty-nine-year-old, who had graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1855, began the war as chief engineer of Butler’s staff in the Army of the Gulf. After commanding his own troops, in May 1864 he returned to Butler to serve as the chief engineer of the Army of the James. He had limited experience with the USCT, as he had just replaced Maj. Gen. Edward O. C. Ord as commander of the XVIII in September.³⁶

Fig. 12. Camp of the 27th United States Colored Troops along the Petersburg front in 1864. (Stereograph, Library of Congress)

At the end of November the 27th moved to Delevan Bates’s 1st Brigade in the 1st Division of Brig. Gen. Charles J. Paine, a Harvard-trained lawyer who had entered military service in 1861 as a captain in the 22nd Massachusetts. But these changes meant little to the men in the 27th USCT who suffered along the picket lines. When the presidential proclamation of Thanksgiving on November 24 provided the opportunity for a feast for some along the front, fortunate soldiers received chicken, turkey, fruit, and pies from the Soldiers’ Aid Societies. But the delicacies did not reach the Ohio regiment; the next day only apples arrived for them. Their disappointment compounded the difficult conditions faced by the regiment.³⁷

Then the 27th moved to Point of Rocks on Saturday, November 26, and joined the Army of the James. They enjoyed warmer weather on the march but found themselves under constant rebel shelling. On Sunday the regiment moved near Bermuda Hundred, and over the next several days the Confederates intentionally targeted the black troops as they came and left for picket duty. On the morning of November 28 “the Rebs opened a galling fire upon” the picket line, and two days later the “Rebs” shelled all day. James E. Scott wrote to his mother that “our boys staid with them all day and we yet hold our lines and we in tend to hold our lines” and explained that they “lost some of our men who got wounded one was kild.” But he reassured her that the Union was making progress and that they would soon “brak up the Rebel nest and the Southern Confederacy.” On the evening of December 2 Butler ordered Union gunboats to target the enemy pickets to protect his new men. Scott wrote that he heard the “rebels yeld” but the “gun boat sure shut them up.” It also intensified the barrage of Southern bullets, so on Sunday, December 4, Butler had the black troops remove almost two miles to the rear of the Union lines. Once again the men heard rumors of their possible participation in an upcoming battle.³⁸

The officers held an inspection of troops the next morning. Instead of hearing orders concerning a military engagement, the 27th and their division received instructions to return to the likewise dangerous front-line picket duty. Then orders came at 6:00 P.M. for some of the USCT regiments in Paine’s 1st Division of the XXV Corps to tear down their camp. The order included Ohio’s other regiment, the 5th USCT. The soldiers left for a movement against Fort Fisher, the Confederate fortification in North Carolina that protected blockade runners when they arrived from the Atlantic Ocean, while the men from the 27th remained in the trenches. That month the regiment lost at least five men. On December 3 two men, George Anderson and Gould Berry from Company D, supposedly deserted, and on December 9 a Confederate picket hit Wilson Gillard in the chest, killing the eighteen-year-old farmer from Miami County. Two days before Gillard’s death, nineteen-year-old Henry Price became separated from his comrades. He rejoined them on January 2, but it is unclear where he had spent the time in between. Then, on December 15, Wallace S. Smith, who had just joined the regiment in September, disappeared. Although possible, it seems improbable that Smith and the men from Company D, Anderson and Berry, would have considered it an opportune time to desert the Union lines. But the three were never heard from again.³⁹

As winter set in, activity along the Virginia front slowed. The 27th remained on picket duty and watched as Confederate soldiers in the opposing trenches deserted. James Scott reported that as many as thirty men a day crossed into Union lines. He wrote home that he called one Southerner “johney and he cald me yank.” Meanwhile, several of the officers sought release from their duties. Lt. Charles A. Beery of Company A resigned after he received a surgeon’s certificate of disability; surgeon Francis M. Weld determined that the lieutenant’s case of syphilis, contracted before the war, had incapacitated the officer and made him unfit for duty. And the miserable captain of Company G, Albert Rogall, left the 27th after he received a hard-fought-for promotion to lieutenant colonel of the 118th USCT.⁴⁰

On December 10 Albert M. Blackman forwarded his recommendation that Lt. Daniel M. Miner be promoted to captain to replace Rogall and suggested that George L. Gilbert take the place of Miner. Blackman explained that while there were others who had seniority, they had all applied for disability discharges, so he suggested that Gilbert be promoted to first lieutenant. Four days later, Blackman wrote to Brig. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas to acknowledge and accept his own appointment as brevet brigadier general, based on his “gallant and distinguished bravery” at Hatcher’s Run, and signed his Oath of Office certificate. On December 17 Blackman approved a request written by Capt. Sanders M. Huyek to Charles W. Foster to promote William F. Blanchard to first lieutenant to replace Beery. Huyek also asked Foster to assign two new second lieutenants, one to replace Blanchard and one to fill a vacancy. The captain was not the only officer in the regiment performing duties that should have been handled by the newly promoted Blackman.⁴¹

William F. Blanchard had been acting as commander of Company F since September as a second lieutenant, so Huyek’s request had merit. But Blanchard apparently had not received much support from the field and staff during that time, because on December 24 he sent a request to the paymaster to explain how and when he should apply clothing charges to the men in his company. At some point his frustration, along with the discontent of 1st Lt. Daniel J. Miner and 2nd Lt. George L. Gilbert, came to the attention of Benjamin Butler, and by the end of the month Butler had recommended all three for promotions and transfer to other USCT regiments. The loss of three more officers would weaken the command already dealing with declining numbers. During the month, only three of seven of the field and staff, six of the nine first lieutenants, and seven of the eight second lieutenants were present in the 27th USCT. Although the roster of commissioned officers listed all eight captains present, which failed to reflect Rogall’s exit, the overall number of officers had dropped from thirty-four in November to thirty-two.⁴²

Meanwhile, Benjamin F. Butler’s days with the Army of the James were numbered. The attempt to take Fort Fisher had been a dismal failure. With the elections over, neither Grant nor Lincoln had to deal with political ramifications surrounding Butler’s military appointment. A messenger gave Butler the news on January 6, 1865, that Abraham Lincoln had relieved him from command of the Army of the James. Butler bade farewell to his troops on January 8, with specific comments directed to the black soldiers. He applauded their bravery, loyalty, and manhood, stating “With the bayonet you have unlocked the iron-barred gates of prejudice, opening new fields of freedom, liberty, and equality of rights to yourselves and your race forever.”⁴³

The men in the 27th USCT did not hear his accolades. The soldiers’ time with the all-black XXV Corps had come to an end. After the return of Paine’s regiments that had participated in Butler’s failed attack, command restructured the black divisions. The 27th first moved to the 3rd Division of the 3rd Brigade, but Grant soon detached them to Terry’s Provisional Army Corps in the Department of North Carolina. Butler’s farewell coincided with the Ohio regiment’s departure to participate in the Union’s second attempt to close down Fort Fisher, the last significant enemy port on the eastern seaboard at Wilmington, North Carolina.⁴⁴

Wilmington, established in 1740, was the largest and most important seaport city in North Carolina. Three major railroads made it a vital Confederate depot, especially by 1864, when it provided crucial supplies for Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, entrenched along the Richmond and Petersburg lines. The city’s location, just over twenty miles up the Cape Fear River, provided a defensive position out of the Union navy’s reach. At least that is what the Southern government and 9,500 residents believed.⁴⁵

Enemy forces could not protect the entire hundred miles of coastline, but Fort Fisher did an impressive job of guarding the inlet into Cape Fear River. The “Confederate Goliath” sat south of Wilmington on Federal Point, renamed Confederate Point in 1861. Earthworks on three sides protected the fort, built upon the narrow sand peninsula. Col. William Lamb and close to a thousand troops manned the seemingly impregnable fortification. Lincoln’s attempt to successfully blockade any goods coming in or going out of the South depended upon the capture of Fort Fisher, and Union control of the Wilmington area would also reduce the South’s ability to continue the war. The Northern command increased efforts to take the fort in the summer of 1864, when it became the last eastern port open to the Confederacy.⁴⁶

Ulysses S. Grant moved quickly after the failed attempt in December to eliminate Wilmington’s ability to support the Confederacy. On January 2 he placed Maj. Gen. Alfred H. Terry, commander of the XXIV Corps, in charge of the operation. The Connecticut lawyer was not regular army, but he had both amphibious and combat experience from his service earlier in the war. More important, Grant knew that Terry would obediently follow orders and understand the importance of a cooperative joint effort. Adm. David D. Porter, who led the amphibious assault for a second time, preferred Terry to Benjamin F. Butler. But he expressed his displeasure that black troops would again participate in the mission to capture Fort Fisher. Although Porter blamed Butler for the failure, he also felt that the inexperienced soldiers who accompanied the expedition had contributed to the unsuccessful outcome. Grant wondered if his operation in North Carolina would again be threatened by problems between his commanders.⁴⁷

Grant told Terry to prepare eight thousand troops for the upcoming movement, although he gave the officer little information. The soldiers came from Brig. Gen. Adelbert Ames’s 2nd Division and Brig. Gen. Joseph C. Abbott’s 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of the XXIV Corps, and Brig. Gen. Charles J. Paine’s black 3rd Division of the XXV Corps, including soldiers in Ohio’s 27th and 5th USCT. Rumors circulated that they would join William T. Sherman’s forces in the Carolinas, but Grant had spun the tale to confuse the enemy and kept the actual plans quiet. Grant also expanded the goals of the expedition. The first had been to take Fort Fisher and close the Cape Fear River to blockade runners. The new mission included both of these goals and the capture of Wilmington.⁴⁸

The 27th left their snow-dusted camp near Chaffin’s Farm in Virginia on Tuesday, January 3, 1865. They carried four days’ rations and forty rounds of ammunition, but no personal effects, as they walked through the sleet toward Bermuda Hundred. They spent their last two nights along the Virginia front on frozen ground with no cover. The difficult march took a toll on the men, including Richard Hedgepath of Company K, who slumbered in pain the first night. Earlier in the day the forty-three-year-old from Athens County had injured his right knee and back when he tripped on a stump. On Thursday at 2:00 A.M. officers called the men to the ready. They marched to the James River, where they packed into transport vessels. Blackman and five of his companies boarded the steamboat Eliza Hancox, while the rest of the regiment departed on the steamer Idaho and the single-turreted monitor ironclad, the Montauk. At Fort Monroe Blackman and his men transferred to the Idaho, while Terry learned the details of the secretive expedition. At 4:00 A.M. on January 6 nineteen vessels embarked on the Union mission to capture Fort Fisher.⁴⁹

Stormy conditions made their voyage an uncomfortable passage, one that frightened some of the men and angered others. Some of the soldiers yelled out vulgarities, others prayed, as gale winds slammed twenty-foot waves against the boats. Many of the men suffered from seasickness but received no medical care, as both of Dr. Francis M. Weld’s assistants, William C. Ross and Therrygood Manley, were seriously ill. After two days they reached Beaufort, North Carolina, but the men did not have the opportunity to disembark. The troops spent four long days on the ships awaiting orders. As the black soldiers attempted to deal with their physical discomforts and emotional anxieties, those who had participated in the failed first expedition wondered if they would suffer the same experience again.⁵⁰

But this time events transpired as planned. On January 11 the weather abated, the seas calmed, and the fleet resupplied at the Morehead City Wharf with little trouble. The next day they unloaded the seriously ailing soldiers, and the contingency sailed to their rendezvous point with Admiral Porter, near New Inlet off of Federal Point. By the time they arrived it was too late to begin the operation, so Terry and Porter decided to let the men rest that night and begin the assault in the morning. When the sun came up over the Atlantic Ocean, Terry ordered his men to pack twelve days’ worth of rations and the ammunition they brought from camp.⁵¹

At dawn Porter’s fleet began to shell the Confederate fort. Better positioning allowed the Union to inflict the damage the first attempt in December had failed to do. The heavy bombardment made it difficult for the rebels to make repairs to the fortress, and enemy soldiers positioned behind Fort Fisher’s defensive walls could only watch as more than eighty naval warships and army vessels made their way closer to “the Confederate Goliath.”⁵²

When Alfred H. Terry’s white troops disembarked at 8:45 A.M., the commander stressed the need for an orderly and swift movement onto the enemy’s beaches. By 10:00 A.M. the 27th USCT had joined the Union forces attempting to land on the Atlantic shore five miles north of Fort Fisher. It took over five hours to complete the mission, as surf boats placed on navy transports moved the men as close to shore as possible. Rough tides kept the boats from the shallow waters, and most of the soldiers and many of their officers became drenched in the process. The men covered two miles of beach as they unloaded supplies and entrenching tools under the protection of intense cannonading from their naval comrades, shells splashing in the water and on the beach around the men.⁵³

The Union soldiers dried off while they waited for the sailors to bring fresh ammunition and rations. In the late afternoon Terry proceeded with his orders, leaving Joseph C. Abbott’s men on the beach to burn campfires in an attempt to misdirect Col. William Lamb’s attention. Terry moved out with Paine’s and Adelbert Ames’ troops. Their first goal was to build a line of defenses between the fort and Wilmington in order to protect their mission from Maj. Gen. Robert F. Hoke’s Confederate forces to the north. The 27th and the 3rd Division led the movement over marshes and sandy soil in the dark, cold, and rainy night, clearing the way for the rest of the troops as deafening cannon fire inflicted pain on and injury to their eardrums. It took hours for Terry to locate defensible ground, so it was 2:00 A.M. before they began to construct their breastworks. Meanwhile, Hoke and his men left the city at 1:00 A.M. and entrenched at Sugar Loaf, a fifty-foot-high sand dune northeast of Fort Fisher along the Cape Fear River and across from Fort Anderson, where they waited for orders to reinforce Lamb. By 8:00 A.M. the exhausted and bone-chilled Northern troops had completed their assignment. They had constructed a defensive line almost one mile across the peninsula between the ocean and the Cape Fear River.⁵⁴

In the morning light the men located several homes that had been abandoned before their landing and helped themselves to food and household goods. A number of the black soldiers made sport of their find and put on the women’s clothing and danced for their tired comrades. After allowing the men to alleviate some tension, Terry called his troops to order. He ordered Ames to rest his soldiers for the upcoming attack and placed Paine’s USCT on picket duty in the newly constructed trenches. Porter continued his bombardment on the fort. The next day the 27th helped to prepare rifle pits and reinforce Union breastworks. That evening a full moon lit the sky above the Union forces as they held their position in the cold trenches north of Fort Fisher.⁵⁵

On Sunday, January 15, the sun exposed tranquil seas to the poised Union forces. But the peaceful image soon ended. Just after 7:00 A.M. the largest fleet in United States history up to that time began another bombardment from the sea, pummeling the already crumbling fort. The ground shook from the cannonading as Paine’s black troops and Abbott’s division held the lines in the trenches only two and a half miles from Fort Fisher. Terry and Porter agreed to continue the bombardment until 3:00 P.M., when they would each send in troops for the land assault. Porter readied a group of 1,600 sailors and 350 marines to hit the sea face on the northeast side of the garrison, and Ames prepared his 2nd Division of the XXIV Corps, with Brig. Gen. N. Martin Curtis’s brigade in the lead, to attack the land face from the west. Lamb, the engineer responsible for the defenses at Fort Fisher, had provided little protection for the landside in his design, as he believed that any attack would come by sea.⁵⁶

The naval forces went first, in part to distract the rebels from the major assault by Terry’s men. But the infantry failed to be in position in time, so many of the sailors and marines found themselves exposed to enemy fire. Finally, Ames signaled Porter that his men were ready. A dead quiet fell over the peninsula when the Union ships ceased their fire. Minutes later a steam whistle pierced the still, cold air, and at 3:25 P.M. the assault began. Within thirty minutes 4,000 infantry troops made it into the Southern fortress. The soldiers faced brutal hand-to-hand combat, but they fared better than the naval forces, which suffered high casualties and had to retreat.⁵⁷

In the meantime Gen. Braxton Bragg, commander of the Confederate Department of North Carolina, belatedly sent two of Hoke’s brigades southward from Sugar Loaf to assist Lamb and his men. The 27th and their division held strong on the river side while white troops occupied the defenses near the ocean. Hoke, in charge of the Confederates who had massacred surrendered black soldiers at Plymouth, North Carolina, in April 1864, failed to break the line. Bragg ordered Hoke to withdraw his troops, hoping that the South Carolina men he had sent by sea could provide Lamb the support the fort commander had repeatedly requested.⁵⁸

Confederates in the garrison remained steadfast in their determination to hold their position. When Gen. William H. C. Whiting, commander of the District of Wilmington, arrived at the fort, Lamb had only fifteen hundred men available. With the situation bleak, Lamb offered to turn over control, but Whiting reassured Lamb that he came only to assist, as both men knew their situation had a great deal to do with Bragg’s lack of support. With Hoke’s failure, they would have to do the best they could.⁵⁹

By late afternoon Terry sent for Abbott’s brigade to back up Ames and ordered the battered naval troops to assist Paine’s men along the breastworks. He also ordered Paine to send “one of the strongest regiments” from the black division to accompany Abbott. Why Paine selected the 27th USCT is unclear, as other regiments had more battle experience and more officers present. But at 7:00 P.M. the Ohio regiment, the only black troops to participate in the final assault, prepared to join the fight. At the same time, Ames and Curtis disagreed over their troops’ progress and sent the general contradictory reports. Terry seriously contemplated digging in for a siege as the 27th answered his call to action.⁶⁰

Fig. 13. Fort Fisher, second campaign. (Created by and courtesy of Noah Andre Trudeau)

It was growing dark when the Union reinforcements reported to Ames. His men had already breached Fort Fisher but still faced great resistance. When Abbott arrived, Ames sent some of the white troops to assist Curtis in the fight while ordering the rest to help dig entrenchments. When the 27th attempted to reach the fort through a narrow causeway, heavy fire kept them at bay. Blackman told his to men to wait. As the 27th dropped to the ground, rebel shots fell all around them and exploding shells from their own navy flew over their heads, injuring at least four of the soldiers. Inside the walls, Terry’s men told the stubborn Confederates to surrender or they would bring in the black soldiers and allow the USCT to take out their wrath on the trapped rebels. But Terry told Blackman to remove his troops and await further orders. At around 9:45 P.M. command sent the 27th back to the fort, but when the men arrived they found that it had been evacuated. An eerie quiet fell over the fortress as the naval bombardment ceased. The soldiers could hear the water ripple over the bodies of the dead and the cries of the wounded nearby. It looked as though they had missed the fight.⁶¹

Union forces captured over twelve hundred rebels when the fortress fell just after 9:00 P.M. on January 15. Several hundred escaped, though, including injured officers Lamb and Whiting, who were carried out on stretchers by their men as the Northern troops took the fort. The Confederate major James Reilly sent the escaped soldiers to Battery Buchanan, a small fort on the southernmost tip of Federal Point. He hoped that forces there would provide cover until they could evacuate over the river, but the Southerners had already abandoned the fortification. Terry sent Abbott’s 7th New Hampshire and 6th Connecticut along with the 27th USCT in pursuit.⁶²

As colorful signal flares filled the skies like fireworks, Blackman and his Ohio regiment marched behind Abbott’s troops on the beach behind the sea-face wall of the defeated fort. The men stopped at Mound Battery, just south of Fort Fisher, where surrendering rebels told Abbott and Blackman that their commanding officers and a group of soldiers were heading toward Battery Buchanan. Abbot took his men to the right, and the 27th moved to the left along the beach and formed a line for battle. Blackman sent a detachment of six men under the command of Adj. Albert G. Jones to circle around the battery. Stunned Confederates, who found retreat impossible, watched in the bright moonlight as General Whiting asked, “To whom have I the honor of surrendering with my forces?” Jones said, “To General Blackman, of the 27th United States Colored Troops.” Whiting’s chief-of-staff, Maj. James H. Hill, then surrendered to Jones. Shortly thereafter, Blackman arrived to find his men holding Whiting and Lamb, both wounded, and took control. Maj. James Reilly surrendered to Abbott’s troops coming from the opposite direction. Just before 11:00 P.M., Terry arrived and received the official surrender from Colonel Lamb and General Whiting. Terry hurried away on horseback to send the news to Grant and left Blackman in charge of Battery Buchanan.⁶³

Meanwhile, the 27th USCT placed over 500 Southerners under guard. Jones later recalled how “the very thought of surrendering to colored troops was like gall and wormwood to them; but such was the fate of war, and the master was compelled to march behind the bayonet held in the hands of a former slave.” Surgeon Francis M. Weld recorded in his diary that night how in the bright moonlight Whiting and 650 men surrendered to Jones. Some of the soldiers were disappointed that they had to miss “the fun of shooting” the rebels. They were the only black troops to participate in the charge of the fort, and even though they did not face battle, they helped to constrict the power of the withering Confederacy. After nine months of limited opportunities on the battlefield and unlimited fatigue duty, the 27th USCT played a noteworthy role in a significant Union victory. Finally, they had experienced glory as United States soldiers. But the next day the excitement gave way to more mundane soldierly duties, Blackman keeping part of his regiment at Buchanan and sending others to help at Fort Fisher.⁶⁴

Many of the Northern troops were too excited to sleep after the events. Some scoured the grounds looking for souvenirs and food, while others located alcohol. Unfortunately, negligence by some of the explorers led to a costly accident the morning after the Union victory when, at 7:30 A.M. on January 16, open flames near a magazine ignited unspent ammunition. The Richmond Daily Dispatch reported that the “carelessness of some of the colored troops” caused thirteen thousand pounds of powder to explode when the Yankees carried candles into the storage facility. Smoke, sand, and rubble flew over five hundred feet into the air, and as soldiers desperately searched for casualties, it took almost five minutes for the dust to settle. Some of the men were buried in the destruction and suffocated before they could be rescued. Matthew Hill, who had run from Fort Buchanan to see what had happened, helped locate a comrade from Company H, William H. Steptoe. The twenty-eight-year-old drafted farmer from Pickaway County, who had received a minor gunshot wound at the Crater, was trapped in the debris and had been blinded by the blast. Another man, Henry Price, who had just returned to the regiment only days before the soldiers left Virginia, was killed. Terry reported that the explosion caused 130 additional Union casualties, while others indicated closer to 200 injuries and deaths among the Northern soldiers.⁶⁵

Injured soldiers on Federal Point suffered terribly in the days following the attack. The men had arrived on the peninsula with no personal baggage or tents, and medical supplies remained on the transport ships. It took naval personnel until January 20 to remove the wounded. The battle and munitions explosion led to over 670 Union casualties. The 27th lost one man killed and at least five wounded, although exposure during the following weeks led to the deaths of at least a dozen more. The Confederates lost 500, or 25 percent of their forces, and the balance became prisoners of war.⁶⁶

Northerners lavished praise on the expedition. Grant ordered a hundred-gun salute, and on January 26 Congress and Lincoln issued a resolution thanking Alfred H. Terry, his officers, and his men for “unsurpassed gallantry and skill.” In turn, Terry applauded Paine’s USCT for successfully holding their defensive position, calling their contribution “a work absolutely essential to our success.” Terry singled out the 27th, thanking Blackman for the swift and successful action taken to pursue the enemy, but he neglected to recognize the Ohio regiment’s role in capturing the fleeing Confederate commanders. Quartermaster Nicholas A. Gray told readers of the Cleveland Morning Leader that he supposed they had already read about the Union victory at Fort Fisher, but he wanted to inform them about “the specific part taken by the ‘Buckeye Black Boys’ and their field and line leaders.” Ross County readers of the Scioto Gazette also learned of the role played by local black soldiers who had protected the breastworks, but the 27th’s role at Battery Buchanan did not make the report on the Union’s “glorious victory.” Capt. Elliott F. Grabill of the 5th USCT predicted that despite the “essential part” played by the black soldiers in the campaign, they would not be recognized for their contributions. The Oberlin College student believed that because the USCT “worked with spade and shovel” they would be overlooked and that “the white troops who did the fighting will get the praise.” In the end, it was Terry who received the reward. When Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton arrived at Fort Fisher on January 16, he ceremoniously promoted Terry to brigadier general on the field, making him the only volunteer officer to obtain the rank during the war.⁶⁷

The 27th guarded Battery Buchanan until January 19, when the 4th New Hampshire replaced them. The soldiers did not return to the Army of the James or the Richmond front. They remained detached from the XXV Corps and served under Paine at Fort Fisher. Blackman and his troops rejoined the black division positioned in defenses north of Fort Fisher as Adelbert Ames’s and Joseph C. Abbott’s white troops participated in reconnaissance missions to determine the rebel strength protecting Wilmington. The Confederates blew up Fort Caswell and Fort Campbell as they moved closer to Wilmington, and after attempting to hold Fort Anderson, they entrenched at Sugar Loaf, where for the remainder of January a stalemate developed between Terry’s troops and Hoke’s forces.⁶⁸

The excitement and pride of playing a key role in the capture of Fort Fisher faded as the daily requirements of military life became more difficult along the Cape Fear coast. Conditions deteriorated rapidly, and the number of sick multiplied. The men endured foul winter weather, “cold as Greenland,” along the coast. The rain and sleet made rest almost impossible as the black soldiers waited for their tents and personal baggage to arrive from Virginia. They suffered from their diet as well; the men lived on rebel hardtack “worms and all.” Yet their work as soldiers continued. The 27th helped to repair Fort Fisher, built wharves for supply ships and bombproofs along the Cape Fear River across from Fort Anderson, and continued to do picket duty.⁶⁹

Overall, the Northern forces felt optimistic that they would soon capture Wilmington and that the end of the war would follow. On January 28 Grant visited Adm. David D. Porter and Terry to explain how he expected his troops to capture Wilmington. A few days later, Lincoln and his secretary of state, William H. Seward, met Vice President Alexander Stephens and two other Confederate officials at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference, but Lincoln refused to accept peace terms that recognized Southern independence and returned to Washington. As a result, Grant proceeded with his plans. He sent Brig. Gen. John M. Schofield, commander of the XXIII Corps, to lead the operations. Schofield arrived at Federal Point on February 8 to take command of the Department of North Carolina. He brought along Ohioan Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox, commander of the corps’s Third Division, to assist Terry’s forces. Grant directed Schofield to capture Wilmington, then move toward Goldsboro to resupply and support William T. Sherman. The next day, Terry’s command, including the 27th USCT, transferred to the Department of North Carolina.⁷⁰

As army officials planned their next move and the black soldiers toiled in miserable conditions, Blackman sought a higher position than his command of the 27th. While stationed on guard duty at Fort Buchanan, Blackman wrote to Brig. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas on January 18, requesting that he “be assigned to command by virtue of my rank as Brigadier General of Volunteers by Brevet.” That same night some sort of “unpleasant occurrence” led Blackman to send his resignation to Terry. The major general refused to accept Blackman’s offer and on January 22 approved his request to receive a higher command. Five days later Blackman thanked his commander on behalf of his officers for “the satisfactory manner” in which Terry had explained the cause of the incidence and assured him that the communication had “restored all to their former good feeling.” Blackman also rescinded his resignation.⁷¹

It is unclear what happened the evening before the 27th was relieved from guard duty at Fort Buchanan, but it may have had something to do with reports filed by Terry’s other officers. In the least, the event would have pushed an already aggravated Blackman, who was probably aware that the commanders had neglected to recognize the role that the black regiment played in the Confederate surrender at Battery Buchanan. Brig. Gen. Joseph C. Abbott’s January 17 official report failed to mention the 27th at all and also claimed that he was offered the surrender but made the Southerners wait for Terry. Brig. Gen. Charles J. Paine stated that he sent Blackman and the “Twenty-seventh Regiment” to comply with orders for additional troops and noted that the “Twenty-seventh Regiment” was the only one from the 3rd Brigade that failed to report to him or return to position after the surrender. Understandably, Maj. Gen. William H. C. Whiting left out the role of the 27th USCT when he detailed his surrender to Confederate officials. And it is unclear why, but unlike the other accounts, Terry’s final report dated January 25 did acknowledge Blackman and the black regiment from Ohio. He stated that the 27th, with Abbott’s men, had been “pushed down the point to Battery Buchanan,” where “all of the enemy who had not been previously captured were made prisoners.” Terry avoided any specific reference to the Confederate officers’ surrender but in his conclusion noted that “better soldiers never fought” and commended Blackman for his “prompt manner.”⁷²

This minimized recognition had a potentially negative impact on both the white officers and the black soldiers of the 27th USCT. In the mid-nineteenth century, evidence of a soldier’s bravery and contributions to battle victories had great importance to the characterization of one’s manhood. Additionally, it confirmed that a man was a virtuous citizen and provided community and state pride. The July fiasco at the Crater and the explosion at the fort the day after the surrender, which were both blamed on black troops and their commanders, made recognition of the 27th’s participation at Fort Fisher all the more critical. Therefore it is possible that Blackman’s attempted resignation was a result of Terry’s lukewarm acknowledgment of the regiment’s role, or at least his leadership, in the Union’s much-needed victory in January 1865.

But the problem may also have been caused by issues unrelated to the regiment’s role at Fort Fisher. On January 18, the same day that Blackman attempted to resign, confirmation by direction of the president appointed the three officers recommended by Benjamin Butler in late December to other regiments. The three men accepted their promotions only days before leaving Virginia, and by the time official word of the promotions reached Blackman, Daniel J. Miner was already serving as a captain with the 23rd USCT. Other officers were also a problem for Blackman. The same day that he thanked Terry for his support over the “unpleasant occurrence,” Blackman placed Lt. James W. Shuffelton of Company E under arrest for disobeying orders. Blackman’s temperamental mood was no doubt exacerbated by his own professional and personal frustrations. Despite of, or due to, his practice of placing much of his administrative responsibilities on his officers, the regimental paperwork from 1864 had not been completed. And his responsibilities in Ohio weighed on him. Blackman’s family was in distress. Catherine Blackman had had to care for their family before, when in 1859 her husband attended Rush Medical College in Chicago. But since 1861 she had been on her own with several children under the age of five for much longer periods, and she had become overwhelmed after the death of her mother and having to deal with her son’s spinal affliction.⁷³

Regardless of Blackman’s problems, the Union army moved to take Wilmington. On February 10 Schofield sent the orders to his command, and at 9:00 A.M. the next day Porter’s naval forces bombarded Fort Anderson, which was located fifteen miles south of Wilmington on the west bank of the Cape Fear River. Half an hour later Terry’s troops, including the 27th, marched northward along the Cape Fear River toward Sugar Loaf. After almost two miles, they encountered rebel picket lines. Although it was Paine’s 2nd Brigade that charged the enemy works, the black soldiers in reserve still encountered heavy fire. James E. Scott, now a corporal of Company H, watched as several more of his comrades fell to rebel shot. Ross County native Sgt. Qualls Tibbs of Company E took a bullet to the right shoulder, and nineteen-year-old Thomas J. Brewer of Company D, who served as regimental musician and hospital attendant before the Fort Fisher campaign, received a serious injury to his right thigh. It was during this encounter that many of Schofield’s men witnessed black soldiers in action for the first time. Ohioan Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox, for instance, described them as disciplined and solid in battle. When a New York Times reporter wrote an account of the battle, he expressed admiration for the USCT. In the fight, which lasted until 4:00 P.M., the federals lost 128 killed and wounded, including 6 soldiers from the 27th, but they could not dislodge the Confederates. So Terry ordered his troops to dig in, and that evening they built new entrenchments approximately a thousand yards from the enemy lines, although in some places it was reported to be as close as three hundred yards.⁷⁴ The next day, some of Terry’s white brigades attempted to flank Robert F. Hoke’s men by traveling northward along the ocean beaches. The 27th and the other black soldiers remained in the trenches to hold the Union position. Inclement weather made the operation too difficult, however, and the troops had to retreat. Rain that began late on February 12 continued for the next several days. On the 15th a downpour drenching the men, who had suffered continually from exposure since their arrival in North Carolina almost a month earlier.⁷⁵

Fig. 14. Sgt. Qualls Tibbs served in Company E of the 27th United States Colored Troops from February 1864 to May 1865, when he received a disability discharge. He was wounded on February 11, 1865, when the regiment engaged the enemy at Sugar Loaf in North Carolina. Ambrotype, Camp Delaware, Ohio, 1864–1865. Silver nitrate on glass photographic plate. (Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2011.4.2).

Fig. 15. Front (top) and back (bottom) of a brass identification tag for Sgt. Qualls Tibbs of the 27th United States Colored Troops. (Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2011.4.6)

Two days later, Terry ordered the men to gather three days’ rations and sixty rounds of ammunition. After Union successes at Fort Caswell and Smith’s Island, the Northern command was determined to take Fort Anderson. Rebel picket fire from the fort, which had begun to intensify during the previous week, injured a number of Schofield’s soldiers. Once again, Porter’s ships hit first. As Adelbert Ames’s division attempted to flank the enemy at Fort Anderson, the black troops participated in two charges against Hoke in an attempt to keep him from sending reinforcements across the river.⁷⁶

On Wednesday, February 18, Jacob D. Cox’s troops joined the assault on the fortress as Terry’s men renewed their attack on Hoke’s forces at Sugar Loaf. As part of the Union advance, the 27th and the other black regiments came up to the enemy’s rear guard and engaged the rebels in skirmishes most of the day. The 27th had weakened considerably since arriving in North Carolina. Walker D. Evans, for one, had succumbed to illness the day before, and Company B was already undermanned, as twenty-three other soldiers were unfit for duty. Evan’s death weighed heavily on the now captain Edward F. McMurphy; the thirty-eight-year-old from Union County had served as McMurphy’s sergeant for over a year. Fortunately, the fighting did not intensify, and by late evening the Confederates had abandoned their lines. The next day the 1st, 5th, and 27th USCT all suffered casualties in an attempt to follow the retreating Confederates, who had also abandoned the fort. Union forces on both sides of the river moved into their enemy’s trenches to prepare for a final push into Wilmington, naval and army cooperation proving successful again. But they were not finished.⁷⁷

After a short rest, Terry ordered Col. Elias Wright’s 3rd Brigade, including the 27th, to pursue Hoke along Telegraph Road. Lt. John R. Myrick’s 3rd United States, Battery E, and Ames’s Second Brigade followed as Abbott’s men traveled up Myrtle Sound. Meanwhile, Cox led Union forces west of Cape Fear to within three miles of Wilmington, where they encountered resistance at Town Creek. Instead of advancing, Schofield had Cox bring his men back across the river to follow Paine’s troops. With the 5th USCT in the front, the soldiers marched unopposed until February 20. That day they stopped to rest halfway between Sugar Loaf and Wilmington. At 3:00 P.M. Wright sent the 5th USCT into a skirmish about five miles out of the city. Unable to advance, the men entrenched. Paine placed the black soldiers in the front line while his white troops built defenses about one half mile to the rear. Over the next thirty-six hours the Ohio regiments came under enemy sharpshooting, and although this proved costly for the USCT, their white comrades recognized their valor and success in the role as fighters instead of laborers.⁷⁸

As the detached troops participated in the Wilmington campaign, their commander in Virginia awarded the XXV Corps square patches for the black soldiers’ uniforms. Maj. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel declared that the men deserved to wear the badges as a symbol of equal rights “hitherto denied.” He applauded their contribution to the destruction of “the prejudice of the world” and praised the “peace, union, and glory” they gave to the “land of their birth.” The black soldiers in the 27th were not there to receive the accolades or the fabric patch that left some of their officers unimpressed. Instead, they were busy defending the new lines of entrenchments north of Federal Point.⁷⁹

During the late evening on February 21, the enemy abandoned their position and left Wilmington virtually unprotected. The next morning, at 9:30 A.M., Abbott’s men led the Union troops into the city. Ames’s brigade followed. The white soldiers marched silently, finding Wilmington quiet and desolate, but the black brigades in the rear sang “John Brown’s Body” as they marched proudly into the rebel stronghold. As they approached, the black troops cheered at the sight of an elderly black woman holding a single Union flag, which blew in the wind. Then other African American residents, former slaves, who had hid from the first Union troops came out in full force. Jubilant, they shared food, drink, and tobacco with the liberators and cried out “Glory to God” for their freedom. The 27th, now part of Alfred H. Terry’s Provisional Army Corps, noticed the more unpleasant sights as well. Retreating rebels had set fire to much of the city, and the soldiers found paroled Union prisoners in wretched condition. But despite the damage inflicted by the defeated Southerners, Adj. Albert G. Jones reflected that it was a “glorious way” to celebrate George Washington’s birthday.⁸⁰

Terry’s troops did not remain in Wilmington. After resting for a short time, they pursued their adversaries for ten miles to the Northeast River. The rebels had only enough time to destroy the railroad overpass before retreating, so Union soldiers were able to cross the pontoon bridge and engage the enemy at Northeast Station along the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. The 27th came under heavy fire from the last remnants of enemy resistance, but by 9:00 P.M., after Gen. Braxton Bragg’s troops withdrew to Goldsboro, the fighting had stopped.⁸¹

For the next few weeks, exhausted soldiers in the Ohio regiment attempted to recuperate as they encamped at Northeast Station. The men were ragged, some no longer had shoes, and their diet had been reduced to parched corn. Their camp sat on low and swampy ground, and it rained often, making it an unhealthy place for the weakened soldiers, who were still waiting for their tents and personal affects to arrive from Virginia. But the North Carolina climate, removed from the winds on the Atlantic proved much warmer than a typical February in the Midwest. The pine and cypress forests, with their draping moss, looked more calming than had the barren Virginia front and the endless sands of Federal Point. Terry’s men settled into the slightly improved living conditions and waited to be resupplied so they could assist William T. Sherman, then on his way to Goldsboro.⁸²

In the meantime, Delevan Bates, now brevet brigadier general, left Bermuda Hundred for North Carolina and escorted soldiers who had been on detached duty or in the hospital when the troops removed for Fort Fisher back in January. They brought the regimental stores, tents, and baggage left behind. More than a dozen soldiers from the 27th accompanied Lt. Col. John W. Donnellan, who had recovered from the injuries received at Hatcher’s Run. Quartermaster Sgt. James H. Payne and Henry Carter, an attendant who served at the regimental hospital, helped the other men assigned by Blackman to protect the personal and army-issued items left in Virginia. Most of these men were in poor health and had been unable to participate in the planned assault on Fort Fisher. William J. Anderson, who had been on detached duty at the IX Corps 4th Division headquarters since April, also joined the returning party, which set sail on the Daniel Webster, an overused Union steamship that transported everything from Sanitary Commission supplies to soldiers. The group arrived near Fort Fisher early on February 23, where they learned that the regiment had already left for Wilmington. The vessel proceeded northward the next morning, but the ship hit a sandbar at the fork of the Northeast and Cape Fear rivers, and by 11:00 A.M. the damaged hull had started to take on water. The men, as well as the cattle and horses on board, were safely evacuated, but the mail, stores, and the black soldiers’ few possessions were in danger.⁸³

Donnellan and most of the other passengers went ashore. But Payne, whose duty as quartermaster was to stay with the regimental stores, grabbed Anderson, concealing the soldier from the officers in order to have some assistance with his salvaging responsibilities. Although the boat did not sink completely, it sat in twelve feet of rising water. Payne and Anderson worked quickly to make a platform to protect the valuables. They saved the officers’ valises first and then worked to protect the soldiers’ knapsacks. From late morning until after dark that evening they struggled to retrieve the regimental stores and baggage.

Anderson carried the saved items out of the boat and handed them to the dockworkers who waited outside of the vessel. Details from other regiments came to collect and transport their goods to a warehouse, but Payne took responsibility for the 27th’s gear. He was especially worried about the Bibles sent to the soldiers by the Hamilton Bethel Church in southern Ohio. Late that evening the two men, with only hardtack, oil blankets, and overcoats, sought rest in a cold warehouse, and in the early morning light of the following day, Anderson found some bricks and made a fire pit. He and Payne appreciated the warmth but, more important, used the flames to dry out the goods they had worked so hard to retrieve. After several days, wagons arrived to take them and the supplies to the 27th’s camp.⁸⁴

As Payne and Anderson made their way to Northeast Station, Terry ordered Paine to send twelve hundred men from the 3rd Division into the rebel countryside to secure any horses they could find. The citizenry seemed to understand the Union’s “right” to claim property but expressed great displeasure when “damned black Yankees” participated. The rebuffs no longer threatened the USCT, who believed that the war would end soon. But they viewed the enemy with more contempt after the return of thousands of Union soldiers. When, on February 26, Terry ordered his men to cook provisions for a group of exchanged prisoners, the entire encampment turned out to assist, shocked at the horrid condition of their emancipated comrades. It placed all the difficulties faced by Terry’s men into stark relief.⁸⁵

A lull of sorts provided Terry’s Provisional Army Corps a chance to assess their commands. The same day that prisoners feasted on their army grub, sixteen men of the 27th arrived from the Virginia front. On February 27 Lt. Col. John W. Donnellan returned to duty, and Blackman promptly requested a twenty-day leave of absence “as a husband and father … duty bound” to attend to his family. As a result it was Donnellan who had to deal with Brig. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas’s demand for the regiment’s missing eight muster rolls from November and December. Donnellan sought assistance from Col. John H. Holman, the commanding officer of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division of the XXV Army Corps. Holman’s investigation uncovered the fact that most of the companies of the 27th had not yet been properly mustered, so he sent the assistant inspector general of the brigade to correct the problem. He then contacted Thomas to explain the situation, stating that it was due to the “gross neglect of duty on the part of Bvt. Brig. Gen. A. M. Blackman.” Unfortunately, it was not the end of Donnellan’s difficulties with his superior officers or his attempts to bring the regiment that he would soon command to some order. The same day that Blackman requested his leave, Alfred H. Terry approved Blackman’s move to Wilmington to await his new command. Bvt. Brig. Gen. Albert M. Blackman’s service with the 27 USCT had for the most part ended.⁸⁶

Meanwhile, many of the black regiments used the time to recruit locals. Donnellan, in command with Blackman on leave, sent Albert G. Jones to recruit fifteen men in Wilmington. Union Party newspapers in Ohio kept the public informed of the willingness of liberated “robust darkies” from North Carolina to join the Union effort, and they chided Copperheads who failed to object to the blacks filling their spots as the state faced yet another draft call. Although Jones was unsuccessful, recruiting in Ohio continued to add numbers to the 27th. Meanwhile, Donnellan released Lt. James W. Shuffelton from his arrest for disobeying orders “until such time as a general court-martial could be convened for his trial,” and on March 1, in Wilmington, the Confederates paroled Capt. Edwin C. Latimer, after which he spent time at the Annapolis camp for returned prisoners before going home on leave. More important to the black soldiers in the Ohio regiment, Sgt. Wilson Morton arrived with the mail, tents, and baggage he brought from Wilmington. By March 2, the men settled in, finally able to create some sort of comfort after months of physical misery.⁸⁷

Lieutenant Colonel Donnellan continued his difficult assignment as acting commanding officer of the 27th. Most of his trouble concerned the appointment of officers in the regiment. Early in March, George L. Gilbert and William F. Blanchard rescinded their acceptance of positions with other black regiments. They both reported that they would rather stay with the 27th, the timing of which seems to indicate that Albert M. Blackman’s absence helped to change their minds. The War Department granted the requests, and awarded each a promotion to first lieutenant. Donnellan did not have as much success with other appointments, though. Between March 3 and April 3 he repeatedly requested promotions and additional men to fill vacancies in the regiment. He followed the procedure that Blackman had employed when the regiment was in Virginia but was informed it was incorrect. His superior officers told him to send his requests through “prescribed military channels,” and he was warned by Alfred H. Terry that “any failure in future to comply with the orders regulating official correspondence will be made the subject of charges.” This led to a delay in new appointments, and the March roster of commissioned officers showed that since November the total number of officers assigned to the 27th USCT had dropped from thirty-four to twenty-nine and that only twenty-three of those were present for duty.⁸⁸

On March 14 Sherman ordered Terry to move nine thousand of his infantry to Goldsboro as soon as possible. He also suggested that one or two regiments of USCT should be sent along as laborers. Sherman was not a supporter of the Union’s decision to arm blacks. His attitude concerned Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had recently asked Grant to speak with the general about his failure to fully utilize and appreciate the black soldiers. Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. John M. Schofield asked Terry to leave some of his men to protect Wilmington while the rest of the Provisional Army Corps assisted Sherman in the pursuit of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate forces as part of Grant’s plan to bring about an end to the war in North Carolina. Although Schofield asked specifically for Paine’s division, it was the 1st Division of the XXIV Corps’s 2nd Brigade that Terry left behind. As for the remaining men in the 27th, they once again prepared to participate in an offensive, despite some of the leaderships’ attempt to prevent it.⁸⁹

The next morning Sherman left for Goldsboro after ordering Terry’s Provisional Army Corps to leave for Faison Station, about sixty miles north of Wilmington. The 27th joined Terry’s other troops as they followed the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad toward Goldsboro, northeast of Faison Station, where they would form a junction with the XXIV Corps and the rest of Sherman’s men. The regiment left camp with limited supplies, Terry having sent most of his rations and clothing stores with Sherman, whose troops would provide the primary action. And Paine ordered his men to pack light, since each regiment could bring only one wagon for baggage.⁹⁰

Paine’s black division marched across the enemy territory in a column with Adelbert Ames’s troops. The sandy soil and gently rolling surface made it easier on the men than the movements in Virginia had the year before. The weather, too, had warmed considerably, and some of the men began to throw their extra clothing along the side of road. They also supplemented their meager army rations with a variety of local foods. The foraging, necessary because the division lacked sufficient rations, caused the rear guard to become scattered, and some of the soldiers took advantage of the opportunity to retaliate against local slave owners. On March 21, after marching over seventy-five miles in six days, the men in the 27th along with Paine’s other troops caught up to the rest of the Provisional Army Corps at Cox’s Station on the Neuse River. They found Terry’s troops, about ten miles west of Goldsboro, waiting for the supply train that carried their pontoons because the enemy had burned the bridge.⁹¹

When Paine arrived at Cox’s Station with his divisions, Terry ordered him to construct the pontoon bridge, and then send his Third Brigade across the river and have the men entrench to form a strong bridgehead. He also said that he had received reports of Paine’s men carrying out “wanton destruction” on Confederate property, a claim that was substantiated by Chaplain Henry McNeal Turner of the 1st USCT in a letter to the Christian Recorder soon after the events, and warned Paine to stop any improper foraging. The next day, Sherman and Schofield met outside of Goldsboro with 88,000 soldiers. The 27th USCT and Terry’s Provisional Corps were the first to greet Sherman when he marched over the pontoon bridge. The city fell with little resistance. The Union success spelled doom for Robert E. Lee, who prepared to evacuate Richmond.⁹²

That night the men had to keep their campfires low. Just before dawn officers called their men to the ready for two hours, but it was a false alarm. Later that day, 3rd Division pickets faced the enemy as a reconnaissance of rebel cavalry looking for Sherman’s supply train came upon the black soldiers. The USCT held the line, but Schofield ordered his troops to camp on the south bank for the night in case the Confederates returned. At 5:00 A.M. on March 25 Alfred H. Terry’s command left the Goldsboro area. They marched southward along the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad and at 7:30 P.M. arrived at Faison’s Station to guard the railroad.⁹³

The black soldiers made a comfortable camp and had little trouble from the enemy. Although they were told to prepare for two months of active field campaigning, they remained at Faison’s Station for only two more weeks. On April 2 the 27th was transferred to the X Corps, Department of North Carolina. They remained in the 3rd Division, 1st Brigade. The next day it turned cold and began raining again, but the rain lasted only a short time, and on April 7 the weather was “beautiful” when the Ohio regiment heard rumors that Grant had captured part of Lee’s army and that Richmond had fallen. Moses M. A. Jones wrote to his wife that “i think the war is a bout over and I don’t think the time is far distant when we will have the plaser of standing face to face at home againe.” The men celebrated, but the campaigning soon resumed.⁹⁴

On April 10 Alfred M. Blackman returned to duty, serving in temporary command of the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Division in Terry’s X Corps. Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox asked Gen. John M. Schofield if Blackman could join the XXIII Corps. Cox, a prominent Trumbull County Republican who had served in the Ohio senate in 1859, explained that he knew Blackman from earlier in the war. His reference to Blackman as a “good and reliable officer” suggests that their Ohio political connections probably had more to do with the request. Charles J. Paine told Terry that it would be for the best, as there were five brevet brigadier generals and only three brigades in the X Corps. Terry replied that he considered Blackman “an excellent officer,” but if Cox wanted Blackman then he would not object. Since Terry was clearly aware of the problems affecting the leadership of the 27th USCT, it is unclear how he came to his evaluation of Blackman.⁹⁵

The pursuit by Sherman of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and his troops continued as the black regiment from Ohio broke camp on April 10. They joined Terry, who led the 2nd and 3rd Divisions of the X Corps along the south side of the Neuse River, guarding the supply trains as they walked. The men in the 27th noticed how the landscape changed as they passed by old battlegrounds, especially the mangled trees cut down from shell and shot. Along the way the soldiers commemorated the anniversary of the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter, April 12, by discharging their guns; in the excitement, a stray bullet hit Henry Moore of Company G. As they moved through the countryside, the troops also followed Sherman’s policy to destroy the will of the enemy. James E. Scott proudly boasted to his parents that “we eat the Rebels chickens and Bacon and flour and molasses and Bigst turkeys and geas, and Burn thare houses.” Albert G. Jones took a hundred men to forage, and they loaded wagons with animals, food, and medical supplies. A number of slaves returned to camp with the soldiers that night and sang for the army of liberation. Acting as the rear guard, the 27th reached Raleigh on April 14, the last of the Union troops to arrive.⁹⁶

The next day the men prepared for a review by William T. Sherman, but heavy rains canceled the parade. Meanwhile, Joseph E. Johnston requested a meeting with Sherman to arrange for the surrender of his Confederate troops. On April 16 the men heard cheering. It continued to grow louder, and when it reached the black soldiers they heard that Johnston had surrendered, a story that later proved to be false. But at that moment they believed that the war was over. Their elation soon turned to sorrow, though. On the morning of April 17 rumors spread throughout the camp that Abraham Lincoln was dead. The black soldiers could not believe it, but the next day Sherman confirmed that their president had been assassinated.⁹⁷

Sherman met Johnston with conditional terms of surrender on April 18. Two days later the high-spirited Union troops marched through the city, reviewed by Sherman, John M. Schofield, and Alfred H. Terry. John Mansel, a nineteen-year-old from Clark County, reported to the Anglo-African that Sherman had complimented the 27th and 6th USCT. The private from Company I stated that “Gen. Sherman” told them that they “drilled as well as any troops he had ever seen” and that “he never thought colored troops could do so well.” Afterward, after Paine’s black division moved its camp two miles out of town near Smithfield Road, the men pondered what would happen next. They were surprised to learn that Ulysses S. Grant, who had been instructed while at a meeting with the new president, Andrew Johnson, and the executive cabinet, told Sherman the terms he offered were unacceptable and that Sherman lacked the authority to make them. Therefore, Grant had no choice but to refuse the surrender. While their superiors negotiated military protocol, officers of the black regiment told the men to prepare for action, as they might have to pursue Johnston’s troops. On April 25 the Ohio regiment received orders to march at 6:00 A.M. the next morning, but their last call for battle ended with Johnston’s official surrender on April 26, to the same terms that Grant had offered Lee. Instead of marching toward a new campaign, the 27th USCT became part of the Union’s occupational forces in North Carolina.⁹⁸

On April 27 Paine instructed his men to prepare two days’ rations for a return trip to Goldsboro. They left Raleigh on April 29 with the 3rd Brigade leading the guard troops. Paine explained to the soldiers that it would be a friendly march and warned that foraging, disturbing private property, and straggling would not be permitted. The men arrived at the Neuse River at Smithfield at 8:30 A.M. the next morning. The army had already removed the pontoon bridge, so the men had to forge the breast-deep water. It took until 4:00 P.M. to carry over all of the supplies, but despite the inconvenience, the overall mood of the troops made the crossing more of an amusement, with both soldiers and officers having a laugh or two in the process. On May 1 the 27th encamped in a pleasant grove of pine trees a mile outside of Goldsboro, where they found most of the residents destitute, and soon the division was helping dispense food from the army. The regiment spent the remainder of the month on marching orders, ready to go in twenty minutes if necessary. But as the temperature continued to rise, making it more uncomfortable than Virginia the summer before, the men spent most of their time performing fatigue duties in and around the city.⁹⁹

On June 2 the army once again reassigned the 27th USCT. It became Paine’s 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Division, X Corps of the Department of Wilmington. Two days later six of the ten companies struck their tents and left for Wilmington, and then, late in the evening on June 10, the last four companies joined their comrades. The freedmen expressed joy, greeting the 27th enthusiastically when the black troops unloaded from the train and when they encamped next to the Freedman’s School in the Baptist Church. Eighteen-year-old William H. Campton, a carpenter born in Oberlin, became a teacher for the former slave children, and over the next three months at least fifteen of the soldiers guarded local plantations. But most of the men in the Ohio regiment, for multiple reasons, quickly lost the enthusiasm brought on by their role as “liberators.” Now they simply worked as manual laborers, who watched as white troops, mustered out first in part to keep Northern citizens content, go home as they continued in service. Another reason they remained was because the USCT had served less time overall than most white soldiers, and many of the men still had time left to complete their one to three-year enlistments. Delevan Bates believed that the black troops would soon be alone to garrison the eastern part of the state, an issue that was likely to cause problems with the white population in North Carolina and make it more difficult for the occupational forces, whose morale was also hurt by their living conditions. On June 23 Lieutenant Colonel Donnellan wrote to his superiors in Norfolk that his regiment was “at present in a deplorable condition.” He explained that soldiers on post duty required more personal funds than were needed in the field and that seven of the companies had not seen the paymaster since August 1864. Donnellan strongly urged that his troops be paid more frequently, and on July 3 the paymaster arrived in camp.¹⁰⁰

The commanding officers of the 27th USCT had reason to worry, but money alone could not solve all of the problems. In addition to their discomfort and unhappiness, the soldiers, like many of the other USCT stationed in North Carolina during the occupation, grew bored, and some began to test military authority. Now that they served as guards and the laborers for rebuilding, they resented the rigid army treatment and punishments. Also, many worried about the local black population. Payne wrote to the Christian Recorder about the destitution and trouble faced by the freedmen, especially the white hatred and revenge against “our poor people.” With the regiment scattered along the Wilmington and Goldsboro Railroad, locals began to complain that the black soldiers were foraging against orders, sometimes intimidating citizens in their homes. On June 27 Capt. Edwin C. Latimer reported to the headquarters of the District of Wilmington that a detachment under Edwin F. McMurphy of Company B, serving with Brig. Gen. Silas Casey’s Provisional Brigade, helped former slaves redress the wrongs of their masters. The men had orders to guard the railroad and to assist the police guards only when called upon. Latimer requested that the commander have McMurphy get control of his men or dismiss him. In August two black noncommissioned officers, angered by the imprisonment of several of the men in the regiment who claimed they had been jailed without cause, reportedly incited a “riot” or “mutiny” against the officer of the day, Capt. Frederick J. Bartlett. One man, Wilson T. Morton, was reduced in ranks from sergeant for his actions. A general court-martial heard the case of Cpl. Dock Leech, who had called out, “Rally boys, rally boys,” during the chaos. He also lost his rank and received one year’s hard labor. In a related trial, one of the jailed privates, Henry Bird, who supposedly held a knife when arrested, received a life sentence of hard labor that was reduced to ten years.¹⁰¹

The problems with the enlisted men continued to grow in July and August. It was in part a reaction to the tension produced by contact with white North Carolina residents who resented the implied authority of the uniformed black men. But the trouble in the regiment came also as a result of the weakened command caused by an exodus of the leadership. Occupational duty proved distasteful or unfulfilling to many of the white officers. Lieutenant Colonel Donnellan, who had command of the regiment since Blackman’s departure in March, became post commander of Fayetteville. Before leaving, he sent one last letter in an attempt to obtain more officers for the regiment. On August 15 he pleaded with the Bureau of Colored Troops that “for the good of the service that a full complement of 2nd Lt be appointed to this regt.” Matthew R. Mitchell, who had been promoted to major in June, returned from detached duty on a general courts-martial and took charge of the regiment as other officers went on detached service. Four company leaders left the 27th to serve in occupational civil positions in Wilmington and two moved to corps command. A total of six officers resigned, and five others had submitted paperwork seeking release.¹⁰²

The absence of white officers increased the workload of the black noncommissioned men, but overall they seemed to perform their duties sufficiently. Major Mitchell placed Sgt. James W. Bray on detached duty as the officer of the guard. Nicholas A. Gray bragged in a letter to Albert G. Jones, who was back home in Cleveland since his April resignation, that Quartermaster James H. Payne and Com. Sgt. George L. Smith did most of his duties. In later years Gray continued to recognize his noncommissioned support. He called Cpl. William P. Kinney “worthy of special mention” and noted that “few white men could render better service.” Not surprisingly, the black soldiers in the regiment held Gray in some esteem. In August Gray presented a “farewell speech” to the men, who “cheered him heartily” when he left on a disability discharge.¹⁰³

As officers attempted to return to their loved ones and job opportunities at home, the black soldiers continued to toil in eastern North Carolina. The army sent companies of the regiment wherever labor was needed. Some of the men stayed in Wilmington, while others served the rest of the postwar occupation at Faison Station and Smithfield. On August 1 command disbanded the X Corps and transferred the 27th to the Department of North Carolina. They remained in the 3rd Division with eight other regiments of USCT. By late summer a number of one-year recruits welcomed their release after their terms expired. On August 21 Lieut. James W. Shuffelton accompanied two hundred of the men back to Ohio while the rest of the soldiers waited for their service to end.¹⁰⁴

In early September, the soldiers began to move again. Company C returned to Fort Fisher to labor along the Atlantic Ocean. But they were only there for a short time. On September 8 the War Department announced that the black regiments from Northern states would soon be sent home. The decision came from Grant’s request; he believed the USCT were unaccustomed to Southerners and therefore would be a potential source of trouble for the secretary of war, in part due to the disgruntled leaders of the occupied states. Army officials requested a report on the strength of each company and found that the 27th had only 628 enlisted men and 22 officers. By midmonth the order arrived to prepare for muster. The entire regiment, other than men too ill or injured to leave their hospital beds and those in confinement, assembled in Smithville. Physicians gave the men a final, cursory physical examination. A doctor told William H. Steptoe, who wore a black patch that he had made himself, that he was permanently blind in his right eye. His comrades tried to cheer him up, reminding him that it could be worse; at least he was going home. Charles Moeves did not get that opportunity. The nineteen-year-old, who had been with the regiment since February 1864, had been present throughout all of the marches, battles, and fatigue duties. But he was not with his regiment when the War Department released the men from duty. Moeves died on September 4 from a pistol shot fired by Lt. William F. Blanchard during a “camp disturbance.” Although the regiment was officially mustered out on September 21, 1865, it was several days before the chief officer of the Commissary of Musters received the rolls and requested the transportation for the 27th to Ohio. At the end of the month, the regiment packed their gear one last time and boarded trains for Columbus, where they would obtain their final discharge papers and pay. For the black men who served in the 27th United States Colored Troops, the war was finally over.¹⁰⁵