IX MEN OF COLOR, TO ARMS!

THE enlistment of Negro troops in the Union Army beginning in late 1862 was one of the most revolutionary features of the Civil War. Colored men had fought in the American Army during the Revolution, and New Orleans Negroes had helped Andrew Jackson defend the city against the British in 1815, but since 1792 Negroes had been barred by federal law from the state militias and there were no Negroes in the regular United States Army. In 1859 the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill repealing the ban on Negro militia service. But Governor Nathaniel Banks vetoed the measure because it conflicted with the federal law of 1792. Public opinion in 1860, except perhaps in a few of the New England states, was overwhelmingly opposed to allowing Negroes in the militia or the army.1

With the outbreak of war in 1861 many Negroes and abolitionists believed the national emergency would compel the North to waive its prejudices and accept regiments of Negro volunteers. Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists urged Negroes in northern cities to form militia companies. Within 36 hours of Lincoln’s first call for troops, Boston Negroes met and resolved to organize militia units. Philadelphia Negroes began to recruit two regiments. Colored men in New York began drilling in a privately hired hall. In many parts of the North free Negroes were prepared to join the army if the government would accept them.² The Negro knew that if he demonstrated his patriotism, manhood, and courage on the battlefields of the Union, the nation would be morally obligated to grant him citizenship and equal rights. As Frederick Douglass put it: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.”³

But the North was not ready in 1861 to let Negroes help save the nation. “We don’t want to fight side and side with the nigger,” wrote Corporal Felix Brannigan of the New York 74th. “We think we are a too superior race for that.” In April Secretary of War Cameron informed a Negro who had offered 300 colored volunteers to help defend the capital that “this Department has no intention at present to call into the service of the Government any colored soldiers.”4

Abolitionists reacted with predictable wrath to the government’s refusal to employ Negro troops. “What upon earth is the matter with the American Government and people?” asked Frederick Douglass in an angry editorial entitled “Fighting Rebels with only One Hand.” The government screamed “Men, men! send us men,” but refused to accept the services of Negroes. “Why does the Government reject the negro? Is he not a man? Can he not wield a sword, fire a gun, march and countermarch, and obey orders like any other? … This is no time to fight only with your white hand, and allow your black hand to remain tied.”⁵ Abolitionists extolled the courage of the black man in the war for independence and the War of 1812. They quoted Andrew Jackson’s praise of the New Orleans Negroes who had helped defeat the British in 1815.⁶ “Colored men were good enough to fight under Washington, but they are not good enough to fight under McClellan,” said Douglass sarcastically. “They were good enough to help win American independence, but they are not good enough to help preserve that independence against treason and rebellion.”⁷

After the northern defeat at Bull Run many Republicans began to reconsider their belief that white men alone could quickly crush the rebellion. Republican congressmen privately urged the arming of freed slaves. Republican newspapers began cautiously to broach the proposition in the fall of 1861.8 At the outbreak of the war Elizur Wright had written several editorials urging the employment of Negro soldiers and had sent them to the New York Tribune, They were not printed. But at the end of 1861 when the Tribune committed itself to a policy of Negro troops, Wright’s editorials, altered slightly to bring them up to date, began appearing in its columns.⁹

More and more northerners were becoming receptive to the idea of Negro soldiers. In a November speech to Colonel John Cochrane’s regiment near Washington, Secretary of War Cameron openly advocated the arming of freed slaves as a military necessity. Colonel Cochrane, a nephew of Gerrit Smith and a War Democrat, made a series of speeches in late 1861 urging the use of Negro troops. Conservatives threw up their hands in horror at these suggestions. “Putting arms into the slaves’ hands!” exclaimed the New York Express, “If this be attempted to any extent, the whole world will cry out against our inhumanity, our savagery, and the sympathies of all mankind will be turned against us.” The New York Journal of Commerce charged that Cameron and Cochrane had taken “a desperate plunge into the embrace of the Garrison and Phillips party.”¹⁰

Cameron was not disturbed by these cries of alarm. In his annual report to Congress in December he recommended the freeing and arming of slaves of rebels coming into the Union lines. He released the report to the press before Lincoln had read it. The angry president ordered him to recall the report and delete the offending section, but the press and public had already seen the original report. Abolitionists welcomed Cameron’s recommendation as the “straightforward and common sense view of the subject.” The government would be foolish not to use every resource at its command to win the war. But Lincoln, ever-solicitous of conservative border-state and northern opinion, refused to take this view of the subject.¹¹

General Thomas W. Sherman, commander of the Union forces occupying the South Carolina sea islands, had been authorized by Cameron to arm the slaves there “if special circumstances seem to require it.” Sherman was opposed to the idea of Negro soldiers, however, and did nothing in the direction of arming slaves. His successor, General David Hunter, was an antislavery sympathizer and decided in May 1862, to organize a Negro regiment on the islands. Most of the Gideonites on the islands were less convinced than their northern abolitionist brethren of the courage and martial ardor of freed slaves. William Gannett wrote in May 1862, that “Negroes—plantation negroes, at least—will never make soldiers in one generation. Five white men could put a regiment to flight.”12 Events seemed to bear out the Gideonites’ skepticism, for few freedmen volunteered and Hunter was compelled to order a draft to fill up his regiment. This was a serious mistake. Squads of white soldiers marched into the cotton fields and dragged freedmen off to headquarters, often without explanation. The Negroes began to fear that their old masters’ tales about Yankee plans to sell them to Cuba were true after all. They hid in swamps and woods to escape the draft, but were rounded up and driven to General Hunter’s headquarters at bayonet point. Teachers and labor superintendents were appalled by Hunter’s brutal and ill-advised tactics. The draft was destroying much of the freedmen’s confidence in Yankees which had been laboriously built up by the Gideonites. Edward L. Pierce sent strong protests against the draft to Hunter and Chase. Hunter finally filled up his regiment, the first slave regiment to be recruited in the Civil War, but at the cost of sowing no little distrust among the freedmen.¹³

Hunter faced other difficulties as well. Democrats and conservatives in Congress attacked his efforts to arm the freedmen. The Lincoln administration refused to sustain him. The general’s repeated requests for uniforms, pay for the soldiers, and authorization for his regiment went unanswered. The government was not yet prepared to commit itself to the arming of Negroes. Hunter gave up in August 1862, and disbanded all but one company of his regiment. The first attempt to arm the freedmen was an utter failure.14

Antislavery Union generals in Kansas and Louisiana also made limited efforts in 1862 to enroll Negro soldiers, but they were not sustained by the administration. In the summer of 1862, however, McClellan’s soldiers were bogged down before Richmond and finally driven back by Lee after severe fighting. The defeat was a sharp blow to northern morale. Early in July Lincoln issued a call for 300,000 volunteers, but war-weariness was beginning to creep over the North and few men came forward to join the colors. Public opinion was becoming more favorable to the use of Negro troops to supplement declining white manpower. On July 17, 1862, Congress passed two acts authorizing the president to enlist Negroes as soldiers. The first was the Confiscation Act, which empowered Lincoln to “employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of this rebellion.” The second was a militia act repealing the provisions of the 1792 law barring Negroes, and providing for the employment of free Negroes and freedmen as soldiers. Abolitionists applauded these acts and urged President Lincoln to begin immediately to recruit a Negro army from every section of the nation.¹⁵

But Lincoln was not yet prepared to arm the black man. On August 4 an Indiana delegation offered the government two regiments of colored men from their state, but the president declined the offer. The nation “could not afford to lose Kentucky at this crisis,” said Lincoln. “To arm the negroes would turn 50,000 bayonets from the loyal Border States against us that were for us.” In vain did abolitionists point out that arming the Negroes would bring many times 50,000 bayonets to the aid of the Union. Lincoln was still solicitous of conservative opinion, and conservatives applauded his speech to the Indiana delegation.¹⁶

Yet in the next three weeks the president’s opinion on the issue of Negro troops evidently underwent a change, for on August 25 Secretary of War Stanton authorized General Rufus Saxton, military governor of the South Carolina sea islands, to raise five regiments of black soldiers on the islands. Pressure from Republicans and abolitionists, declining white manpower, continuing lack of success of Union arms, and increasing sentiment in the army itself favoring the use of Negro troops were important factors in Lincoln’s change of mind. On the sea islands most of the Gideonites had overcome their earlier skepticism about the possibility of making soldiers out of freedmen. Instead of instituting the hated draft, General Saxton relied on volunteers, using the one remaining company of General Hunter’s abortive regiment as a nucleus. The Gideonites cooperated enthusiastically, urging the freedmen to enlist to fight for their own freedom and to prove the manhood of their race. Volunteers came forward slowly at first, but by November 7 the regiment was filling up rapidly and was mustered in as the First South Carolina Volunteers. It was the first Negro regiment of the Civil War officially authorized by Washington.17

Saxton began looking for the right man to command the regiment. He knew that the eyes of the nation would be focused on this experiment, and he wanted nothing to go wrong. The colonel of the regiment must be fully sympathetic with the experiment, intelligent and flexible but at the same time a strict disciplinarian. J. H. Fowler, a Massachusetts abolitionist serving as chaplain on the sea islands, recommended Thomas Wentworth Higginson as the best man for the job. Several other Gideonites seconded the recommendation. Saxton knew Higginson by reputation, and on November 5 he sent him an official invitation to become colonel of the First South Carolina Volunteers.¹⁸

Higginson was a true nineteenth century intellectual, a scholar and author imbued with romantic zeal. A leading contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, he was also one of New England’s most militant abolitionists. He was excited by the prospect of commanding the first regiment of black men officially mustered into the Union Army. He told the publisher of the Atlantic Monthly that he would rather command such a regiment “than anything else in the world.”19 A trip to the sea islands convinced him that the government intended to carry through the enterprise in good faith, and he accepted the colonelcy of the regiment on the spot. “Will not Uncle Wentworth be in bliss!” exclaimed his young niece. “A thousand men, every one as black as coal.”²⁰

Higginson fully realized the importance of his undertaking. “The first man who organizes and commands a successful black regiment will perform the most important service in the history of the war,” he wrote in his journal the day before he assumed his new duties. Chaplain Fowler had observed that “the success or failure of this reg[iment] is to be a most important fact in the solution of this whole Negro question.” In May 1863, after his soldiers had proved themselves in several minor battles, Higginson wrote that “there is no doubt that for many months the fate of the whole movement for colored soldiers rested on the behavior of this one regiment. A mutiny, an extensive desertion, an act of severe discipline, a Bull Run panic, a simple defeat, might have blasted the whole movement for arming the blacks.” Higginson reported that he had been informed by Secretary Chase that “the Cabinet at Washington kept their whole action in regard to enlisting colored troops waiting to hear from us in Florida, and when the capture of Jacksonville was known [two Negro regiments under Higginson captured Jacksonville in March 1863], the whole question was regarded as settled, the policy avowed.”²¹

The performance of Higginson’s men was not quite so crucial to the whole policy of Negro soldiers as he pictured it, but it was nevertheless important. After two months of intensive drilling Higginson took his troops on several minor raids into the interior to capture supplies and lumber and to run off slaves. Whenever his men encountered Confederate soldiers they fought well, holding their own or besting the rebels. Higginson sent an enthusiastic report of his first expedition to the secretary of war, which found its way into the newspapers. “Nobody knows anything about these men who has not seen them in battle,” wrote Higginson. “There is fiery energy beyond anything of which I have read, unless it be the French Zouaves…. It would have been madness to attempt with the bravest white troops what I have accomplished with the black ones…. No officer in this regiment now doubts that the key to the successful prosecution of the war lies in the unlimited employment of black troops.”22

The New York Tribune prominently featured this report and commented editorially: “It will not need many such reports as this—and there have been several before it—to shake our inveterate Saxon prejudice against the capacity and courage of negro troops.” A New York Times reporter on the sea islands was even more exuberant. “Our colored troops are more than a match for any equal number of white rebels which can be brought against them,” he wrote to his paper, and the Times, which had once opposed the use of Negro troops, printed his dispatch happily.²³

Higginson insisted that the white officers of his regiment treat the Negro soldiers as men. He prohibited the officers from inflicting “degrading punishments” on the troops and from calling them “insulting epithets.” He banned the use of the word “nigger” and threatened severe punishment of any officer who uttered it. He inspired respect in his officers and confidence and self-respect in his men.²⁴ At first most white soldiers sneered or grumbled at the prospect of freed slaves serving in the same army as they. But by the spring of 1863 Higginson’s soldiers had won a grudging if not always generous respect from the white troops. Higginson reported that while reviewing a dress parade of his regiment he overheard a white soldier behind him say: “By——, to think of my living to see a nigger regiment drill better than the 104th Pennsylvania.” After Higginson’s regiment had relieved the 55th Pennsylvania on picket duty one day, Edward L. Pierce asked a private of the 55th: “Isn’t this rather new, to be relieved by a negro regiment?” “All right,” answered the white soldier. “They’ve as much right to fight for themselves as I have to fight for them.”25

While serving as colonel of the First South Carolina Volunteers, Higginson kept a journal in which he recorded his observations and experiences. This journal formed the basis of a subsequent series of articles published from 1864 to 1867 in the Atlantic Monthly. These articles in turn formed the basis of a book published in 1869 under the title Army Life in a Black Regiment, surely one of the true classics of Civil War literature, and according to Howard Mumford Jones “one of the few classics of military life in the national letters.”²⁶

Higginson’s comments in his journal and in his published writings on the character of the freedmen and their adaptability to military life are especially interesting. He found the freedmen equal in courage and superior in enthusiasm to white troops. They took more readily to drill than whites because their plantation background had made them amenable to discipline. They made better over-all soldiers than whites, thought Higginson, because of their “Indian-like knowledge of the country and its ways” and their grim comprehension that they were fighting for the freedom of themselves and their race.²⁷

Higginson described the freedmen on the islands as “a simple and loveable people, whose graces seem to come by nature and whose vices by training.” He conceded that “they are not truthful, honest, or chaste,” but asked, in view of their past training, “why should they be?”²⁸ His observations dispelled one stereotype of the Negro. Several of the white officers had their wives in camp, and the white women were never molested or annoyed in any way by the black troops. These women, wrote Higginson, “declared that they would not have moved about with anything like the same freedom in any white camp they had ever entered and it always aroused their indignation to hear the negro race called brutal or depraved.”²⁹

The Battle at Milliken’s Bend. T. R. Davis in Harper’s Weekly

Higginson tended to fall into the same attitude of benevolent paternalism toward the freedmen which overtook several of the Gideonites. “They seem the world’s perpetual children, docile & gay & loveable, in the midst of this war for freedom upon which they have intelligently entered,” he wrote. “I think it is partly from my own notorious love of children that I like these people so well.”30 But Higginson realized the dangers inherent in excessive paternalism and consciously strove to avoid them. “It saves a great deal of trouble, while it lasts, this childlike confidence,” he wrote of his troops; “nevertheless, it is our business to educate them to manhood, and I see as yet no obstacle.” Even so, Higginson viewed the transition of the freedmen from childhood to manhood with mixed emotions. “In every way I see the gradual change in them, sometimes with a sigh as parents watch their children growing up and miss the droll speeches and the confiding ignorance of children,” he wrote near the end of his tour of duty on the islands. “Sometimes it comes over me with a pang that they are growing more like white men, less naive and less grotesque.”³¹

More than any other northern governor, John Andrew of Massachusetts favored the employment of Negro troops. In January 1863, Andrew finally obtained authorization from Stanton to recruit a Negro regiment in his state. Stanton said, however, that all commissioned officers must be white men. Andrew wanted to grant a few lieutenancies to qualified Negroes and give them opportunities for promotion, but Stanton and Lincoln feared the reaction of the northern people if black men became officers. The enlistment of Negro privates was a great leap forward, they said, and public opinion must be allowed to digest this advance before making a further one. Andrew reluctantly agreed, but obtained a promise from Stanton that in all matters relating to pay, status, and treatment his Negro regiment would be equal to other Union regiments.³²

Andrew wanted the new regiment to be the grandest achievement of his governorship, and he took great care in selecting its officers. “I am desirous to have for its officers, particularly its field officers, young men of military experience, of firm anti-Slavery principles,” wrote Andrew to his friend, abolitionist Francis G. Shaw of New York. “I shall look for [such officers] in those circles of educated Anti-Slavery Society, which next to the colored race itself have the greatest interest in the success of this experiment.”33 Andrew invited Shaw’s son Robert to become colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers. After some initial hesitation, Robert Gould Shaw accepted. A Harvard graduate, young Shaw was then a captain in the Second Massachusetts Infantry with considerable combat experience. For lieutenant colonel, Andrew selected Norwood P. Hallowell, member of a well-known abolitionist family. Most of the rest of the officers were abolitionists, some of them having been frequent visitors at the Garrison home in prewar days.³⁴

The next problem was recruitment of men for the regiment. Negroes were much less eager to flock to the colors now than they had been at the outbreak of the war when the North did not want them. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, the booming war economy had created full employment and prosperity for Negroes in many parts of the North. A white Bostonian wrote in February 1863, that “the blacks here are too comfortable to do anything more than talk about freedom.”³⁵ In the second place, despite Stanton’s promises to Andrew there were disturbing rumors that Negro volunteers would receive less pay than white soldiers. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, intelligent and educated northern Negroes deeply resented the ineligibility of black men to become officers in the new regiments.

Abolitionists and radical Republicans sympathized with the complaints of northern Negroes. If the experiment of arming Negroes was to be “hedged about by every restriction or annoyance,” wrote Sydney Gay in the New York Tribune, “if they are to have inferior pay, privileges and consideration, to other soldiers—if they are forewarned that they can never win promotion or commendation, … we presume all they will do is of small account. Spartans would not volunteer to fight in defiance of such indignities.”36 Garrisonian abolitionists passed resolutions protesting the exclusion of Negroes from officer’s rank, “believing that it serves to retard enlistment, to perpetuate an unnatural caste, and to stifle high and honorable aspiration in the mind of the common soldier.” The Church Anti-Slavery Society urged the government to give Negro troops “an open field and a fair chance, and let the colored soldier fight on equal terms with the white soldier.”³⁷

While striving to remove injustices in the treatment of Negro troops, abolitionists nevertheless urged colored men to join the army no matter what the terms. If they fought well they would win equal rights and promotion for themselves; if they refused to enlist, they would only confirm the stereotype of the cowardly, incompetent Negro. “Every race has fought for Liberty and its own progress,” Governor Andrew told Massachusetts Negroes. “If Southern slavery should fall by the crushing of the Rebellion, and colored men should have no hand and play no conspicuous part in the task, the result would leave the colored man a mere helot.” Speaking to a group of New York City Negroes, George Stearns said, “This is the time God has given your race to conquer its freedom from Northern prejudice and Southern pride and avarice.” “You must fight or be slaves,” Stearns told the Negroes. “You must fight … to obtain a right to fight on terms of equality…. It is the duty as well as the privilege of the black man to fight without standing on terms…. If he refuses to fight or turns his back on the enemy his doom is sealed for this generation.” In March 1863, Frederick Douglass published a stirring broadside entitled Men of Color, To Arms! “Liberty won by white men would lack half its lustre. Who would be free themselves must strike the blow,” proclaimed Douglass. “The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the plane of common equality with all other varieties of men…. Action! action! not criticism, is the plain duty of this hour.”38

Recruiting proceeded slowly at first. Massachusetts’ small Negro population filled less than two companies. Governor Andrew called on abolitionist George L. Stearns, a wealthy lead-pipe manufacturer and a leading advocate of Negro troops, to form a committee of “prominent citizens” to recruit soldiers for the Massachusetts 54th from all over the North. The legislature appropriated funds for bounties and transportation of recruits to Massachusetts. Stearns went to Buffalo to organize a central recruiting office. He hired prominent Negro abolitionists such as Douglass, William Wells Brown, Charles L. Remond, John Mercer Langston, Henry Highland Garnet, and Martin Delany as recruiting agents. Whenever the funds subscribed by the committee and the legislature ran short, Stearns dipped into his own pocket. His agents crisscrossed the North, making speeches and urging Negroes to join up. Frederick Douglass was extremely active, and his own sons were the first recruits from New York. By the end of April recruits were coming in at the rate of 30 to 40 per day, and Andrew soon had enough men to form a second Negro regiment, the 55th Massachusetts.³⁹

There had been much sneering among conservative Bostonians at the idea of a Negro regiment. But as the men of the 54th began drilling at Readville, near Boston, curiosity gradually overcame prejudice and thousands of Bostonians went out to the camp to watch. Many of them came away with changed opinions after witnessing this fine-looking set of colored men march, drill, and shoot with a skill and élan equal to that of most white regiments. Abolitionists visited the camp nearly every day. The New England Freedmen’s Aid Society sent tobacco, stoves, and other items to the men and dispatched a corps of teachers to instruct those soldiers who were illiterate. In May Governor Andrew presented the colors to Colonel Shaw in an impressive ceremony at Readville. “I know not, Mr. Commander, when, in all human history, to any given thousand men in arms there has been committed a work at once so proud, so precious, so full of hope and glory as the work committed to you,” Andrew told Shaw. “I stand or fall, as a man and a magistrate, with the rise or fall in history of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment.”40

At the end of May the regiment marched in review through Boston on its way to embark for South Carolina. Twenty thousand eager spectators lined the streets to watch a Negro regiment march along the same route taken by Anthony Burns in his return to bondage nine years earlier. Thousands cheered as the regimental band played the John Brown song and the troops swung smartly through Boston Common. No other Massachusetts regiment had received such a send-off. Abolitionist leaders gathered in Wendell Phillips’ house on Essex Street to view the parade. As the troops passed the house Garrison stood on the balcony, his hand resting on a marble bust of John Brown. Colonel Shaw paused briefly as he passed the veteran abolitionist, and several officers lifted their hats as the troops marched by. It was a symbolic and memorable day in the history of the Negro’s struggle for freedom, and those abolitionists who watched the parade of the 54th through Boston never forgot the scene.⁴¹

Andrew’s success in raising two regiments of colored troops encouraged other northern governors to take similar steps to help fill their state troop quotas. In 1862 John Mercer Langston, Ohio Negro abolitionist, had suggested to Governor David Tod a project to raise colored volunteers to be credited against Ohio’s quota. Langston was coolly shown out of the governor’s office with the words, “Do you not know, Mr. Langston, that this is a white man’s government; that white men are able to defend and protect it? … When we want you colored men we will notify you.” By June 1863, Tod had changed his mind. He notified Langston and gave him authority to enlist Negro soldiers. Using his experience gained as a recruiting agent under Stearns, Langston completed the enlistment of a regiment of Ohio Negroes by November. Professor G. W. Shurtliff of Oberlin, an abolitionist, was selected as colonel of the regiment.42

Martin Delany helped recruit colored soldiers for Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Ohio. In Philadelphia, J. Miller McKim, a member of the Union League, started a movement within the League to enlist Negro regiments in Pennsylvania. The committee formed to raise these troops, according to McKim, was composed of “the antislavery elite” of the Union League. McKim organized a huge rally at Philadelphia’s National Hall on July 6 to kick off the drive for enlistment of Pennsylvania colored regiments. Frederick Douglass and Anna Dickinson were featured speakers at the rally. Their eloquence helped swell the ranks of Pennsylvania’s Negro regiments. Within ten months ten regiments of Negro troops from Pennsylvania and neighboring states were recruited and organized.⁴³

In New York City a group of abolitionists in George Cheever’s Church of the Puritans asked Lincoln for permission to recruit 10,000 Negro soldiers to march South under General Frémont as a “Grand Army of Liberation.” Many prominent New York Republicans endorsed their request, and a delegation headed by Cheever talked with Lincoln at the end of May 1863. The president expressed interest in the project and promised to appoint Frémont to a command if the 10,000 troops could be raised. Frémont, however, was not interested in such a command.⁴⁴ The New Yorkers went ahead anyway in their efforts to raise the troops, applying to John Jay and the Union League for assistance. They sought authorization from Governor Horatio Seymour to begin recruiting, but the Democratic Seymour was strongly opposed to Negro soldiers and refused to grant the desired permission. Jay and his Union League committee finally obtained permission from Stanton to recruit New York Negroes directly under national authority. The first regiment marched proudly down Broadway in March 1864, and two more followed soon afterward.45

In May 1863, General Banks began to organize Negro regiments in Louisiana into a Corps d’Afrique. B. Rush Plumly, a Philadelphia abolitionist serving as general appraiser of the Treasury Department in New Orleans, was put in charge of recruitment in the city. He resigned his position in the Treasury Department and was commissioned a major in the army. Plumly reported great success in gaining the confidence of New Orleans’ colored people. “I have helped ‘get up’ their concerts; attended their meetings; churches, balls, parties, funerals, &c. &c. besides visiting constantly in their houses,” he wrote. “A man must go among them; personally, he must like them. They must believe in him. Their instinct is as subtle as any reasoning. They want to know that their leader is fighting for the principle of Freedom, by which they are to benefit. They don’t want him to fight for ‘niggers.’ ” Plumly’s son commanded one of the Negro regiments. By the end of August, Plumly had raised five regiments in New Orleans, and in the whole of Union-occupied Louisiana Banks had enrolled 12,000 black soldiers.⁴⁶

Perhaps George Stearns’ greatest contribution to the Civil War was his work in recruiting the 54th Massachusetts, the most celebrated Negro regiment in American history. But he did not retire from the recruiting field after organizing the 54th and 55th. In May 1863, Secretary Stanton formed the Bureau of Colored Troops to facilitate the enlistment of black soldiers. At the beginning of June, Stearns went to Washington and offered to put his efficient and far-flung recruiting service at the disposal of the government. “I have heard of your recruiting bureau,” Stanton told Stearns, “and I think you would be the best man to run the machine you have constructed. I will make you an Assistant Adjutant-General with the rank of Major, and I will give you authority to recruit colored regiments all over the country.” Stearns accepted the job. He could draw upon the secret service funds of the War Department to finance his activities. In addition he raised $50,000 by private subscription in the North.47

Stearns went first to Philadelphia to help organize the enlistment of Pennsylvania Negroes. The camp where the troops were trained, located on land donated by abolitionist Edward M. Davis, was named by Stearns “Camp William Penn.” “The Quakers wince,” Stearns told his wife, “but I tell them it is established on peace principles; that is, to conquer a lasting peace.”⁴⁸ From Philadelphia Stearns proceeded to Maryland to help General William Birney, son of the renowned abolitionist James G. Birney, recruit colored soldiers in that state. In August Stearns was ordered to Nashville, where a large body of freedmen had congregated in the rear of General William Rosecrans’ army. When Stearns arrived he found the brutal practice of impressment in force, producing chaos, confusion, and distrust on the part of the freedmen. Union officers and agents of Military Governor Andrew Johnson were indiscriminately drafting Negroes for heavy labor, placing them in filthy compounds, and neglecting to pay them wages. Stearns was appalled by the situation and immediately sent a protest to Stanton.⁴⁹

Secretary Stanton did not give much support to Stearns’ efforts to put an end to such practices. But with his personal tact, charm, good sense, and exceptional administrative talents Stearns set about to bring order out of chaos. His first task was to win suspicious Tennesseans to support a policy of humane treatment, prompt payment, education, and enlistment rather than impressment of the freedmen. Two of his agents spent their full time holding public meetings, explaining Stearns’ policy and appealing to loyal Tennesseans for support. These methods were eminently successful. Within a few weeks Major Stearns had won the confidence of important Tennessee Unionists, including Governor Johnson. Stearns put an end to impressment. He sent his recruiting agents among the freedmen to hold meetings in churches, cabins, and camps. Stearns established clean and well-run contraband camps for the wives and children of recruited soldiers. He organized schools among the colored troops and their families, and through his contacts with northern freedmen’s aid societies he obtained teachers and supplies for these schools.50

Stearns’ tenure as recruiting agent in middle Tennessee produced a great change in public opinion there toward slavery and Negro soldiers. His successor wrote in October 1864, that Stearns’ wise and firm actions had been primarily responsible for “causing the great revolution in public opinion, patent in the last year. Whereas some then opposed, I know of no prominent loyal Tennessean who does not now believe in, advocate, and encourage the raising of colored troops.”⁵¹ Stearns enlisted approximately seven regiments, and his successor, Captain R. D. Massey, who followed Stearns’ methods, raised another thirteen. But Stearns’ most important contribution was not the number of regiments he enlisted. His activities in Tennessee, according to J. Miller McKim, “augmented the power and helped to lick into shape the antislavery sentiment in that part of the country. His dozen recruiting agencies, scattered through middle Tennessee and extending into Alabama, have been a dozen anti-slavery agencies; a dozen education agencies; a dozen Freedmen’s agencies; a dozen agencies for promoting Northern ideas.”⁵²

On May 1, 1863, the New York Tribune observed that most northerners now acquiesced in the policy of arming Negroes, but that there was still considerable doubt whether they would make good soldiers. “Loyal whites have generally become willing that they should fight,” declared the Tribune, “but the great majority have no faith that they will really do so. Many hope they will prove cowards and sneaks—others greatly fear it.”53 Abolitionists confidently predicted that Negroes would prove themselves courageous fighting men, but they nevertheless awaited the first important battle fought by Negroes with some anxiety.

Higginson’s soldiers had performed well in skirmishes, but as yet no Negro troops had engaged in a major battle. In the early summer in 1863, however, Negro regiments fought courageously in two major engagements at Port Hudson and Milliken’s Bend in the Mississippi Valley. The performance of colored soldiers in these battles converted many skeptics into ardent supporters of the policy of arming Negroes. Even more important was the assault of the 54th Massachusetts regiment on Fort Wagner, a Confederate outpost guarding the entrance to Charleston harbor, in July 1863. The attack was repulsed with heavy loss to the regiment, including the death of Colonel Shaw, but the heroic conduct of the 54th during the battle has become enshrined in the history of the Negro race.⁵⁴ Colonel Shaw and the men who fell with him were virtually canonized by the abolitionists and by a large segment of northern public opinion. Fort Wagner was “a holy sepulchre” to the Negro race, declared the Anti-Slavery Standard. The battle “made Fort Wagner such a name to the colored race as Bunker Hill had been for ninety years to the white Yankees,” observed the New York Tribune. “Through the cannon smoke of that black night,” said the Atlantic Monthly, “the manhood of the colored race shines before many eyes that would not see.”⁵⁵ Angelina Weld asked Gerrit Smith, “Do you not rejoice & exult in all the praise that is lavished upon our brave colored troops even by Pro-slavery papers? I have no tears to shed over their graves, because I see that their heroism is working a great change in public opinion, forcing all men to see the sin & shame of enslaving such men.” Mary Grew wrote, “Who asks now in doubt and derision, ‘Will the negro fight?’ The answer is spoken from the cannon’s mouth; it is written in sunlight on flashing steel; it comes to us from … those graves beneath Fort Wagner’s walls, which the American people will surely never forget.”56

Perhaps the greatest tribute to the courage of black soldiers came from President Lincoln in a public letter of August 26, 1863, in which he rebuked the opponents of emancipation. “Some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion,” wrote Lincoln. “You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you.” When the war was won “there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.”⁵⁷

Words of praise were very pleasant to the ears of Negro soldiers, but many of them would have been happier if the Union had shown its appreciation by paying them the same wages as white troops. Higginson’s regiment and the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments had enlisted under a specific War Department promise of equal pay. But Stanton in fact had no legal authority to make such a promise. The only law applying specifically to colored soldiers was the militia act of July 17, 1862, which stated that Negroes would be paid $10 per month, $3 of which could be deducted for clothing. White privates received $13 per month plus a clothing allowance of $3.50. At the time the law was passed it was envisaged that Negroes in the army would serve primarily as laborers rather than soldiers. When Stanton formed the Bureau of Colored Troops in May 1863, he asked the legal adviser of the War Department for a ruling on the pay of Negro soldiers. He was informed that under the law their pay would have to be $10 per month. Beginning in June 1863, all Negro soldiers were paid at this rate.58

Abolitionists were outraged by this inequality in pay. The Negro soldier fought the same battles, faced the same and even greater dangers than his white comrade-in-arms, but was paid only three-fifths as much as the white soldier. To abolitionists this looked like another three-fifths compromise. On August 1, 1863, Frederick Douglass addressed a public letter to George Stearns declaring his intention to resign from Stearns’ recruiting agency. He had been enlisting black soldiers for five months, Douglass explained, but the government had not kept good faith with its Negro troops. “When I plead for recruits,” he said, “I want to do it with all my heart, without qualification. I cannot do that now. The impression settles upon me that colored men have much overrated the enlightenment, justice and generosity of our rulers at Washington.”⁵⁹

Stearns agreed with Douglass and privately urged him to seek an interview with Lincoln to lay the colored man’s grievances before the president. Douglass did so, and was shown into Lincoln’s office on August 10, 1863. The president listened quietly and sympathetically to Douglass’ protests against the inequality in pay and the lack of opportunity for Negroes to become commissioned officers. Lincoln replied that he appreciated the justice of Douglass’ complaints, but that there was still a great deal of popular opposition in the North to the use of Negro soldiers and that discrimination in pay and promotion took the edge off some of this opposition—it was “a necessary concession to smooth the way to their employment at all as soldiers.” Ultimately, Lincoln promised, Negro soldiers would receive the same pay and treatment as white troops.⁶⁰

In South Carolina the men of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments were angered by the news that their pay was to be only $10 per month. Deciding to meet the challenge head-on, the two regiments refused on principle to accept any pay at all until they were treated as equals. Governor Andrew sympathized with their stand and hurried to Washington to find out why Stanton’s promise to his troops had been broken. He saw Lincoln, Stanton, and several other officials. All agreed that the 54th and 55th had been promised equal pay, but pointed lamely to the law of July 17, 1862, as an excuse for discrimination. Andrew was partially mollified by an administration promise to support legislation to equalize pay at the next session of Congress. He returned to Boston and called a special session of the state legislature to appropriate funds to pay the 54th and 55th the difference between their promised and actual wages. The legislature quickly passed the law, but the regiments refused again to accept any pay until Washington abolished the degrading distinction between white and colored troops. They would prefer, they stated, to serve out their enlistments without pay than to be insulted by the federal government. As Theodore Tilton expressed it, they were unwilling “that the Federal Government should throw mud upon them, even though Massachusetts stands ready to wipe it off.”61

In his annual report of December 1863, Stanton asked Congress to enact legislation equalizing the pay of white and colored soldiers. Thaddeus Stevens immediately introduced a bill to accomplish this objective. Abolitionists expected quick congressional approval of the bill. But a considerable segment of northern opinion still opposed this elementary measure of justice. Democrats and even some Republicans reasoned that to pay Negro troopers the same wages as white soldiers would degrade the white man. The New York World declared that “to claim that the indolent, servile negro is the equal in courage, enterprise and fire of the foremost race in all the world is a libel upon the name of an American citizen…. It is unjust in every way to the white soldier to put him on a level with the black.”⁶²

In the face of this kind of pressure from conservatives, Congress dawdled and hesitated. Abolitionists and Republicans organized counterpressure to convince lawmakers of the need for speedy action. The Middlesex County (Massachusetts) Anti-Slavery Society sent Lincoln a resolution denouncing the government’s policy of using Negroes “to fight its battles, die miserably in its ditches, without a dollar of bounty, on only part pay, and always under white officers, and against all hope of preferment or promotion.” Antislavery meetings all over the North adopted similar resolutions demanding equal pay.63

Congress seemed disposed to act favorably on a bill to equalize the future pay of white and colored troops. “The public seems to suppose that all required justice will be done by the passage of a bill equalizing the pay of all soldiers for the future,” wrote Higginson in a letter published by Gay in the Tribune. But this was only half the question. Several Negro regiments, including Higginson’s, had enlisted with the promise of equal pay from the date of enlistment. His men had been nearly sixteen months in the service and for them the issue was not only a question of future pay but of arrears for deficiencies in past wages. Higginson declared that there was “nothing mean or mercenary” about his soldiers. If they were convinced that the government needed the money they “would serve it barefooted and on half-rations, and without a dollar—for a time.” But they saw white troops all around them receiving higher pay and huge bounties for re-enlisting, and they questioned the good faith of the government. Washington’s delay in rectifying its injustice, said Higginson, “has already inflicted untold suffering, has impaired discipline, has relaxed loyalty, and has begun to implant a feeling of sullen distrust in the very regiments whose early career solved the problem of the nation, created a new army, and made peaceful emancipation possible.”⁶⁴

Higginson wrote privately to prominent senators urging them to act promptly or sacrifice the good will of Negro soldiers. At Higginson’s behest Sydney Gay lashed out in the Tribune against conservative Republican senators who were blocking passage of a bill to make equal pay retroactive to the date of enlistment.65 Senator William Pitt Fessenden of Maine was a leading opponent of retroactive equal pay because he had calculated that it would cost the government an extra million and a half dollars. “Has he ‘calculated’ how much it will cost the country not to pass it?” asked the Boston Commonwealth angrily. “Has he calculated the price in infamy to the Government of this country, and to every man who votes against this bill, of denying to these colored soldiers what nobody pretends to say is not justly their due? … Would he dare to treat a single squad of Maine white men in this way?”⁶⁶

Massachusetts’ Senators Sumner and Wilson were leading the fight in the Senate for equal pay. Realizing that a majority of the Senate was opposed to the retroactive clause of the bill, Wilson introduced an amendment to make equal pay for all Negro regiments retroactive only to January 1, 1864. Boston abolitionists seethed with anger at Wilson’s apparent concession to the forces of evil.⁶⁷ Wilson sent an indignant letter to Garrison explaining the reasons for his action. “It is not pleasant to be sharply censured by friends when one does the best he can,” wrote Wilson. He stated that three-fourths of the Senate was opposed to full retroactive equal pay, and he had moved to make such pay retroactive to January 1 in order to salvage at least part of the retroactive feature. “I had caucussed the Senate and secured a majority and we all felt here that the friends of the colored soldiers had won a great victory,” Wilson told Garrison. “Judge then of my amazement when I learned that our friends at home were censuring me.” Abolitionists accepted Wilson’s explanation and the Commonwealth publicly retracted its criticism of the senator. Abolitionists turned their wrath instead on Fessenden and other conservatives who had forced the compromise. “Our Senators [Wilson and Sumner] managed the case of the wronged soldiers with great ability and tact,” declared the Commonwealth, “but were overborne by bigotry, jealousy and copperheadism. And so, this simple act of justice is postponed.”68

Discontent and even mutiny were mounting among Negro troops who were becoming impatient with Congress’s failure to grant them equal pay. Sergeant William Walker of the Third South Carolina Volunteers marched his company to his captain’s tent and ordered them to stack arms and resign from an army that broke its contract with them. Walker was court-martialed and shot for mutiny. Edward N. Hallowell, who had succeeded Robert Shaw as colonel of the 54th Massachusetts, reported a desperate situation in his regiment. “I do not wish to continue to keep the men in a condition worse than slavery,” wrote Hallowell angrily. His regiment was in a state of near rebellion because they refused to accept unequal pay and hence had received no pay at all for nearly a year. “I believe them to be entirely right, morally, and yet military necessity has compelled me to shoot two of them,” declared Hallowell. “We are willing to give our lives to the country, but it is too much to sacrifice our honor & self respect.”⁶⁹

On June 15, 1864, Congress finally enacted legislation granting equal pay to Negro soldiers. The law was made retroactive to January 1, 1864, for all Negro soldiers, and retroactive to the time of enlistment for those Negroes who had been free men on April 19, 1861.⁷⁰ Justice had been meted out to colored soldiers—but belated and partial justice. Frank Sanborn denounced the discrimination in retroactive pay between free Negroes and freedmen as a travesty on justice, an admission of the legality of property in man. It “divides the colored soldiers into two grades” and “does honor to injustice with a vengeance.” It conceded to the Confederacy much of what it was fighting for. “The Government says to the rebels—‘Some of these men are free; some of them were once your slaves. We discriminate between the two grades; what do you intend to do about it?’ Let Fort Pillow tell of the effect of these bloody instructions of pro-slavery prejudice and meanness.”71

On August 18, 1864, the adjutant general’s office issued an order directing commanders of Negro regiments to determine which of their men had been free on April 19, 1861. These men would be given full pay from the date of their enlistment; all others from January 1, 1864. This posed a serious problem for many regiments. Most northern regiments had both free Negroes and freedmen in their ranks; even the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments contained a few men who had escaped from slavery after April 19, 1861. Morale in such regiments might be impaired if some of the men received more back pay than others. Colonel E. N. Hallowell of the 54th worked out an ingenious method to avoid this problem. The fact of freedom before April 19, 1861, was established by the soldier’s oath. Hallowell devised the following oath: “You do solemnly swear that you owed no man unrequited labor on or before the 19th day of April, 1861. So help you God.” This became known as the “Quaker Oath,” and even those men of the 54th who had been slaves took the oath in good conscience “by God’s higher law, if not by their country’s.” Several other northern Negro regiments imitated Hallowell’s oath.⁷²

This did not solve the problem for regiments recruited solely in the South. Such an oath for them would be too patently transparent and would probably invite rebuke from Washington. Higginson urged Sumner to keep up the fight for full justice to freedmen soldiers. Failure to secure full retroactive pay for them “will be the greatest blow ever struck at successful emancipation in the Department of the South,” he wrote, “for it will destroy all confidence in the honesty of the government.”⁷³ Higginson fired off more letters to northern newspapers, conceding that under the new law the Massachusetts regiments “will get their pay at last, and be able to take their wives and children out of the almshouse, to which, as Gov. Andrew informs us, the gracious charity of the nation has consigned so many.” But the refusal of full back pay to the First South Carolina Regiment was “a deliberate repudiation of the debt deliberately incurred by the Secretary of War.” Higginson concluded in disgust, “If a year’s discussion … has at length secured the arrears of pay for the Northern colored regiments, possibly two years may secure it for the Southern.”74

Higginson intended to carry on the fight for the next two years or for the rest of his life, if necessary. When the next session of Congress met he wrote more letters to northern newspapers and sent a memorial to Congress, which was presented to the Senate by Henry Wilson on December 12, 1864. Higginson’s persistence finally paid off. Wilson guided to passage on March 3, 1865, a law granting full retroactive equal pay to all Negro regiments that had been promised equal pay when they were enrolled.⁷⁵

In spite of all the delays, vacillations, and injustices, the employment of Negro troops by the North was one of the most revolutionary features of the war. More than any other single factor the performance of Negro soldiers earned their race the respect of the North, made emancipation secure, and helped pave the way for the gains made by the Negro during Reconstruction. Abolitionists played an important part in the conception and execution of the policy of arming Negroes. George L. Stearns, John Andrew, J. Miller McKim, John Jay, Frederick Douglass, John Mercer Langston, Martin Delany, William Birney, and others recruited dozens of Negro regiments. Colonels Shaw, Higginson, Edward and Norwood Hallowell, and many other abolitionist officers of Negro troops contributed to the success of the policy. Finally, abolitionists played a leading role in the efforts to rectify the discrimination in pay between white and Negro soldiers. The success of Negro soldiers was in part a triumph of abolitionism.

1 Francis W. Bird, Review of Gov. Banks’ Veto of the Revised Code, on Account of its Authorizing the Enrollment of Colored Citizens in the Militia (Boston, 1860).

2 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War (Boston, 1953), 24-29; Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-65 (New York, 1956), 2-3, 6-7; Liberator, May 3, 10, 17, 1861.

3 Douglass’ Monthly, Aug. 1863.

4 Brannigan quoted in Quarles, Negro in the Civil War, 31; the exchange of letters between the Negro volunteer and Cameron is in O.R., Ser. 3, vol. I, 107, 133.

5 Douglass’ Monthly, Sept. 1861.

6 In the fall of 1861 the American Anti-Slavery Society published a pamphlet entitled Loyalty and Devotion of Colored Americans (Boston, 1861), detailing the services of Negro soldiers in the Revolution and the War of 1812 and urging the government once again to call black men to the colors to help preserve freedom and Union. For other examples of abolitionist efforts in behalf of the enrollment of Negro soldiers, see John Jay to Sumner, June 19, July 25, 28, 1861, Sumner Papers, HU; New York Tribune, July 7, Aug. 8, 1861; N.A.S. Standard, May 25, 1861; Liberator, Aug. 9, Oct. 18, Nov. 22, Dec. 13, 20, 1861.

7 Speech by Douglass in New York, Feb. 12, 1862, in New York Tribune, Feb. 13.

8 T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals (Madison, Wis., 1941), 33; New York Evening Post, quoted by Liberator, Nov. 8, 1861; New York Tribune, Dec. 4, 13, 1861, Jan. 30, 1862.

9 Wright to Whitelaw Reid, Jan. 30, 1873, Reid Papers, LC.

10 Cornish, Sable Arm, 22; New York Express and New York Journal of Commerce, quoted by N.A.S. Standard, Nov. 30, 1861.

11 Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 59; Liberator, Dec. 13, 1861.

12 Elizabeth Pearson, ed., Letters from Port Royal (Boston, 1906), 43.

13 Cornish, Sable Arm, 33-40; Willie Rose, “Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment,” Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1962, 186-92; Rupert S. Holland, ed., Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne, Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 1862-84 (Cambridge, Mass., 1912), 41-54.

14 Cornish, Sable Arm, 40-53.

15 Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner (4 vols., Boston, 1877-94), IV, 112; U.S. Statutes at Large, XII, 589-92; Liberator, Aug. 8, Sept. 5, 12, 1862.

16 Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (9 vols., New Brunswick, N. J., 1955), V, 356-57; New York Times, quoted by New York Tribune, Aug. 16, 1862.

17 Cornish, Sable Arm, 53-55, 80-84, 92-93; O.R., Ser. 1, vol. XIV, 377-78; Rose, “Rehearsal for Reconstruction,” 247-51; Holland, Letters and Diary of Laura Towne, 86, 93.

18 Saxton to Higginson, Nov. 5, 1862, Fowler to Higginson, Nov. 10, 1862, Higginson Papers, HU.

19 Higginson to James T. Fields, Nov. 17, 1862, A. W. Anthony autograph MS Collection, NYPL.

20 Higginson to Louisa Higginson, Nov. 16, 1862, Higginson Papers, HU; Higginson’s niece quoted in Mary Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Boston, 1914), 215.

21 Higginson, Journal, entry of Nov. 23, 1862, J. H. Fowler to Higginson, Nov. 10, 1862, Higginson to Louisa Higginson, May 18, 1863, Higginson Papers, HU.

22 O.R., Ser. 1, vol. XIV, 194-98.

23 New York Tribune, Feb. 11, 1863; New York Times, Feb. 10, 1863.

24 Cornish, Sable Arm, 88-89; Mary Higginson, Higginson, 216-18.

25 Higginson to Louisa Higginson, June 20, 1863, Higginson Papers, HU; Edward L. Pierce, “The Freedmen at Port Royal,” Atlantic Monthly, XII (Sept. 1863), 313.

26 T. W. Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, with an introduction by Howard Mumford Jones (Lansing, Mich., 1960 [1869]), xi.

27 Higginson, Journal, entries of Nov. 27, Dec. 1, 3, 1862, Jan. 12, 13, 1863, Higginson to Louisa Higginson, Dec. 10, 22, 1862, Feb. 24, June 20, 1863, Higginson Papers, HU; Higginson, Army Life, 42, 190-94.

28 Higginson, Journal, entries of Nov. 27, Dec. 1, 3, 1862, Higginson Papers, HU.

29 Higginson, Army Life, 197.

30 Higginson, Journal, Dec. 16, 26, 1862, Higginson Papers, HU.

31 Higginson, Journal, entries of Dec. 21, 1862, Feb. 11, 1864, Higginson Papers, HU.

32 Henry G. Pearson, The Life of John A. Andrew (2 vols., Boston, 1904), II, 71-74.

33 Andrew to Francis G. Shaw, Jan. 30, 1863, in Pearson, Andrew, II, 74-76.

34 Lawrence Lader, The Bold Brahmins: New England’s War Against Slavery, 1831-1863 (New York, 1961), 279-83; Wendell P. Garrison and Francis J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison (4 vols., Boston, 1885-89), IV, 79.

35 Charles Russell Lowell to his mother, Feb. 4, 1863, in Edward W. Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell (Boston, 1907), 233-34.

36 New York Tribune, Mar. 4, 1863.

37 N.A.S. Standard, Mar. 7, 1863; Liberator, June 5, 1863; copy of resolutions adopted by the Church Anti-Slavery Society on May 25, 1863, in the Cheever Papers, AAS.

38 Pearson, Andrew, II, 69-70; Stearns quoted in Commonwealth, May 22, 1863; Frederick Douglass, Men of Color, To Arms!

39 Frank P. Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns (Philadelphia, 1907), 286-92; Pearson, Andrew, II, 81-84; Benjamin Quarles, Frederick Douglass (Washington, 1948), 204-08; George Stearns to Gerrit Smith, Feb. 15, Mar. 13, 1863, Smith Papers, SU; John Andrew to Gerrit Smith, Feb. 17, 1863, Smith Papers, NYPL; Gerrit Smith to Frederick Douglass, Mar. 10, 1863, Stearns to Douglass, Mar. 24, 1863, Douglass Papers, Anacostia. Garrison’s oldest son, George, joined the 55th as a lieutenant, abandoning his father’s non-resistance teachings to take an active part in the war. Garrison reluctantly acquiesced in his son’s decision. William L. Garrison, Jr., to Ellen Wright, May 26, 1863, Garrison Papers, SC.

40 Garrison and Garrison, Garrison, IV, 79; Ednah Bow Cheney, Reminiscences (Boston, 1902), 83-84; Pearson, Andrew, II, 87-89.

41 Liberator, June 5, 12, 1863.

42 John M. Langston, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capital (Hartford, Conn., 1894), 205-17.

43 Frank A. Rollin, Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany (Boston, 1883), 145-53; McKim to Charles Gibbons, Feb. 12, 1863, McKim Papers, NYPL; Charles Follen McKim to Frank Garrison, Sept. 11, 18, 1863, Charles Follen McKim Papers, NYPL; J. M. McKim to Garrison, July 10, 1863, Sarah Pugh to R. D. Webb, Aug. 11, 1863, Garrison Papers, BPL; Commonwealth, July 31, 1863; Liberator, July 31, 1863; N.A.S. Standard, June 11, 1864.

44 New York Tribune, June 1, 1863; Principia, June 18, 1863; Basler, Collected Works of Lincoln, VI, 239; Frémont to Charles Sumner, June 9, 1863, Sumner Papers, HU.

45 John Jay to Sumner, Mar. 8, 1864, Sumner Papers, HU; John Jay, “The Union League Club of New York, Its Memories of the Past,” speech delivered to the Union League Club on Mar. 13, 1868, in John Jay, Slavery and the War (New York, 1868), #21.

46 Cornish, Sable Arm, 126-29; Plumly to S. P. Chase, July 4, 10, Aug. 1, 28, 1863, Chase Papers, LC; quotation from letter of July 4. In March 1863, Secretary Stanton had sent Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas to the Union-occupied portions of the lower Mississippi Valley to arm and equip as many freedmen as he could. A graduate of West Point and a career army officer, but no abolitionist, Thomas went about his work with an unexpected heartiness and efficiency. By the end of the war he had raised 76,000 black troops, more than 40 per cent of the entire number of Negroes who served in the Union Army. Although Thomas sometimes resorted to impressment to fill up his regiments, abolitionists were happy with the over-all effect of his work, for the large number of troops he raised helped convince the nation of the value and contribution of black soldiers. Cornish, Sable Arm, 110-26.

47 Stearns, Stearns, 295-96; O.R., Ser. 3, vol. III, 374, 676, 682-85.

48 Stearns, Stearns, 301-302; quotation from p. 302. See also Sarah Pugh to R. D. Webb, Aug. 11, 1863, Garrison Papers, BPL.

49 Stearns, Stearns, 307-308; N.A.S. Standard, Sept. 5, 1863; O.R., Ser. 3, vol. III, 676-77, 840.

50 O.R., Ser. 3, vol. III, 793, 816, 819-20, 823, vol. IV, 762-63, 770-74, vol. V, 120; Stearns to the Boston Committee for Recruiting Colored Soldiers, Oct. 10, 13, 1863, copies in Charles Sumner Papers, HU. See also Cornish, Sable Arm, 236-38.

51 O.R., Ser. 3, vol. IV, 772.

52 N.A.S. Standard, Mar. 26, 1864.

53 New York Tribune, May 1, 1863.

54 Cornish, Sable Arm, 142-45, 151-56.

55 N.A.S. Standard, Aug. 8, 1863; New York Tribune, Sept. 8, 1865; Atlantic Monthly quoted in Lader, Bold Brahmins, 290.

56 Angelina Weld to Gerrit Smith, July 28, 1863, Smith Papers, SU; [Mary Grew], Thirteenth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (Phila., 1864), 17.

57 Lincoln to James Conkling, Aug. 26, 1863, in Basler, ed., Collected Works of Lincoln, VI, 408-10.

58 Cornish, Sable Arm, 184-87; Quarles, Negro in the Civil War, 200; O.R., Ser. 3, vol. III, 252; U.S. Statutes at Large, XII, 269, 599; Fred A. Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861-1865 (2 vols., New York, 1928), I, 71-72.

59 Douglass to Stearns, Aug. 1, 1863, in Douglass’ Monthly, Aug. 1863.

60 Stearns to Douglass, Aug. 8, 1863, Douglass Papers, Anacostia; Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (Hartford, Conn., 1884), 301-04.

61 Pearson, Andrew, II, 99-104; Quarles, Negro in the Civil War, 201.

62 House Exec. Docs., no. 1, 38 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 8; Commonwealth, Dec. 18, 1863; New York World, Dec. 13, 1863.

63 Resolution adopted by the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society, Dec. 27, 1863, copy in Lincoln Papers, LC; Liberator, Jan. 29, Feb. 5, 1864.

64 Higginson, Army Life, 218-21. This letter was printed in broadside form and sent to every member of Congress and to many northern newspapers.

65 Higginson to William P. Fessenden, Feb. 13, 1864, Higginson Papers, NYHS; Higginson to S. H. Gay, Feb. 13, 1864, Gay Papers, CU; New York Tribune, Jan. 14, 20, Feb. 5, 11, 1864. See also Higginson to the New York Times, Feb. 14, 1864, in the Times, Feb. 21, 1864.

66 Commonwealth, Feb. 12, 1864.

67 ibid., Feb. 19, 1864.

68 Wilson to Garrison, Feb. 22, 1864, Garrison Papers, BPL; Commonwealth, Feb. 26, 1864.

69 Higginson, Army Life, 218; E. N. Hallowell to Sumner, June 30, 1864, Henry I. Bowditch to Sumner, July 1, 1864, Sumner Papers, HU.

70 U.S. Statutes at Large, XIII, 129-30.

71 Commonwealth, June 24, 1864. See also Liberator, Aug. 19, 1864, and Commonwealth, Aug. 12, 1864. On April 12, 1864, Confederate troops under General Nathan Bedford Forrest allegedly slaughtered several score Negro soldiers in cold blood after surrender of the Union garrison at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.

72 O.R., Ser. 3, vol. IV, 565; Pearson, Andrew, II, 120; Luis F. Emilio, History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-65 (Boston, 1891), 220-21.

73 Higginson to Sumner, June 20, 1864, Sumner Papers, HU.

74 Letters from Higginson in the New York Times, July 3, 1864; New York Evening Post, July 10, 1864; and New York Tribune, Aug. 12, 1864.

75 Higginson, Army Life, 227-28; N.A.S. Standard, Dec. 17, 1864; U.S. Statutes at Large, XIII, 488; Henry Wilson to Higginson, March 26, 1865, Higginson Papers, HU. One of the most constant complaints of abolitionists and Negroes regarding the government’s policy toward its Negro soldiers, aside from the matter of unequal pay, was the denial of officers’ commissions to Negroes. Public prejudice and the inexperience of most Negro soldiers were the main reasons for this policy. As prejudice toward the Negro lessened in the last months of the war, the army promoted several Negroes to the rank of lieutenant. Eight Negro physicians were given major’s commissions as surgeons during the war, and in the last weeks of the war Martin Delany was commissioned a major of infantry. Several other colored men were given complimentary commissions before being mustered out of the service in 1865. Of course several thousand colored men served as noncommissioned officers, but fewer than 100 Negroes were actually commissioned during the war. Cornish, Sable Arm, 214-17; Quarles, Negro in the Civil War, 208.