The Black Phalanx.
by Joseph T. Wilson.
INTRODUCTION.
By way of introduction to the American public, of the author and editor of this book, we beg to say that Mr. Wilson is not altogether unknown to the literary world, having already published several works relative to the Negro race.
His services during the war of the Rebellion secured for him a flattering recognition. He served in the 2nd Regiment Louisiana Native Guard Volunteers, also the 54th Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteers,--the most famous of the Union negro regiments that engaged in the struggle, receiving several wounds. He was the first negro member of the National Council of Administration of the Grand Army of the Republic, and a delegate to the National Encampment, and was appointed Colonel--A. D. C.
to the Commander-in-Chief G. A. R. He was chosen by his comrades to be the historian of the negro soldiers, and has overcome many almost insurmountable difficulties in gathering the scattered facts, particularly those of the early wars of the United States, that were necessary to complete this work.
THE PUBLISHERS.
DEDICATION.
_To the Brave Men Who Commanded the Black Phalanx._
SOLDIERS:--As a mark of esteem and respect for your patriotic devotion to the cause of human freedom, I desire to dedicate to you this record of the services of the negro soldiers, whom you led so often and successfully in the struggle for liberty and union during the great war of 1861-"65.
Your coming from the highest ranks of social life, undeterred by the prevailing spirit of caste prejudice, to take commands in the largest negro army ever enrolled beneath the flag of any civilized country, was in itself a brave act. The organization and disciplining of over two hundred thousand men, of a race that for more than two centuries had patiently borne the burdens of an unrequited bondage, for the maintenance of laws which had guaranteed to them neither rights nor protection, was indeed a magnificent undertaking.
You were outlawed by the decrees of Jefferson Davis, criticised by many friends at home, and contemptuously received by brother officers at headquarters, in the field, in the trenches, and at the mess table; yet, you did not waver in your fidelity to principle or in your heroic leadership of those whose valor was denied until it was proven in carnage and victory.
The record of the Black Phalanx invites the scrutiny of all who have been disposed to taunt you for a.s.sociating with "armed barbarians." No ma.s.sacre of vanquished foe stains the banners of those who followed you, giving quarter but receiving none. It was your teaching that served as a complete restraint against retaliation, though statesmen hinted that it would be just. Your training developed patriotism and courage, but not revenge. Ungrateful as Republics are said to be, ours has aimed to recognize merit and reward it, and those who at first hailed you with contumely, are now glad to greet you as heroes and saviors of a common country.
No true soldier desires to forget the price of his country"s liberty, or that of his own; it is the recollection of the terrible b.l.o.o.d.y onset--the audacious charge--the enemy"s repulse, which sweetens victory. And surely no soldiers can appreciate the final triumph with a keener sense of gladness than those who fought against such odds as did the Black Phalanx. Beating down prejudice and upholding the national cause at the same time, they have inscribed upon their banners every important battle from April, 1863, to April, 1865.
If what I have written here shall call to your minds, and present justly to the patriotic public, the indescribable hardships which you endured on the march, in the bivouac, and in the seething flames of the battle"s front, my task will have served its purpose. In the name of and as a token of the grat.i.tude of a freed race, this book is dedicated to you.
JOSEPH T. WILSON.
_Navy Hill, Richmond, Va._
PREFACE.
It was a dark, stormy night in the winter of 1882, when less than a hundred men, all of whom had served their country in crushing the great Rebellion of 1861-"65, gathered around a camp-fire. The white and the colored American were there; so were the German, Frenchman, and Irishman,--all American citizens,--all veterans of the last war. The empty sleeve, the absent leg, the sabred face, the bullet-scarred body of the many, told the story of the service they had seen. It was the annual Encampment of the Department of Virginia, Grand Army of the Republic, and the comrades of Farragut Post had tastefully arranged their quarters for the occasion.
At midnight a sumptuous soldiers fare--baked beans, hot coffee and hard tack--was spread before the veterans, who ate and drank heartily as in the days when resting from the pursuit of the enemy. In the morning hour, when weary from the joy of song and toast, it was proposed that the history of the American negro soldier should be written, that posterity might have a fuller and more complete record of the deeds of the negro soldiers than had been given in the numerous already published histories of the conflicts in which they played so important a part.
The task of preparing the history fell to my lot, and it is in obedience to the duty laid upon me by my former comrades, with whom I shared the toils and joys of camp, march, battle and siege, that this volume, the result of my efforts, is launched upon the sea of war literature.
Whether or not there is any merit in the work, the reader must judge.
His charity is asked, however, toward such defects as may be apparent, and which, perhaps, might be expected in the literary work of one whose life has been largely spent amid the darkness of the South American countries and the isolation of the South Sea Islands. It was not until May, 1862, while domiciled at the capitol of Chili, that I first learned of the war in the United States, when, hastening to this country, I fell into the ranks with the first negro soldiers that left the Touro Building at New Orleans, in November, 1862, and marched out on the Opelousas road, to serve in defence of the Union.
With whatever forebodings of failure I entered upon the work of collecting the literature of the war, from which to cull and arrange much of the matter contained herein,--which has required years of incessant search and appeal,--I can but _feel_ that it has been thoroughly done. The public libraries of the cities of Boston, Cincinnati, New Bedford, New York, the War Department at Washington, and the private libraries of several eminent citizens, have alike been made use of by me.
It seemed proper, also, that the memory of our forefathers should not be allowed to remain in longer obscurity; that it was fitting to recall _their_ deeds of heroism, that all might know the sacrifices they made for the freedom their descendants were so long denied from enjoying. In gathering together the scattered facts relating to the negroe"s partic.i.p.ation in the wars of 1775 and 1812, difficulties well-nigh insurmountable have been overcome, and it has been only through patient and persistent effort that I have been able to prepare the chapters devoted to the early wars of the United States.
Descriptions of a number of the battles in which negro troops took part in the late war of the Rebellion, are given to call attention to the unsurpa.s.sed carnage which occurred, and to give them proper place in the war"s history rather than to present a critical account of the battles.
My aim has been to write in the spirit which impelled the soldiers to go forth to battle, and to reverse the accounts given in the popular histories which ascribe to the generals and colonels who commanded, instead of the soldiers who did the fighting, victory or defeat. "The troops who do what can neither be expected nor required, are the ones which are victorious. The men, who, tired and worn and hungry and exhausted, yet push into battle, are those who win. They who persist against odds, against obstacles, against hope, who proceed or hold out reasonably, are the conquerors," says Gen. Grant"s historian. With no desire of detracting from the commanders--if I were able--the honor due them, my aim is to credit the soldiers with whatever heroism they may have displayed.
I acknowledge it has been a labor of love to fight many of the battles of the war of the rebellion over again, not because of a relish for blood and the destruction of human life, but for the memories of the past; of the bondage of a race and its struggle for freedom, awakening as they do the intense love of country and liberty, such as one who has been without either feels, when both have been secured by heroic effort.
To those who have responded to my appeal for information regarding the negro soldier, I have aimed to give full credit; if any are omitted it is not intentionally done. To no one am I more indebted for a.s.sisting in collecting data, than to Lt. J. M. Trotter, of the 55th Ma.s.s. Reg"t. nor am I unmindful of the kindness of Hon. Robert Lincoln, late Secretary of War, nor that of Col. James D. Brady, member of Congress from Virginia, for copies of public records; to Col. H. C. Corbin, for the record of the 14th Reg"t.; and to Col. D. Torrance for that of the 29th Reg"t.
Conn. I am also indebted to Maj. Gen. Wm. Mahone for a map of the defences of Petersburg, showing the crater; to the librarian of the Young Men"s Mercantile Library, of Cincinnati, for the use of Col.
Albert"s carved map of Fort Wagner, and to Col. G. M. Arnold and Hon.
Joseph Jergenson for copies of historical papers; also to Hon. Libbey.
J. T. W.
PART I.
THE WARS FOR INDEPENDENCE
1775-1812.
CHAPTER I.
THE WAR OF 1775.
The history of the patriotic Negro Americans who swelled the ranks of the Colonial and Continental armies has never been written, nor was any attempt made by the historians of that day to record the deeds of those who dared to face death for the independence of the American Colonies.
W. H. Day, in addressing a convention of negro men at Cleveland, O., in 1852, truly said: "Of the services and sufferings of the colored soldiers of the Revolution, no attempt has, to our knowledge, been made to preserve a record. Their history is not written; it lies upon the soil watered with their blood; who shall gather it? It rests with their bones in the charnel house; who shall exhume it?" Upon reading these lines, it occurred to me that somewhere among the archives of that period there must exist at least a clue to the record of the negro patriots of that war. If I cannot exclaim _Eureka_, after years of diligent search, I take pride in presenting what I _have_ found scattered throughout the pages of the early histories and literature, and from the correspondence of men who in that period discussed the topics of the day--who led and fashioned public opinion, many of whom commanded in the field. Not a few biographers have contributed to my fund of knowledge. To avoid as much as possible the charge of plagiarism I have aimed to give credit to my informants for what shall follow regarding the colored patriots in the war of the Revolution. I have reason to believe that I have gathered much that has been obscure; that I have exhumed the bones of that n.o.ble Phalanx who, at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, in various military employments, served their country. It is true they were few in number when compared to the host that entered the service in the late Rebellion, but it must be remembered that their number was small at that time in the country, and that the seat of war was at the North, and not, as in the late war, at the South, where their numbers have always been large.
Of the three hundred thousand troops in the Revolutionary war, it has been estimated that five thousand were colored, and these came princ.i.p.ally from the North, whose colored population at that time was about 50,000, while the Southern colonies contained about 300,000. The interest felt in the two sections for the success of the cause of independence, if referred to the army, can easily be seen. The Northern colonies furnished two hundred and forty-nine thousand, five hundred and three, and the Southern colonies one hundred and forty-seven thousand, nine hundred and forty soldiers, though the whole population of each section was within a few hundred of being equal.
The love of liberty was no less strong with the Southern than with the Northern colored man, as their efforts for liberty show. At the North he gained his freedom by entering the American army; at the South, only by entering the British army, which was joined by more than fifteen thousand colored men. Jefferson says 30,000 negroes from Virginia alone went to the British army. I make the digression simply to a.s.sert that had the colored men at the South possessed the same opportunity as those at the North, of enlisting in the American army, a large force of colored men would have been in the field, fighting for America"s independence. Of the services of the little band, scattered as they were throughout the army, two or three in a company composed of whites, a squad in a regiment, a few companies with an army, made it quite impossible for their record, beyond this, to be distinct from the organizations they were attached to. However, enough has been culled from the history of that conflict, to show that they bore a brave part in the struggle which wrested the colonies from the control of Great Britain, and won for themselves and offspring, freedom, which many of them never enjoyed. I have studiously avoided narrating the conduct of those who cast their fortune with the British, save those who went with Lord Dunmore, for reasons too obvious to make mention of.
The sentiments of a majority of the people of the colonies were in full accord with the declaration opposing slavery, and they sought to give it supremacy by their success in the conflict. Slavery, which barred the entrance to the army of the colored man at the South, had been denounced by the colonist before the adoption of the articles of confederation, and was maintained solely by local regulations. As early as 1774, all the colonies had agreed to, and their representatives to the congress had signed, the articles of the Continental a.s.sociation, by which it was agreed, "that we will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next, (1774), after which we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactories to those who are concerned in it." Georgia not being represented in this Congress, consequently was not in the a.s.sociation, but as soon as her Provincial Congress a.s.sembled in July, 1775, it pa.s.sed the following resolutions:
"_I._--_Resolved_, That this Congress will adopt and carry into execution all and singular the measures and recommendations of the late Continental Congress.
"_IV._--_Resolved_, That we will neither import or purchase any slave imported from Africa or elsewhere after this day, (July, 6.")
The sincerity with which this agreement was entered into may be seen by the action of the colonists at Norfolk, Virginia, where, in March, 1775, a brig arrived from the coast of Guinea, via Jamaica, with a number of slaves on board consigned to a merchant of that town. To use a modern phrase the vessel was _boycotted_ by the committee, who published the following:
"TO THE FREEMEN OF VIRGINIA.