After the Civil War broke out, abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass argued that the enlistment of Black soldiers would help the North win the war and it would be a huge step in the fight for equal rights: “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,” Douglass said, “and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.” However, President Abraham Lincoln was afraid that arming African Americans, particularly former or escaped slaves, would push the loyal border states to secede. This, in turn, would make it almost impossible for the Union to win the war. However, after two grueling years of war, President Lincoln began to reconsider his position on Black soldiers. The war did not appear to be anywhere near an end, and the Union Army badly needed soldiers. White volunteers were dwindling in number, and African-Americans were more eager to fight than ever.
The first official authorization to employ African Americans in federal service was the Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862. This act allowed President Lincoln to receive into the military service persons of African descent and gave permission to use them for any purpose "he may judge best for the public welfare." However, the President did not authorize use of African Americans in combat until issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863: "And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service." With these words, the Union army changed.
In the fall of 1862, there were at least three Union regiments of African Americans raised in New Orleans, Louisiana: The First, Second, and Third Louisiana Native Guard. These units later became the First, Second, and Third Infantry, Corps d'Afrique, and then the Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, and Seventy-fifth United States Colored Infantry (USCI). The First South Carolina Infantry (African Descent) was not officially organized until January 1863; however, three companies of the regiment were on coastal expeditions as early as November 1862. They would become the Thirty-third USCI. Similarly, the First Kansas Colored Infantry (later the Seventy-ninth [new] USCI) was not mustered into service until January 1863, even though the regiment had already participated in the action at Island Mound, Missouri, on October 27, 1862. These early unofficial regiments received little federal support, but they showed the strength of African Americans' desire to fight for freedom.
In general, the Union army was reluctant to use African American troops in combat. Partly due to racism, many Union officers believed that Black soldiers were not as skilled or as brave as white soldiers were. By this logic, they thought that African Americans were better suited for jobs as carpenters, cooks, guards, scouts and teamsters. Black soldiers and their officers were also in grave danger if they were captured in battle. Confederate President Jefferson Davis called the Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man” and promised that Black prisoners of war would be enslaved or executed on the spot. Their white commanders would likewise be punished—even executed—for what the Confederates called “inciting servile insurrection.” Threats of Union reprisal against Confederate prisoners forced Southern officials to treat Black soldiers who had been free before the war somewhat better than they treated Black soldiers who were formerly enslaved—but in neither case was the treatment particularly good. Union officials tried to keep their troops out of harm’s way as much as possible by keeping most Black soldiers away from the front lines. Even as they fought to end slavery in the Confederacy, African American Union soldiers were fighting against another injustice as well. The U.S. Army paid Black soldiers $10 a week (minus a clothing allowance, in some cases), while white soldiers got $3 more (plus a clothing allowance, in some cases). Congress passed a bill authorizing equal pay for Black and white soldiers in 1864.
In February 1863, Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts, an abolitionist, eagerly organized the creation of the regiment following the Emancipation Proclamation. Recruiting offices were opened throughout the United States and even in Canada as Massachusetts did not have a sufficiently large free black population to fill the regiment. This was the first black regiment to be organized in the North. The pace of organizing additional regiments, however, was very slow. In an effort to change this, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton sent Gen. Lorenzo Thomas to the lower Mississippi valley in March to recruit African Americans. Thomas was given broad authority. He was to explain the administration's policy regarding these new recruits, and he was to find volunteers to raise and command them. Stanton wanted all officers of such units to be white, but that policy was softened to allow African American surgeons and chaplains. Recruitment met with such success that enough men were raised to form not only the 54th Regiment but also a second black infantry regiment, the 55th Massachusetts. By the end of the war, there were at least eighty-seven African American officers in the Union army.
The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment is best known for its service leading the failed Union assault on Battery Wagner, a Confederate earthwork fortification on Morris Island, on July 18, 1863. This was one of the first major actions in which African American soldiers fought for the Union in the American Civil War. The courage of the soldiers in the 54th convinced many politicians and Army officers of their value, prompting the further enlistment of black soldiers. Because of the valor shown by the men of the 54th, the US Army increased the number of black enlistments so that by 1865 almost two hundred thousand African Americans had served from 1863-1865, comprising roughly ten percent of the American soldiers who served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.
By the time the war ended in 1865, about 180,000 Black men had served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. This was about 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. Most—about 90,000—were former (or “contraband”) enslaved people from the Confederate states. About half of the rest were from the loyal border states, and the rest were free Black people from the North. Forty thousand Black soldiers died in the war: 10,000 in battle and 30,000 from illness or infection. Sixteen USCT soldiers earned the Medal of Honor for their Civil War service.
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