The Colored Regulars in the United States Army

by T. G. Steward

Of the songs that came out of slavery with these long suffering people, Colonel Higginson, who perhaps got nearer to them in sentiment than any other literary man not really, of them, says: "Almost all their songs were thoroughly religious in their tone, however quaint their expression, and were in a minor key both as to words and music. The attitude is always the same, and, as a commentary on the life of the race, is infinitely pathetic. Nothing but patience for this life—nothing but triumph in the next. Sometimes the present predominates, sometimes the future; but the combination is always implied."

I do not know when this "soldier" song had its birth, but it may have sprung out of the perplexity of the slave's mind as he contemplated the raging conflict and saw himself drawn nearer and nearer to the field of strife. Whether in this song the "present predominates," and the query, therefore, has a strong primary reference to carnal weapons and to garments dyed in blood; whether the singer invites an opinion as to his fitness to engage in the war for Freedom—it may not be possible to determine. The "year of Jubilee," coming in the same song in connection with the purpose for which the singer is to be made a soldier, gives clearer illustration of that combination of the present and future which Mr. Higginson says was always present in the spirituals of that period, if it shows no more. When it is remembered that at that time Charleston was literally trodden under foot by black soldiers in bright uniforms, whose coming seemed to the colored people of that city like a dream too good to be true, it is not hard to believe that this song had much of the present in it, and owed its birth to the circumstances of war.

Singularly enough the song makes the Negro ask the exact question which had been asked about him from the earliest days of our history as a nation, a question which in some form confronts him still. The question, as the song has it, is not one of fact, but one of opinion. It is not: Will I make a soldier? but: Do you think I will make a soldier? It is one thing to "make a soldier," another thing to have men think so. The question of fact was settled a century ago; the question of opinion is still unsettled. The Negro soldier, hero of five hundred battlefields, with medals and honors resting upon his breast, with the endorsement of the highest military authority of the nation, with Port Hudson, El Caney and San Juan behind him, is still expected by too many to stand and await the verdict of thought, from persons who never did "think" he would make a soldier, and who never will think so. As well expect the excited animal of the ring to think in the presence of the red rag of the toreador as to expect them to think on the subject of the Negro soldier. They can curse, and rant, when they see the stalwart Negro in uniform, but it is too much to ask them to think. To them the Negro can be a fiend, a brute, but never a soldier.

To John G. Whittier and to William C. Nell are we indebted for the earliest recital of the heroic deeds of the colored American in the Wars of the Revolution and 1812. Whittier contributed an article on this subject to the "National Era" in 1847, and five or six years later Nell published his pamphlet on "Colored Patriots," a booklet recently reprinted by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is a useful contribution, showing as it does the rising and spreading abroad of that spirit which appreciates military effort and valor; and while recognizing the glory that came to American arms in the period described, honestly seeks to place some of that glory upon the deserving brow of a race then enslaved and despised. The book is unpretentious and aims to relate the facts in a straight-forward way, unaccompanied by any of the charms of tasteful presentation. Its author, however, is deserving our thanks, and the book marks an important stage in the development of the colored American. His mind was turning toward the creation of the soldier—the formation of armies.

There are other evidences that the mind of the colored man was at this time turning towards arms. In 1852 Doctor Pennington, one of the most learned colored men of his times, having received his Degree in Divinity from Heidelberg, delivered an address before a mass convention of colored citizens of Ohio, held in Cleveland, in which he spoke principally of the colored soldier. During the convention the "Cleveland Light Artillery" fired a salute, and on the platform were seated several veteran colored men, some of them, particularly Mr. John Julius, of Pittsburg, Pa., taking part in the speech-making. Mr. Nell says: "Within recent period several companies of colored men in New York city have enrolled themselves a la militaire," and quotes from the New York Tribune of August, 1852, as follows:

"COLORED SOLDIERS.—Among the many parades within a few days we noticed yesterday a soldierly-looking company of colored men, on their way homeward from a target or parade drill. They looked like men, handled their arms like men, and should occasion demand, we presume they would fight like men."

In Boston, New Haven, New Bedford and other places efforts were made during the decade from 1850 to 1860 to manifest this rising military spirit by appropriate organization, but the efforts were not always successful. In some cases the prejudices of the whites put every possible obstacle in the way of the colored young men who attempted to array themselves as soldiers.

The martial spirit is not foreign to the Negro character, as has been abundantly proved in both ancient and modern times. Williams, in his admirable history of the Negro as well as in his "Negro Troops in the Rebellion," has shown at considerable length that the Negro has been a soldier from earliest times, serving in large numbers in the Egyptian army long before the beginning of the Christian era. We know that without any great modification in character, runaway slaves developed excellent fighting qualities as Maroons, in Trinidad, British Guiana, St. Domingo and in Florida. But it was in Hayti that the unmixed Negro rose to the full dignity of a modern soldier, creating and leading armies, conducting and carrying on war, treating with enemies and receiving surrenders, complying fully with the rules of civilized warfare, and evolving finally a Toussaint, whose military genius his most bitter enemies were compelled to recognize—Toussaint, who to the high qualities of the soldier added also the higher qualities of statesmanship. With Napoleon, Cromwell and Washington, the three great commanders of modern times who have joined to high military talent eminent ability in the art of civil government, we must also class Toussaint L'Ouverteur, the black soldier of the Antilles. Thiers, the prejudiced attorney of Napoleon, declares nevertheless that Toussaint possessed wonderful talent for government, and the fact ever remains that under his benign rule all classes were pacified and San Domingo was made to blossom as the rose. In the armies of Menelek, in the armies of France, in the armies of England, as well as in the organization of the Zulu and Kaffir tribes the Negro has shown himself a soldier. If the Afro-American should fail in this particular it will not be because of any lack of the military element in the African side of his character, or for any lack of "remorseless military audacity" in the original Negro, as the historian, Williams, expresses it.

In our own Revolutionary War, the Negro, then but partially civilized, and classed with "vagabonds," held everywhere as a slave, and everywhere distrusted, against protest and enactment, made his way into the patriot army, fighting side by side with his white compatriots from Lexington to Yorktown. On the morning of April 19th, 1775, when the British re-enforcements were preparing to leave Boston for Lexington, a Negro soldier who had served in the French war, commanded a small body of West Cambridge "exempts" and captured Lord Percy's supply train with its military escort and the officer in command. As a rule the Negro soldiers were distributed among the regiments, thirty or forty to a regiment, and did not serve in separate organizations. Bishop J.P. Campbell, of the African Methodist Church, was accustomed to say "both of my grandfathers served in the Revolutionary War." In Varnum's Brigade, however, there was a Negro regiment and of it Scribner's history, 1897, says, speaking of the battle of Rhode Island: "None behaved better than Greene's colored regiment, which three times repulsed the furious charges of veteran Hessians." Williams says: "The black regiment was one of three that prevented the enemy from turning the flank of the American army. These black troops were doubtless regarded as the weak spot of the line, but they were not."