Before 1864 African American men were not mustered into the military as soldiers but were “impressed” as laborers to build walls, draw water, cook, and tend to cattle.28 Wherever Union military personnel were busy securing defensive positions in the state, African Americans identified these Federal posts as portals to freedom and sought work there driving teams of horses, working in barns, and constructing roads.29 It is instructive to know that between 1861 and 1864, more than 100,000 African American men and their families ran away to federal encampments in the state of Kentucky, seeking freedom and opportunity under the Union flag. With no formal policy in place, it was up to camp commanders to decide whether to allow them entrance. Because Kentucky remained loyal to the Union, the property of its self-proclaimed Unionist slaveholders was not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. Thus, most self-emancipated slaves seeking the security of Federal encampments were either turned away or returned to their masters. The relatively few black men and women permitted into the Federal camps served as personal servants to commissioned officers, helped build fortifications, worked as teamsters, washed clothes, and cooked.
Some high-ranking officers refused to protect the property rights of Kentucky's slaveholders. One example was Colonel Smith D. Atkins of the Ninety-Second Illinois, stationed near Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. Atkins would not send “runaways” back to their masters, even though they petitioned for the return of their human chattel. “I will not make myself & my regiment, a machine to enforce the slave laws of Kentucky & return slaves to rebel masters,” he wrote.30 Atkins was unwilling to abandon the wretched souls he believed he had sworn to protect. In November 1862 Colonel Atkins and his regiment came face-to-face with an angry mob of white Kentuckians in Winchester, not far from the Tanner farm. They threatened to remove the black men, acting as servants, from the regiment's lines as it marched toward Lexington. After repelling the challenge to his authority to harbor contraband of war,31 Atkins ordered the men of the Ninety-Second to load their weapons and fix their bayonets, in anticipation of what they might encounter in Lexington. Scenes such as this no doubt gave hope to the bondsmen and -women awaiting a change in their status as slaves. To the enslaved, hope was the great equalizer in the war that refused their participation.
Frederick Douglass, who, prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, had publicly admonished President Lincoln for not recognizing the humanity of those designated human chattel, now heaped praise on the commander in chief for inspiring a more tangible sense of hope for the indigent and degraded black masses. Douglass recognized that it was far too easy to depend on the law to try to change the direction of the war, and he had an intimate understanding of the situation blacks found themselves in. He was quick to put into perspective the challenges that lay ahead, writing in January 1863: “The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. Even after slavery has been legally abolished, and the rebellion substantially suppressed…, there will still remain an urgent necessity for the benevolent activity of the men and the women who have from the first opposed slavery from high moral conviction.”32 Douglass knew that, by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln had destabilized the institution of slavery in the Confederate states while protecting it in the states that remained loyal to the Union. But if slavery was, in fact, an evil that the nation could do without, it would have to be eliminated everywhere. In other words, even the loyalist states would have to emancipate their slaves if Lincoln's antislavery document were to have the desired effect on the nation.
To be clear, the acceptance of African American men into the military challenged the traditional white supremacist agenda, which found no value in blacks and failed to recognize their contributions. Black abolitionists challenged the war's aims, seeking black participation as a public rebuke for the injustice of slavery. It is within this context that the image of the “colored soldier” rose once again as a symbol of racial destiny and possibility. For African American men who served as Union soldiers, “Federal blue” came to embody manhood, bravery, and freedom.33 If African Americans found solace in Lincoln's gesture, they took Douglass's words to heart, imploring black men to fight for their freedom and that of their families. Camp Nelson was an important development in achieving that freedom.
Camp Nelson
In June 1863 the Army of the Ohio, under the direction of Major General Ambrose Burnside, began to construct a strategically important supply depot and encampment on 4,000 acres southwest of Lexington in southern Jessamine County. During the previous year, the Union army had sustained great losses in men and strategic positioning due to a lack of access to food stores and ammunition. With the loyalty of Kentucky hanging in the balance and Confederate troops advancing throughout the state, Burnside and his newly formed Army of the Ohio had to prepare to ward off a full-scale invasion. Indeed, the disruption of supply and communication lines by General John Hunt Morgan and Major General Kirby Smith forced Union army officials to remedy the situation and create a substantial defensive position from which to repel the rebel invaders. Confederate guerrillas, whose forays behind Union lines destroyed rail transportation, supply chains, and communications, had to be dealt with if the Federal government wanted to maintain control of Kentucky, a critical border state. The new depot would also support the hard-fought positions of the Union army stretching north to the Ohio River and south to the Tennessee border. The site chosen was situated on the “high plateau above the Kentucky River” to the north and Hickman's Creek to the south. To the west was an area fortified by 400-foot-high cliffs, which made the location defensible against enemy attacks. On June 12 the depot was officially named Camp Nelson, in honor of the recently murdered Major General William “Bull” Nelson, who had been the commander of the Army of Kentucky.34 The location of this supply depot in the Bluegrass region became an important factor in the Union army's success in the southern theater of war and was a critical element in the liberation of African Americans throughout the United States.
To construct the necessary facilities, including the waterworks, barracks, hospitals, and stables, General Burnside authorized the use of slaves from nearby farms. Other black men, both free and enslaved, were impressed from surrounding cities and farms or confiscated as contraband from rebel sympathizers (as authorized by the Confiscation Act of 1862) and put to work building the camp, as were those individuals who escaped from slavery and found refuge at the encampment. These men were responsible for digging “entrenchments and forts” and functioned as the “chief laborers on the road and railroad projects” surrounding Camp Nelson.35 Additionally, on August 10, 1863, Brigadier General Jeremiah Tilford (J. T.) Boyle, commander of the District of Kentucky, authorized the impressment of 6,000 African American males between the ages of sixteen and forty-five (including free blacks) living in the counties surrounding Camp Nelson to construct lines of transportation from Lebanon to Danville, Kentucky. Boyle's order made it clear that slave owners would be compensated for the use of their property on a monthly basis through the voucher system. However, any slave owner refusing to meet the demands of the army could have his property confiscated.36
While military personnel negotiated with the loyalists of central Kentucky over the use of their slave labor, African American men, through their interactions with white Union soldiers, free blacks, and other men of a similar condition, were beginning a process of transformation that was unprecedented in American history. In Kentucky, enslaved blacks who came into contact with those who had been liberated from their rebel masters discovered that they could imagine a future without the daily oppression that had been their reality. Many northern Union soldiers considered the institution of slavery alien and un-Christian, and their very presence among and interaction with those considered inferior undermined the system of abuse and initiated a series of changes among white and black men alike. As a result, both were changed forever.
What began as a strategic decision to build a supply depot for the Army of the Ohio in central Kentucky quickly became on
e of the most important events for the deliverance of African Americans since the war began. For those blacks who were expected to contribute only labor to support the efforts of those fighting the war, Camp Nelson presented a world of new, exciting, and previously unimaginable possibilities.37 Indeed, as they gained access to food, clothing, shelter, and training in a variety of useful occupations, black men began to grasp the significance of the moment. They were on the verge of a new epoch in American history.
Contributing to blacks' personal growth were sympathetic military officials, who were willing to use their power and influence to challenge the laws and traditions of the South and expand the role of black men in securing the Union. In August 1863 Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, an advocate of allowing black men to serve as soldiers, approved General Burnside's recruitment of blacks into the Union army, even though the War Department believed it was unnecessary to enlist “Negroes” as troops.38 More than anything, Congress and the War Department wanted to prevent the loyalist slave owners in Kentucky from getting upset and crying foul at the Federal government's change in policy. But in reality, the damage had already been done. Scores of African American men left the fields, factories, and stables of their owners to join the movement to save the Union and themselves. Thousands walked or marched down the dirt roads leading to Camp Nelson; others cautiously snaked their way through the fields in search of the freedom they believed they would find within the walls of the camp.39 Whether they would get the chance to take up weapons and fight and die like their brothers in arms at Fort Wagner or later at Fort Pillow remained to be seen.40 Nonetheless, it was only a matter of time until they discovered a new sense of purpose for their lives.
By the beginning of 1864, the completed depot was attracting white loyalist refugees from Tennessee, on the run from the rebels' fury. At the same time, changes in U.S. policy related to the military recruitment of enslaved and free blacks in Kentucky became more focused. In December 1863 the Army of the Department of the Tennessee began signing up black men from nearby southwestern Kentucky, disregarding the rights of loyal Kentucky slaveholders.41 In a letter to General Boyle, Colonel Cicero Maxwell, stationed at Bowling Green, Kentucky, accounted for the “consequences of having recruiting stations for negroes in Tennessee close to the border.” He continued: “I am told no distinction is made between the loyal and disloyal owner, but I do not know what to suggest, though it does seem to me an outrage that the Slaveholder who has been true and loyal through all the troubles of Southern Kentucky, should receive no more consideration than the traitorous sympathizer with the causeless, wicked Rebellion, and who has actively given it aid and encouragement.”42 Clearly, Kentucky slaveholders had reason to be alarmed. But momentum was on the side of the “Negro,” especially after the Emancipation Proclamation, the draft riots in New York, and the growing need for able-bodied men to crush the rebellion at its core.
On February 24 Congress added a supplement to the national enrollment act, providing for the conscription of slave men in the border states and promising “compensation to loyal owners of up to $300 for each slave who volunteered.”43 The result of the policy was threefold: it provided the Federal government with the military personnel required to continue to fight the war; it compensated slave owners for their human property; and it opened a doorway to freedom for African American men who served, and eventually for their families. Unfortunately, it did not pertain to families resulting from abroad marriages; the act applied only to family members owned by the same master.44
Some slaveholders took advantage of the opportunity to be compensated by the Federal government for their legal property; others refused to allow their slaves, whom they considered inferior and subhuman, to wear a uniform and claim any measure of equality with white men. Resisting the congressional mandate to enlist slaves to meet the army's quota, slave owners protested the audacity of black men who would claim their freedom at the cost of white slaveholders' property, profits, and pride. Many threatened to destroy the families left behind by these black soldiers, vowing to sell off their wives and children to places in the Confederacy if they did not return to their owners. Others took out their anger and satisfied their bloodlust by showing extreme cruelty to the family members of these newly liberated black men. In sworn depositions, the wives of black Union soldiers gave accounts of their suffering at the hands of their masters for the actions of their husbands. Patsy Leach, owned by Warren Viley of Woodford County, a prominent Bluegrass horseman,45 testified to the cruelty unleashed on her:
When my husband was Killed my master whipped me severely saying my husband had gone into the army to fight against white folks and he my master would let me know that I was foolish to let my husband go he would “take it out on my back,” he would “Kill me by piecemeal” and he hoped “that the last one of the nigger soldiers would be Killed.” He whipped me twice after that using similar expressions. The last whipping he gave me he took me into the Kitchen tied my hands tore all my clothes off until I was entirely naked, bent me down, placed my head between his Knees, then whipped me most unmercifully until my back was lacerated all over, the blood oozing out in several places so that I could not wear my underclothes without their becoming saturated with blood.46
In an effort to save her own life, as well as the lives of her five children, Mrs. Leach ran away to Camp Nelson, seeking shelter and protection from Federal troops.
Other women described similar treatment as retaliation for their husbands' answering the call to serve the Union cause. Clarissa Burdett, the wife of Private Elijah Burdett of the Twelfth U.S. Colored Artillery, recalled in her March 27, 1865, deposition that her master had hit her in the head with an ax handle when he learned her husband had enlisted. Fearing that her master might kill her in a blind rage, Clarissa decided to join her husband at Camp Nelson, leaving her four children behind and not knowing when she would see them again. Hurt by the treatment of their wives and children, and emboldened by their new sense of pride and purpose, some black soldiers confronted their indignant former owners, many of whom had lost faith in the Federal government once it allowed “men of color” to rise to the patriotic challenge and fight for their own freedom.
There can be no doubt that America Murphy knew that enslaved black men were being recruited for military service and that slave masters were protesting—sometimes violently—the loss of their property. After Jerry Skillman enlisted, what were America and Isaac's experiences on the Tanner farm? Would she be punished for Jerry's enlisting? Would she ever see him again? Would his children (America had recently given birth to her second child, a daughter) get the chance to know their father? These questions and more had to run through her head as she imagined Skillman wearing his blue uniform, marching in line to the sound of a fife and drum, and perhaps dying while defending his and his family's freedom. Her life and the lives of her children were connected to Skillman's fate as a soldier.
Sometime before June 24, 1864, Jerry Skillman and another man, who may have been his brother Charles, left the Skillman farm in Bourbon County and headed west to Lexington to enlist in the Union army. Whether J. W. Skillman brought them to Lexington and collected the $600 due him or whether they left on their own is not known. What we do know is that on June 24, 1864, the two brothers, along with 512 other African American men, swore to fight to preserve the Union and to follow the laws of the U.S. government. At some point, Private Jerry Skillman would change his name to Burns, probably in an effort to make it more difficult for his owner to find him. It is also possible that his father's last name was Burns, and this was a gesture to honor the memory of a man he had barely known but who remained important to him.
From Lexington, the brothers marched to Camp Nelson under the command of the white officers responsible for the recruitment of Negroes.47 To the great pleasure of Adjutant General Thomas, more than 1,500 black recruits volunteered in Kentucky that June. The newly appointed superintendent of Camp Nelson, Colonel Thomas D. Sedgwick, “was cha
rged with the work of organizing colored troops” into effective fighting units.48 Under Sedgwick's command, more than 5,000 black recruits were trained in soldiering and fighting in preparation for the coming tests of their fortitude and bravery. But even at Camp Nelson, blacks were subjected to abuses by whites who lacked the basic morality and self-control that were supposedly at the core of civilized society. In a letter to Dr. John Strong Newberry, founder of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, field operative Thomas Butler observed that the black recruits “were employed to strengthen the defenses” of Camp Nelson, which enhanced its “almost perfect impregnability.” However, they were housed in substandard accommodations, forced to wear the old uniforms of white soldiers, and “poorly fed, receiving nothing but what could be taken with their bare hands, and not more than half rations at that.”49 These conditions, whereby black soldiers were overworked and undernourished, contributed to high rates of disease and death and affected their morale. For some, slavery had been more humane than soldiering.
Prior to the 1864 Conscription Act, black soldiers who had left without their masters' consent were often reclaimed by their disgruntled owners, who came to camp to collect them and used various means of persuasion to get them to leave. Those who were unwilling to go voluntarily could stay in camp if their owners were not loyal to the Union. Those whose masters were Unionist were returned to them and often suffered great cruelty as punishment for running away. Some had their ears cut off or were tied to trees and horsewhipped. There were even cases of black men being killed by their former masters. Some were shot in the head in clear view of observers; others were taken some distance away, where they were tied down and “flayed alive.”50 Despite the danger, black men increasingly risked their lives to travel to Camp Nelson. For those who made it through the gates, it represented a journey from slavery to freedom. For those given the opportunity to wear the “Federal blue” uniform, it represented the achievement of something that had long been denied them: public recognition of their manhood.51
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