The Prince of Jockeys

by Pellom McDaniels III

  In spite of the obstacles, African American men and boys left their masters' farms by the hundreds to join up and claim freedom as enlisted men in the U.S. Army. On the way to recruitment centers in Lexington and Louisville, many black volunteers were viciously assaulted and brutalized by whites, who opposed their recruitment as soldiers and the elevated status it gave them.52 Fortunately, the will and determination of these black men could not be crushed by the negative responses of white Kentuckians, most of whom had been conditioned to believe that blacks were inferior. The time had come for Kentucky's black sons, brothers, and fathers to join the ranks of the brave, standing shoulder to shoulder on the verge of history.

  What began in May as a trickle of volunteers became a tidal wave by September, as African American men clamored to fight for a cause greater than the preservation of the Union: their freedom. Indeed, by the end of the war, 23,703 black men from Kentucky had enlisted in the Union army; this was second only to Louisiana, with 24,052. However, Louisiana's Native Guard consisted mostly of free men of color who were well-educated businessmen from New Orleans. In contrast, a majority of Kentucky's black soldiers were former slaves fighting for their freedom on the battlefields of the South.

  Elijah Marrs, who would become a sergeant in the Twelfth U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery, was one of the thousands of men in Kentucky's great black regiments. He wrote a compelling narrative of his life, including his experiences as a slave on the Robinson farm in Shelby County, Kentucky, and his time as a soldier. Marrs describes the day he decided to leave slavery behind and join the ranks of les fils courageux de l'Afrique noire—the brave black sons of Africa: “I remember the morning I made up my mind to join the United States Army. I started to Simpsonville and walking along I met many of my old comrades on the Shelbyville Pike. I told them my determination, and asked all who desired to join my company to roll his coat sleeves above his elbows, and to let them to remain so during the day. I marshaled my forces day and night. I had twenty-seven men, all told, and I was elected their captain to lead them to Louisville.”53 Marrs's decision to free himself from slavery and encourage others to pursue the same goal is inspiring. Such individual initiatives would have a great impact on the mass exodus of African Americans who passed through Camp Nelson and other portals of freedom. For African American men like Marrs and Jerry Skillman, their manhood became inseparable from their service as soldiers in the Civil War, where “freedom and equality” rested on the willingness to sacrifice one's life in defense of one's claim to humanity, manhood, and citizenship.54

  Like the families of most black soldiers, Jerry Skillman's followed him to camp. When America and her children arrived at Camp Nelson, where they slept, and where they ate are unknown. However, records show that shortly after black men were mustered into their regiments and marched off to drill and train, their wives and children usually followed. In many cases, once slave owners learned the husbands had enlisted in the Union army, they turned out the wives, sending them away and forcing them to fend for themselves and their children. Although they were discouraged by military personnel, most wives felt they had no choice but to follow the roads leading to Camp Nelson, already swollen with those seeking redemption.55 There is no evidence that America Murphy and her children were expelled from the Tanner farm, but it is likely that she, three-year-old Isaac, and her infant daughter were among the multitude seeking deliverance from slavery at Camp Nelson.

  Within a few weeks of establishing residence at the camp and perhaps finding work as a washwoman or a cook, America would have heard about the decision to bar civilians from entering Camp Nelson. In a memo dated July 3, 1864, Brigadier General Speed Fry ordered that “only able bodied Negroes of lawful age who express a desire to enter the U.S. service shall hereafter be permitted to enter” the camp. Furthermore, “any old men, women or children shall under no pretense whatever be allowed to pass the line of Pickets at this Post.”56 For whatever reason, the soldiers standing guard ignored this order and continued to let people pass through and take up residence on the already congested grounds. Between the end of July and late November, the population of African American women and children in the camp doubled from 200 to 400. Food and clothing were limited, and to provide shelter for the increasing population, brothers, husbands, and fathers constructed shanties and tents from materials found both inside and outside the camp. The military post began to look like a refugee camp rather than the staging ground for assaults on the enemy.

  It did not help that the experiment in emancipation was under attack by both government officials and the general public. Many remained skeptical of black men's ability on the battlefield, even though their bravery had been proved “beyond further doubt” at Milliken's Bend.57 Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana noted, “The bravery of the blacks at Milliken's Bend completely revolutionized the sentiment of the army with regard to the employment of Negro troops. I heard prominent officers who formerly in private had sneered at the idea of the negroes fighting express themselves after that as heartily in favor of it.”58 Dana's sentiment was supported by Adjutant General Thomas, who pushed hard to recruit able-bodied black men from Kentucky to serve the Union cause. By July 20, three “colored” regiments under the command of Colonel Thomas Sedgwick had been fully “organized, clothed and armed” out of the thousands of recruits available. Indeed, the 114th and 116th Colored Infantries and the Twelfth U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery were held in “readiness to repel any attack” by rebels and to respond to the need for troops in the theater of war.59

  By October, Jerry and Charles Skillman were privates in Company C of the 114th Colored Infantry under the command of Major Andrew J. Hogan. They were embracing their new lives as soldiers and were prepared to fight for their freedom and that of their families. This was especially true of Jerry, whose wife and children were daily reminders of his purpose in life: to gain their freedom through his service. Isaac may have been too young to understand everything happening around him, but there can be no doubt that it left an indelible impression on him. Children know when to fear and when to rejoice, based on the reactions of the adults around them. They are accustomed to reading the faces of adults to discern how they should respond.

  Abolitionist John G. Fee, a member of the American Missionary Association and the founder of Berea College, was a strong supporter of the recruitment of black men, and he believed Camp Nelson could meet many of the needs of its black population. With the support of Captain Theron E. Hall, Fee began a program to educate the black soldiers, providing religious training, compulsory education, and practical skills that would allow them to function as contributing members of society.60 More than anything, black soldiers gained an advocate in Fee, who saw them as “noble men…made in the image of God, just emerging from the restraints of slavery in the liberties and responsibilities of free men, and of soldiers.”61 Fee convinced military officials to support his plan to change the fortunes of blacks through education and obtained the use of a large schoolroom as well as copybooks, slates, and other valuable supplies.

  In early August the Reverend John A. R. Rogers visited Camp Nelson and made the following observations about Fee's work:

  I have just returned from a visit to Camp Nelson and Berea, greatly cheered by what I saw. At Camp Nelson I found brothers Fee and Vetter, and their thirteen volunteer assistants, teaching the colored troops. The teachableness of the colored soldiers, their eagerness to learn, and their rapid progress, were alike surprising and gratifying. I have never seen more rapid progress made by anyone then by them…. I can but think that the black men to whom brother Fee preaches there—and he preaches to not a few of either the black or white race—are destined to exert a great influence. Colored soldiers will be leaders among colored men.62

  Like Fee, Rogers was a proponent of African American equality, and he recognized that the war was an opportunity to change whites' attitudes toward their darker brothers.

  However, what Fee and Rogers overlooked we
re the problems at the camp. The large number of runaway slaves created discord when their owners came looking for them. And although the military leadership was quick to take new recruits, there was little support for their families. With very few opportunities for black women to find employment as personal cooks and washerwomen, some traded sex for food; a number of families starved and were forced to return to slavery. All this would change after November 22, 1864, when the decision was made to forcibly evict all nonessential personnel.63

  As the winter approached, General Fry issued the order to displace the most vulnerable occupants of Camp Nelson. Although the white workers had been provided for and were not in danger of being expelled from camp, the colored people were subjected to the cruelty of military efficiency. In what was described by several eyewitnesses as the “coldest [weather] of the season,” with the wind “blowing sharply,” black women and children were loaded onto wagons with whatever they could carry and taken north of the camp. At gunpoint and under “threat of [violence and] death” if they returned, the elderly, the sick, and mothers with their children began the sojourn north toward Lexington in search of shelter.64 Soldiers then dismantled the makeshift community of rough tents and huts, stacked everything into piles, and set them ablaze. From outside the camp lines, the displaced African Americans could only watch as the smoke rose in great curls of blue, gray, and black. Amid the crying of children and the wailing of women forced out into the night, their husbands, fathers, and brothers watched helplessly from their barracks, unable to attend them, afraid of being shot dead for disobeying a direct order. Although some of the displaced women and children made their way to Nicholasville and Lexington, 102 perished, including several small children.

  The “deliberate cruelty” on the part of the Union command became news throughout the nation. Abolitionists such as Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune, blasted the Federal government and officials of Camp Nelson, publishing an account of the expulsion: “At this moment, over four hundred helpless human beings—frail women and delicate children—having been driven from their homes by United States soldiers are now lying in barns and mule sheds, wandering through the woods, languishing on the highway, and literally starving, for no other crime than their husbands and fathers having thrown aside the manacles of slavery to shoulder Union muskets.”65 In a sworn deposition, Private Joseph Miller of Company I, 124th U.S. Colored Infantry, described in detail the expulsion of his family from Camp Nelson and the death of his son:

  When I came to Camp for the purpose of enlisting about the middle of October 1864, my wife and children came with me because my master said that if I enlisted he would not maintain them and I knew that they would be abused by him when I left. I had then four children, ages respectively ten, nine, seven and four years. On presenting myself as a recruit, I was told by the Lieut. in command to take my family into a tent within the limits of the Camp. My wife and family occupied this tent by the express permission of the aforementioned Officer and never received any notice to leave until Tuesday November 22nd when a mounted guard gave my wife notice that she and her children must leave Camp before early morning. This was about six o'clock at night. My little boy about seven years of age had been very sick and was slowly recovering. My wife had no place to go and so remained until morning. About eight o'clock Wednesday morning November 23rd a mounted guard came to my tent and ordered my wife and children out of Camp. The morning was bitter cold. It was freezing hard. I was certain that it would kill my sick child to take him out in the cold. I told the man in charge of the guard that it would be the death of my boy. I told him that my wife and children had no place to go and I told him that I was a soldier of the United States. He told me that it did not make any difference he had orders to take all out of Camp. He told my wife and family that if they did not get up into the wagon which he had, he would shoot the last one of them. On being thus threatened my wife and children went into the wagon. My wife carried her sick child in her arms. When they left the tent the wind was blowing hard and cold and having had to leave much of our clothing when we left our master, my wife with her little ones was poorly clad. I followed them as far as the lines. I had no Knowledge where they were taking them. At night I went in search of my family. I found them at Nicholasville about six miles from Camp…. I found my wife and children shivering with cold and famished with hunger. They had not received a morsel of food during the whole day. My boy was dead. He died directly after getting down from the wagon. I know he was killed by exposure to the inclement weather. I had to return to Camp that night, so I left my family in the meeting house and walked back. I had walked there. I travelled in all twelve miles. Next morning I walked to Nicholasville. I dug a grave myself and buried my child. I left my family in the Meeting house—where they still remain.66

  Clearly, such cruelty could not be forgotten by those who experienced it. The insensitive treatment of the sick and the frail, those unable to fight off starvation and cold, was a deliberate act intended to rid the army of unwanted responsibilities. It is possible that America Murphy and her children were forced to leave Camp Nelson that November, and, similar to Joseph Miller, Jerry Skillman may have attempted to save his family. But he likely found little support from the soldiers charged with dispatching the women and children into the cold Kentucky night. The failure to protect the smallest and weakest African Americans reflects the embedded social and political reality captured in the historical moment: black lives meant something only when they served white aims and goals. Even though Miller and Skillman and others like them were empowered to assert their manhood in the context of protecting the Union and pursuing their individual freedom and liberty, they were not free to protect their families.

  After learning of the plight of the 400 colored women and children ejected from Camp Nelson and General Fry's role in executing the order, Captain Theron Hall began to protest their abuse up the chain of command. Hall, an advocate for African Americans' transition from slavery to freedom, wrote to Captain J. Bates Dickson in Lexington: “More than four hundred poor women and children families of Colored soldiers have been sent from Camp the past week. Some have died and all are in a starving condition. They are sitting by the roadside and wandering about the fields. Can you not induce the General to interfere on their behalf? No more potent weapon could be placed in the hands of the rebels to prevent enlistment than this. The whole community are loud in denouncing the outrage.”67 As a result of Hall's efforts, Dickson ordered Fry to provide the families with the necessary food and shelter and even instructed him to “erect new buildings” and welcome the refugees back into camp.68 Fry, who believed he was in the right, was unwilling to budge on his decision to expel those who were nonessential to the functioning of a military installation. Even after receiving a direct command from Brigadier Major General Stephen Burbridge, Fry still refused to allow the wives and children back into camp and went so far as to have Hall arrested for agitating the situation.

  At all levels, it was understood that events at Camp Nelson made the Federal government look bad and might discourage black volunteers from enlisting. Fortunately, by the middle of December, General Fry was removed as commander of Camp Nelson, either at his own request or under pressure from his superiors. His successor, Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, began a program to accommodate the wives and children of the black soldiers. He appointed Captain Hall as the new superintendent of refugees and Reverend Fee as supervisor of spiritual and educational development. With these changes, Camp Nelson became the most important place in Kentucky and in the nation for black people making the transition from slavery to freedom.

  By January 1865, Camp Nelson was once again functioning as a portal to freedom for self-emancipated blacks in Kentucky. Under the guidance of Hall and Fee, soldiers' wives and children, including America, Isaac, and her daughter, had access to shelter, food (albeit military rations), and education. Private Jerry Skillman, meanwhile, had witnessed firsthand the consequences of mil
itary efficiency and callous decision making. His wife and children had been ejected into a harsh and hostile environment, without care or concern for their lives. The helplessness felt by Skillman and his fellow soldiers, and their guilt and anger over the loss of their loved ones, only confirmed their great purpose. The future had to be different. It was up to them to ensure that the world—or at least the United States—was fit for black people to live in.

  “Freedom Will Be Theirs by the Sword”

  While Camp Nelson was adjusting to changes in leadership and revising its policies toward housing, feeding, and educating the wives and children of black soldiers, dramatic changes were also taking place in the Union army, particularly in the theater of war around Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. In early November 1864 Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant directed that black regiments from the armies north and south of the James River be combined to create the all-black Twenty-Fifth Corps. Grant's decision to mount an aggressive campaign to end the war required a concerted effort and the consolidation of all available troops into fighting units capable of maintaining pressure on the enemy. The decision to amass an all-black corps was radical, but it was endorsed by President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana as an effective use of manpower. Still, the military brass was not convinced of black soldiers' ability to fight, even though the examples of Fort Wagner and Milliken's Bend should have been proof enough.69 Furthermore, a number of Northern military officials were concerned about white soldiers' morale if they were forced to accept the reality of black men in uniform. But President Lincoln wanted to end the bloody war, and General Grant wanted to make it happen.