Climbing Up to Glory

by Wilbert L. Jenkins

  That blacks often found entering the military to be a traumatic experience was even more reason why they relied heavily on the emotional support of their loved ones. Elijah Marrs, for example, wished he “had never heard of the war” after his first night in the barracks. Shortly after being inducted, Marrs and his fellow recruits marched to Taylor Barracks on Third Street in Louisville, Kentucky, where they were routinely issued uniforms and weapons and assigned bunks. However, night would usher in a horrid accident. Marrs was fast asleep on the top bunk when the recruit in the middle, sleeping with a cocked revolver, inadvertently discharged his weapon and killed the man on the lowest bunk. The dead man had collected $300 as a substitute. As he lay bleeding in his bunk, recruits descended upon him, stealing the money. In spite of the trauma of his first night in the service, reveille awakened Marrs to a new day and a new attitude. Thus, when an officer called his name and he stepped forward for his rations, Marrs “felt freedom” in his “bones,” and he thought to himself, “Pshaw! This is better than slavery.”129

  NON-MILITARY ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD

  Many of the black recruits spent most of their days in camp engaged in the routine. Marching to and from battle and actual fighting consumed very little of their time. For those recruits with few interests, boredom took over. For the energetic recruit, however, military life could offer opportunities. For instance, religion played a key role in the lives of black soldiers. The Rev. Sandy Bullitt preached to them on their night in the Louisville barracks; at Camp Nelson, preachers kept the dining hall busy almost nightly, and on Sundays from “sunrise to taps.”130 Having to cope with the real possibility of death, most soldiers, black and white alike, used religion as an anchor. They adopted the view that God would repay them for their sacrifices and hardships on Earth with rewards in Heaven. No wonder that a soldier in the First South Carolina Volunteers uttered the following prayer: “I hab lef’ my wife in de land o’ bondage. My little ones dey say ev‘ry night, Whar is my Fader? But when I die, when de bressed mornin’ rises, when I shall stan in de glory wid one foot on de water an’ one foot on de land, den, O Lord, I shall see my wife an’ my little chilen once more.”131 Many black soldiers also came to believe that God would protect them; and, if they died, God had decided to summon them home. Indeed, some of the most moving scenes in Civil War history are those involving the singing, testifying, and praying of black and white soldiers prior to going into battle.

  Military camp also offered black soldiers an opportunity to improve their minds. Since education had been denied them as slaves and many black soldiers recognized the practicality of education, they had a thirst for it. Sometimes the wives of white officers served as teachers. For example, Frances Beecher, wife of Colonel James Beecher, commander of the Thirty-fifth U.S. Colored Infantry, taught many of his men to read and write while they were stationed at Beaufort, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida.132 Moreover, countless numbers of soldiers, both black and white, took it upon themselves to teach reading and writing to individuals and groups of blacks at Federal encampments. In most cases, however, chaplains had the responsibility of educating soldiers and their families in the regular army. Northern benevolent associations or officers’ families provided materials such as books and blackboards.133

  At the conclusion of the war, when the final tabulations were in, it was seen that black soldiers had made remarkable progress in education. It mattered little whether the teachers had been chaplains and their wives, officers’ wives, civilians, or black or white soldiers. For example, Frances Beecher reported that when the men of the Thirty-fifth first enlisted, only two or three of them could sign their names, but when they “mustered out each one of them could proudly sign his name to the pay-roll in a good legible hand.”134 In another case, a chaplain was able in a mere two days to teach a totally illiterate soldier to write his own name, and in only five months the same soldier was preparing company reports and reading the Bible and the Infantry tactics manual. His case was not exceptional but fairly typical. More than five hundred former slaves in a brigade could “read and write very well” after only six months of instruction. Only nine men in Company C, Forty-fourth U.S. Colored Infantry were literate when they enlisted, yet all of them could read and write by the time that they were mustered out. And the Forty-third U.S. Colored Infantry, composed of Northern blacks and freed slaves, had only seventy men who could read, and few of them could do that well. After seven months of work, over one-half could read and many “attend to their own correspondence.”135 In all likelihood the reading and writing skills of black soldiers were more advanced than the black populace overall when they left the service.

  Camp life also accorded black soldiers recreational opportunities. At Camp Nelson and other Federal encampments, music classes were taught and taken by many blacks. Instruction was given in playing the drums, the fife, and the bugle, and there were glee clubs as well as occasional classes in vocal music. Moreover, soldiers played games, engaged in wrestling matches, held regimental picnics, and used weekend passes to “visit the ladies.”136 Holidays such as Thanksgiving were sometimes considered as festive occasions by the Union army. For example, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry was treated to a wholesome Thanksgiving celebration in November 1863. The men had a delightful dinner of cakes, oranges, apples, raisins, bread, and turkey. Several contests such as greasing the pole and wheelbarrow races were organized, with prizes ranging from two to thirteen dollars. The regiment was “alive and full of fun.”137 One year later the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry took a break from guarding prisoners in Maryland to celebrate Thanksgiving with a dinner of oysters, turnips, onions, bread without butter, and turkey. The winners of foot races, jig dances, wheelbarrow races, greasing the pole, sack races, a pig chase, and a turkey shoot vied for prizes ranging from a few dollars to a box of cigars, a pair of Mexican spurs, a pig, a plug of tobacco, and turkeys.138 These celebrations allowed the soldiers, at least for a couple of hours, to take the troubles of war off their minds.

  EFFORTS TO ASSIST THE UNION CAUSE SHORT OF FIGHTING

  Black women were as loyal as black men in the Union war cause. Union officials often used both sexes as spies and scouts because they knew the Southern countryside better than most white soldiers and could pass themselves off as just another slave. Jim Taylor, a seventeen-year-old slave, eagerly identified the camps of several Confederate regiments, which greatly assisted Union officials in mapping strategy. Likewise, Dick Williams, a slave, gathered valuable information while working on Confederate military projects. He subsequently escaped to report the disposition of 5,000 Confederate soldiers encamped around Leesburg, Virginia.139 Former slaves Lucy Carter and Elizabeth Bowser, working as house servants, provided valuable military intelligence to the Union. Bowser, a servant in the household of Jefferson Davis, secretly eavesdropped as the Confederate president and his generals discussed strategy.140 Mary Louveste’s employment at the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia, placed her in a prime position to be privy to Confederate intelligence. Accordingly, she was able to supply valuable information to Gideon Welles, Union secretary of the navy, about Confederate plans and ships. Mary Catherine Windsor was on board a ship to New Orleans when she saw Confederate forces hiding in the bushes on shore and ready to attack the craft. She passed the information along to Union navy officers, who promptly cancelled the landing. Throughout the remainder of the war, Windsor regularly engaged in similar reconnaissance activities.141

  Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous nineteenth-century black women and black abolitionists, acted as both a spy and scout for the Union army. Under the command of Colonel James Montgomery of the Second South Carolina Volunteers, Tubman headed a corps of local black men, most of them river pilots. Her attire as a plain freed-woman allowed her to travel all over the South without arousing suspicion. Tubman and her scouts were highly adept at pinpointing the location of cotton warehouses, ammunition depots, and slaves who were waiting to be liberated. Montgo
mery, noted as a guerrilla fighter, made numerous expeditions along the coastal areas of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida based on information from Tubman and her squad. In fact, Tubman led the way on his most celebrated raid up the Combahee River in June 1863.142 Sojourner Truth, equally famous, was also a spy for the Union army. For blacks to engage in espionage was particularly risky, and this willingness to do so underscores their commitment to defeat the Confederacy and overthrow the institution of slavery regardless of the costs. Indeed, both the Union army and navy depended on intelligence provided them by black spies and scouts. Union officers praised their service and were impressed by their devotion to duty in the face of danger. Furthermore, even General George B. McClellan, a fierce racist, admitted that his most reliable intelligence about the enemy came from blacks. 143

  HARRIET TUBMAN, A PROMINENT MEMBER OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, AND UNION NURSE, SPY, AND SCOUT.

  Library of Congress

  Several black women assisted the Union cause by serving as nurses and laundresses. For example, Susie King Taylor was both a nurse and laundress for the First South Carolina Regiment. She also taught eager soldiers how to read and write and cooked for the regiment as well.144 Elizabeth Keckley, a confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, also served as a nurse for the Union army. In addition, when Union officials searched frantically for nurses to tend the wounded on the battlefield, Rose Russell, a slave, volunteered to go. At first, however, she was refused; Union officials thought that she was too delicate a person to handle such a demanding job. Nevertheless, Rose persisted and became a registered nurse in the army medical corps. Several years after the Civil War, Rose still carried a slight scar near her throat where a bullet had grazed her when she got in its path. Rose remembered “bullets falling around her feet like hail.”145 Finally, Lydia Penny served as a nurse with the Fifth U.S. Colored Infantry. A former slave in Memphis, Tennessee, she escaped to the Union lines, where she met and married Thomas Penny, and became a cook. Thomas was serving in the army as a servant in the three months’ service. When his term expired, he reenlisted and joined the Fifth U.S. Colored Troops at Camp Delaware, Ohio. Owing to her love for Thomas and her country, Lydia decided to go along with her husband. She developed such an outstanding reputation as a devoted and caring nurse that she was affectionately called “the mother of the army.”146

  BLACKS SERVING AS SCOUTS FOR THE UNION.

  Vincent Colyer, Report of the Services Rendered by the Freed People, p. 28

  Indeed, black men and black women served the cause of freedom in any way they could. One way was by helping escaped Union prisoners. Blacks in Richmond, Virginia, used the Van Lew mansion, the center of Union espionage in the city, to conceal escaped Union prisoners. Some 109 Federal prisoners were hidden there in a secret room after escaping from Libby Prison, only a short distance from the mansion.147 A black soldier wrote from Wilmington, North Carolina: “Almost, or I may say, all of the colored people have been engaged in the business of hiding Yankee prisoners. Almost every house in the city occupied by colored people has done this favor for our prisoners.”148 In Savannah, Georgia, Georgiana Kelly and a female friend also hid a prisoner in their homes for four or five months. They fed and cared for him, moving him between the two houses to avoid detection. Francis Keaton, also of Savannah, reported that he “stowed away eleven prisoners that came down from Andersonville.” Southern whites, however, discovered Keaton’s act and locked him in the guardhouse with the intention of selling him as a slave. Fortunately, Keaton got a break when the keeper fled with the Confederates and left the keys. Keaton took them and freed all the prisoners. Last, another black Savannahian, Joseph Sneed, provided lodging for two escaped prisoners in his home, giving them food and clothes. Subsequently, he instructed his eighteen-year-old son to pilot them to a Union gunboat. The teenager “guided them around through the marsh to past the steamer Water Witch, then directed them on the course for escape.”149

  Another covert way of supporting the Union cause was through prayer. Throughout most African-American communities, blacks prayed for a Federal victory, hoping that it would effect their ultimate freedom. In most instances, prayers for freedom were secret and never detected. If masters, overseers, and patrols sometimes heard them, those who prayed were usually brutally whipped. In Alabama a man named Ned was tied to four pegs in the ground and whipped for his freedom prayers “twell de blood run from him lack he was a hog.” But, undaunted, he refused to stop his freedom prayers. Shortly thereafter, Ned “slipped off an’ went ... to jine de Union Army.”150 Some blacks were not as discreet as others, and were bold enough to pray aloud for a Union victory, as did Toliver, a Virginia slave. As a result, the aged slave was summoned by two young sons of his master to the barnyard. When they ordered Toliver to get down on his knees and pray for the Confederates, he instead prayed as loud as he could for a Yankee victory. Furious, the two sons lashed him the whole day, taking turns. Toliver finally collapsed, but he prayed to the very end. Only seconds before his death, he mumbled “Yankee.”151

  While some blacks showed support for the Union cause through prayer, others, particularly black women, formed “bread companies” that carried bread to the Union army in violation of policy. In Savannah, Georgia, black women were especially kind to the Union soldiers who had been captured and brought to the city. Sarah Ann Black, for instance, baked bread and potatoes for the Union prisoners and gave them tobacco. Moreover, Georgiana Kelly supervised an operation that collected as many as three hundred loaves of bread baked in black homes throughout the city for the Union prisoners. Small black boys generally threw the loaves of bread to the prisoners. Not surprisingly, such activity was not risk free. One free black female was incarcerated.152

  Black women in the North contributed to the war effort by forming groups to raise money for the families of black soldiers. They also collected money to purchase flags and banners for the regiments and to buy food for soldiers who were sick and recuperating. Once Federal forces began to occupy areas of the South, slaves ran away in considerable numbers to the camps of Union troops or headed North. Most were poor, and their presence placed a heavy strain on government resources. Organizations were formed to assist these destitute blacks, and funds were sent to aid former slaves still in the South. For example, the Colored Ladies Sanitary Commission of Boston sent five hundred dollars for the suffering freedmen of Savannah. Furthermore, forty black women from the District of Columbia established the Contraband Relief Society to help runaway slaves who found their way to the capital.153

  SEXUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN AFRICAN AMERICANS AND WHITES

  Regardless of racial, cultural, ethnic, religious, and class differences, people sometimes cross these boundaries to engage in sexual relations. This was certainly the case during the Civil War. For example, Northern white women feared that their husbands in the Union army would be seduced by black women, despite the fact that white men repeatedly claimed that black women were unattractive. Their wives knew better, however, for they were aware of their men’s attraction to black women, particularly to mulattoes. Catherine Hopley, a Northern white, wrote, “There is a sort of gipsy beauty in the nearly white Negro. The large dark eyes retain their brilliancy, while their form is improved; a rich glow in the cheeks, a well-formed nose and full rosy lips, with glossy black ringlets ... full of feeling, with a smile lingering about the mouth ready to burst forth at a word of encouragement.”154 Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, attended a tea party given by Northern teachers near Charleston, South Carolina, in July 1863. He singled out a light-complexioned black woman as the most attractive of the hostesses: “The interesting member of the Family is Miss Lottie Forten, from Philadelphia, a niece of Mr. Purvis, and a quadroon [of one-quarter black ancestry]. She is quite pretty, remarkably well educated, and a very interesting woman. She is decidedly the belle here, and the officers, both of the army and navy, seem to think her society far preferable to that of
the other ladies.”155 Some black women were sexually drawn to white Union soldiers and made their interest known. Candace, a twenty-one-year-old Virginia slave, married Jim Lee of the Fourth Massachusetts Infantry. Another black woman bluntly told a youthful Union officer upon meeting him, “You is a right nice-lookin’ man, I declare.” The soldier reacted as if she had been a member of one of the finest families: he blushed.156

  Confederate soldiers sought the company of black women. Many of these men were already accustomed to sexual gratification from black women, and now that they were away from their wives and from the social constraints of their communities, such relationships could flourish. Elijah Parker and John L. Sutherlin were arrested in 1862 after being caught in the house of Jordina Mayo, a free black woman. George Norton was arrested for walking down a Richmond street “arm in arm with a negro wench named Hannah.” One free black woman, Millie Rawls, was involved in a common-law marriage with a white Confederate soldier, George W. Jameson, which began in 1861. The couple had five children whom Jameson faithfully supported. He transferred all of his property to Rawl’s name. Such interracial couples were viewed with disdain by Southern whites as threats to the status quo.157

  Sexual liaisons in the South between black men and white women did not cease in wartime. For example, in western North Carolina in 1862, a white man named Jesse Black assaulted his white wife, Tamsey, after discovering her affair with a black man. Jesse was initially found guilty of assault, but a higher court later overturned the decision. In its opinion, since the husband was “responsible for the acts of his wife,” Jesse was permitted to use force to make Tamsey “behave herself.” Martha Smith, a white woman in Alabama in 1865, was charged with “adultery or fornication” with one of her former slaves, Joe. Smith had to face the charge in court, where witnesses testified that the two had been caught in bed together in Martha’s room in the house where she boarded.158 In all likelihood the liaison between Martha and her former slave had existed for several years. These relationships were fairly typical of the nineteenth-century South and have been well documented by scholars.