Colored Regiments Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Colored Regiments - Essay Example In addition, it also sheds light on the life of black soldiers during service and instances of discrimination against them including the controversial issue of payment. The question of the earliest enlistment of colored troops is a tricky one with historians honoring different states as taking the earliest initiatives. The reason for this type of confusion might simply be that by the time the army and the government had mutually and formally agreed to enlist freed slaves as soldiers, many army officers had already begun to enlist and train them. By 1862, there are evidences of black recruitment practices being carried out openly by army and government officers like General Hunter, Major General Fremont and Governor John Andrews. At this time, General Butler also seized the opportunity and enlisted and trained a regiment at New Orleans, by September 1862. The first Negro regiment to be officially inducted in the army, they were called the First Louisiana Native Guards (Edgerton 27, Dawson 6-8). A vital fact worth noting is that freed slaves were enlisted in the war when almost half of it was over, despite the fact that there was no dearth of freed slaves offering their services due to abject poverty and lured by the promise of bounty (Wilson 177). In addition, there was a growing pressure from army officers who insisted that blacks should, in all fairness, be a part of war that was being fought for them and it was unjust of the government to force only the whites in it (Wilson 38, De Forest 31,). The government, however, recruited them reluctantly and after repeatedly rejecting their participation in a war that was being fought for their emancipation in the first place. The obvious reluctance of the government sprang from the fact that racial prejudices were still deeply rooted in the consciousness of the public and the government feared not only a backlash from them but worse - a fierce dissent among their own party members. This fear is voiced by many during discussions in chief newspapers of the time. As a concerned reader, RHV, wrote to the editor of New York's Weekly Anglo-African in 1861, saying that by involving blacks in military service at that time would "would only embarrass the present administration, by stirring up old party prejudices which would cause the loss of sympathy" (Qtd. in Finkenbine et al. 213) [Read complete text of the letter in Appendix] The Freed Slaves As Soldiers: If one were to read firsthand accounts of white officers who fought the Civil War with their black subordinates, it will be noticed that they have spoken highly of the qualities of the Negro soldiers. For instance, Thomas Wentworth Higginson praised his men most warmly for their intelligence, bravery, courage, fearlessness, and dedication and for their surprising readiness to accept disciplining policies as compared to their white counterparts. One characteristic of the nature of his subordinates, which Higginson considered remarkable, was that despite their lack of education and mental training they seemed to fully grasp the enormity of their task, their delicate situation as the first colored regiment and the responsibility and courage needed from them. Not one of them shirked