Black Armies

The pay discrepancy was find in 1864 with the Enrollment Act that granted pay equality, provided some publics, including Sherman, did not want the soldiers in their divisions.

Thus a de facto separate soldiery, the USCT (United States Colored Troops) was formed, and this group performed well ("News" 1862, 1). The fraud was using these forces in encounters where the USCT would fight by itself without Union Army contact. When assigned to normal Army encampments, the Blacks were given duty assignments much(prenominal) as garrison and occupation duty, guarding prisoner of war compounds, lend depots, and labor details such as building roads, shot fortifications, and driving mule powered wagons.

Their fighting skills were notable. The 54th Massach calltts, composed in general of Northern free contrabands, spearheaded a famous night enthrall at Battery Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina, and had a injured party count of 40 percent. It was not until the Siege of Petersburg that both light and Black Union forces fought side by side.

In 1863, a Southern full general Patrick R. Cleburne, made a highly polemic suggestion that slaves be conscripted as Confederate soldiers to be rewarded with immunity after the South won, but this idea was ordered stifled by the Confederate government. By the time of the Siege of Petersburg, General Robert E.

Military strategians often use Petersburg as a prime "what if" exercise.

For instance, it is conceivable that had Meade stuck with the battle plan, the 4,300 black troops would have charged through the hole and caused firm and rapid destruction (Chamberlain, 1914).

Thornton, T. (2000, April 2) African-Americans played prominent roles in the War's shoemaker's last Game, Greensboro News & Record, C1.

Still other historians call the entire 10-month besieging of Petersburg as one of the most absurd encounters in armed forces history. Ulysses Grant, writing in his memoirs believed that the decision by General Meade was dreadful, and that "General (Ambrose) Burnside wanted to put his colored division in front and I believe if he had done so it would have been a success" (Humphries, 1883, 112).

Instead of the 4,300 Black soldiers who had learn for three months, and who knew the countryside, and were anxious to prove themselves, 4,000 White soldiers who had not even off been briefed charged through the tunnel, and many of them were simply shot passel as they emerged.

Humphreys, A.A. (1883), The Virginia Campaign of 1864-65, New York: A.A. Polk.

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