Campfires of Freedom

The Camp Life of Black Soldiers during the Civil War

Keith P. Wilson

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 1998
• ISBN:
  9781612772967
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de la guerre de Sécession

Three related themes are examined in this fascinating study: the social dynamics of race relations in Union Army camps, the relationship that evolved between Southern and Northern black soldiers, and the role off-duty activities played in helping the soldiers meet the demands of military service and the challenges of freedom.

By vividly portraying the soldiers' camp life and by carefully analyzing their collective memory, the author sets the camp experience in the broader context of social and political change.

CHAPTER ONE

“There Is No Trouble about the Drill”

TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE

To learn drill, one does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager, active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are the better. There is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites in that. As to camplife, they have little to sacrifice; they are better fed, housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they appear to have few inconvenient vices. They are simple, docile, and affectionate almost to the point of absurdity.

—Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life

Once a week they read terms to us and tell us that a private dares not do so and so to privates; and parts of the book that would be beneficial to us they omit, for fear we might learn too much.

—“Close Observer,” Christian Recorder, August 27, 1864

Approximately one week after arriving at Camp Saxton, South Carolina, Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson was ordered to assign his men to the task of unloading a “steamboat’s cargo of boards.” The steamboat arrived early in the evening, and the soldiers began their work in the glow of the “bright moonlight.” Higginson expected trouble, for he was fearful that after a day’s hard labor his men “would grumble at the night-work.” Yet to his surprise, his men “went at it.” Never had he beheld such a “jolly scene of labor.” His men were “running most of the time, chattering all the time, snatching the boards from each other’s backs as if they were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different companies,” and “pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all shirkers.” This enthusiasm amazed him. “The impression bequeathed by slavery,” that Southern blacks were “sluggish and inefficient in labor” now seemed quite “absurd.” The whole scene was so intriguing that he “gladly stayed out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it.” Later, after the task was complete, Higginson noticed one of his men “cooking a surreptitious opossum.” When he reproached him for not being asleep “after such a job of work,” the soldier replied, “with the broadest grin, O no, Cunnel, da’s no work at all, Cunnel; dat only jess enough for stretch me.”¹

There was nothing really significant about the events on the night of November 30, 1862. The soldiers of the 1st South Carolina Colored Volunteers were performing a routine military duty. However, Colonel Higginson’s reaction to their incessant labor pointed to the way racial beliefs could shape perceptions of military performance.

The relationship that developed in the army camps between the officers and the soldiers was largely influenced by their social backgrounds. Most soldiers had been slaves; all had felt the scourge of racism. This experience set them distinctly apart from their officers. Hence, an enormous social gap existed between even the most empathetic officers and their soldiers. In order to train their men successfully, officers had to learn how to communicate across this gap. The drill manual had to be explained in such a way that even the raw recruit would understand.²

Camp discipline may be considered from two broad perspectives: from “above” (the officers’ viewpoint) and from “below” (the soldiers’ perspective). Both Higginson and the soldiers serving under him took different meaning from shared duty.

Like other abolitionist officers, Higginson endeavored to use military discipline and training to reeducate his men. The nature of the military regime he imposed on his camp was shaped by his idea of education and his perception of the impact of slavery on the soldier’s character. At the heart of his beliefs was a conviction that the institution of slavery had corrupted the character of his soldiers. When he punished miscreants he believed he was not only restricting criminal behavior but also teaching valuable lessons in social responsibility, comradeship, patriotism, and respect for private property, the very qualities necessary not only for good soldiering but also for citizenship in American society. Abolitionist officers, who followed Higginson’s example and diligently trained and disciplined their men, did so with one eye on martial objectives and the other on the social fabric of American society.³

Higginson, a renowned New England scholar and Unitarian minister, had become the commanding officer of the 1st South Carolina Colored Volunteers largely because of his reputation as an abolitionist and a loyal supporter of John Brown, the antislavery agitator killed leading a raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Although very conscious of the cruelty of slavery, he believed that “we abolitionists had underrated the suffering produced by slavery among the negroes, but had over-rated the demoralization.” It was his belief that the slaves’ “religious temperament” had enabled them to check “the demoralization.” This religious temperament, “born of sorrow” and suffering, had made the soldiers, he thought, passive, gentle children. The officers’ wives could move about the camp, teaching the “big pupils” to read and spell, without fear of “seeing or hearing improprieties not intended for them.” The young ladies were sure that “they would not have moved about with anything like the same freedom in any white camp.” Higginson explained the good moral conduct of his troops by pointing to their “natural good manners,” their “habit of deference” acquired in slavery, their rural upbringing, and, above all, their “strongly religious temperament.”⁴

The camp of the 1st South Carolina appears to have been remarkably free from vice or disorderly conduct. Only a few months after arriving in the South Carolina Sea Islands, Colonel Higginson noted in his journal that the guardhouse was almost always empty. The braggart, drunkard, and thief were seldom found in his camp. Even so, the scars of slavery were clearly visible, in the soldiers’ apparently promiscuous sexual activity, their “insensibility to giving physical pain,” and in their blind obedience to orders.⁵ This behavior disturbed him; he believed that habits of servile obedience were a significant obstacle to military training. He made a special point of this when he testified before the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission. Slaves obeyed “their master…not because he was wise and just, but because he was powerful and could enforce obedience.”⁶ Evidence of the damaging impact of slavery, the colonel felt, was to be found throughout the camp. The “poorest [least skilled] soldiers” were invariably the “most slavish.” Years of cruel suffering had made the men insensitive to the pain suffered by others. Ingrained habits of blind obedience meant that “slavish” black soldiers could be induced to commit outrages; if he “ordered them to put to death a dozen prisoners[,]…they would do it without remonstrance.”⁷

Colonel Higginson was determined to remove all evidence of “slavish,” unsoldierly qualities from his troops. In order to achieve this goal, he believed it was vital to impress upon his men a system of sound military training. He reasoned that since “a simple and lovable people” had acquired “vices by training,” it would be possible to retrain them in the values essential for military service and national citizenship. He was optimistic about achieving this goal, because he firmly believed that “two thirds of a good soldier consists in good discipline and organization.” The remaining third consisted of the “race element,” but he did not believe that this presented major difficulties.⁸

The central element in Higginson’s system of military discipline was the inculcation of feelings of pride and self-respect. This put his form of military discipline on “a higher grade than plantation discipline.” Whereas the plantation owner sought to gain obedience by instilling a sense of fear into his “cowering” slave, Higginson sought to gain compliance by developing in his soldier a feeling of manly pride.⁹

First, Higginson made strenuous efforts to show his men that military law and discipline were based on justice. At first he was fearful that his soldiers would be “so accustomed to plantation discipline that they would deem all discipline to be unjust and irregular.” He countered this belief by continually pointing out to his men that he too was subject to the military discipline that governed them; Generals Rufus Saxton and David Hunter were his “masters” in the same way as he was theirs. Second, he vigilantly enforced military decorum. He did this because he wanted to reinforce in his officers and men feelings of mutual respect. The behavioral patterns he tried to develop and encourage were the opposite of those presumably evident on the plantation, for while the black soldier had rights, which had to be acknowledged and respected by his superiors, the slave had none.¹⁰ Even the mundane events of camp life were used to promote training goals. He would “allow no man to stand with his cap off, talking to” him. “Slaves do that,” he explained. Instead, soldiers were required to give “a military salute, which the officer is absolutely required to return, as the soldier is to the officer.” It was self-evident to him that “the better soldiers they become the more they are spoiled for slaves.”¹¹

Third, Higginson believed that by proficiently performing their military duties, soldiers would learn the value of military law and discipline. In this respect, the performance of guard duty was vitally important. All soldiers, no matter what rank, were required to obey the guard. The guard could “shoot his own Captain if he interferes with his duty as a guard.” Of course, such behavior had been forbidden on the plantation. There, the color of a man’s skin rather than the duties he performed shaped the pattern of behavior.¹²

In his effort to retrain the former slaves, Higginson sought to make the camp of the 1st South Carolina the antithesis of the slave plantation. Within its boundaries an experiment in moral rearmament took place. By showing his men their place in the command structure, rigidly enforcing military decorum, and ensuring that all soldiers proficiently performed guard duty, Colonel Higginson sought to prepare his men for their roles as citizens.¹³

Like all well-meaning teachers, Higginson had to contend with recalcitrant pupils. He devised a system of punishment that maintained law and order within the regiment and was consistent with the philosophical framework of his reeducation program. Convinced that “officers who proceeded merely in the slave-driver method were unsuccessful with black soldiers,” he employed forms of punishment that were relatively mild and humane. Mutinous language, verbal attacks on sergeants and corporals, appears to have earned offenders a maximum of two weeks’ imprisonment with loss of pay. Pvt. Joseph Jennings was given only one month’s hard labor and lost only a month’s pay for uttering mutinous language and striking an officer in the face. Pvt. Ogaff Williams received the same penalty for disobeying orders and drawing a bayonet on an officer. These relatively light sentences contrasted sharply with the heavy punishments imposed on soldiers who violated the main tenets of Higginson’s retraining program. Pvt. Robert Anderson was forced to do a month’s hard labor and lost a month’s pay for disobeying orders and refusing to do guard duty.¹⁴

Cruel and unusual punishments were not imposed on soldiers in Higginson’s camp; he believed that they would simply reinforce slavish obedience to orders. Some forms of punishment that appeared humane to other regimental commanding officers and that fell well within the compass of army regulations appeared repugnant to him. When Capt. Charles T. Trowbridge imposed a sentence of fourteen days’ hard labor with ball and chain and forfeiture of pay and allowances for one month on Pvt. James Dawson for being absent without leave and using insulting language, Colonel Higginson immediately set aside part of the sentence. Private Dawson was not shackled with “ball and chain,” because this form of punishment was degrading, besmirched the good name of the regiment, and robbed the soldier of his dignity. Chains were used to control slaves, not Union soldiers.¹⁵

Desertion was the major crime that plagued the camp. Higginson thought there were two reasons for this problem. First, he considered black soldiers “very home-loving” men. Like white soldiers who lived close to their homes, they believed that it was “perfectly right that they should run home of a night.” Second, desertions were attributed to the federal government’s inequitable pay policy. Black soldiers were paid only ten dollars a month, compared to the thirteen dollars paid to white troops. For these reasons, deserters in the 1st South Carolina were punished lightly for a crime that statutorily carried a mandatory death sentence. Most deserters merely spent a few months in the guardhouse, with loss of pay. Higginson justified such light sentences by arguing that “these people” were so accustomed “to violent passions on the part of white men,” that “the most severe penalties” were “wasted on them. Their child-like minds could not comprehend the enormity of their crimes.”¹⁶ Moreover, “very little of severity” went a “great way”; such an approach was not only “utterly new to them” but appealed to their pride as soldiers. His men felt proud to be wearing the Union uniform and ashamed when they besmirched it by foolish actions. Fortunately for Higginson, the level of desertions began to decline significantly in January 1863. However, this decline had little to do with the implementation of his disciplinary strategies; early in January a deserter was shot dead by black soldiers after having escaped from the regimental guardhouse. Describing this incident as “one of the very best things that have happened to us,” Higginson noted that every day now he was “recovering the older absentees.”¹⁷

Colonel Higginson had no doubt that his training strategy was very successful. His men appeared to be losing their “plantation ways.” The “pride which military life creates” was causing “the plantation trickeries to diminish.”¹⁸ He also believed he saw significant progress in the soldiers’ developing manhood. This was particularly the case whenever he compared their behavior with that of the white soldiers stationed in the Sea Islands. It was the small details, for example, the way his soldiers wore their uniforms, that were most indicative of their growth in manly stature. On one occasion, late in April 1863, he attended the wedding of one of his soldiers. At this function the appearance and demeanor of his black soldiers, compared with that of the white soldiers present, gave him feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment. At the wedding, he was not surprised to find the “white soldiers with coats unbuttoned & black with them buttoned.” For Higginson, maintenance of dress standards was a “cardinal point,” a “test of the condition of a regiment” and a marker, if unsatisfactory, of moral decline. He believed that “if a man begins with swearing & stealing, bad practices grow & you always find him at last with coat unbuttoned.”¹⁹

Even in casual camp conversations, Higginson discovered evidence of the soldiers’ developing confidence and self-respect. When one of his soldiers was asked if he was a member of Col. James Montgomery’s regiment, the 34th U.S. Colored Infantry, he proudly replied, “No! I’se belong to Colonel Higginson’s regulars.” This answer was a “triumph of self respect with a witness.” However, it was the willingness of his soldiers to forsake hearth and home to fight for the Union that pleased him most. He had done much to improve the welfare of his soldiers’ families, by settling them in temporary houses on vacant land in the vicinity of Hilton Head. Conscious of his soldiers’ strong family ties, he believed that an inevitable consequence of improving family welfare was high military morale. Yet he was also aware that such a policy carried with it certain inherent dangers. By strengthening family ties he ran a risk of indirectly promoting attitudes of self-interest that could negate the ideals of manly self-sacrifice that he was trying to instill. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was overjoyed when his South Carolina men clamored for the regiment to go on an expedition to Florida. This display of martial enthusiasm revealed to him just “how much of the habit of soldiers that they have all acquired.”²⁰

It is difficult to measure the success of Colonel Higginson’s system of military training. No doubt, his paternalistic view of the black race induced him to exaggerate his accomplishments. However, some evidence suggests that his regiment had good morale. Minor frustrations, certainly, were evident in the behavior of his men. For example, th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Prologue
• Chapter One: “There Is No Trouble about the Drill”
• Chapter Two: “A Matter of Principle”
• Chapter Three: “This Is Their University”
• Chapter Four: “Nearly All the Freedmen Are Eager to Learn”
• Chapter Five: Godly Correspondents and Military Advocates
• Chapter Six: “God Have Mercy!”
• Chapter Seven: “The Trumpets Sound”
• Chapter Eight: Married “Under the Flag”
• Epilogue
• Appendix A: Songs of Victory
• Appendix B: A Selection of Negro Spirituals and Songs from Thomas W. Higginson’s Collection
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index