UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
Cole’s Boy Major, continued ...
This conflation of race and rank immediately led to trouble.
Dollard claimed that while the black soldiers were at first “submissive and obedient” during training, there was a “hitch” in the commissary department, leaving the black soldiers “short of rations long enough to get quite hungry….”
When bread and straight coffee did arrive, the half-starved soldiers made a rather “interesting study” as they huddled in the company street, shivering in the falling snow, devouring the victuals.
The regimental records, though, would suggest several months later that food shortages had not been a function of some logistical “hitch.”
In July Colonel Cole issued an order to the regiment stating that he had received a complaint by the enlisted men about “scanty rations.”
But because not a single complaint had been issued by Dollard or any of the company officers to the Regimental Commissary (where rations were distributed), or to regimental headquarters, Cole “presumed” that such scarcity was “caused by Officers eating the rations of enlisted men.”21
In a war where victuals were of uneven quality and distribution, Cole’s lower officers, it seems clear, had a habit of stealing food from their black privates who, apparently famished, endured grueling days — keeping guard, digging ditches, building fortifications.22
In August 1864, several weeks after Cole prohibited officers eating their men’s rations, Dollard was brought before a military tribunal for a number of charges.
One charge — the least serious — was for drunkenness on duty the previous May.
The soldiers accused Dollard of getting drunk during an operation along the Chickahominy River.
It turns out that Dollard himself had stolen his soldiers’ rations of whiskey.
Instead of dividing it into portions to slake the thirsts of soldiers on fatigue, Dollard seems to have kept it in his own canteens for personal use.
(One soldier testified that he remembered another one of Dollard’s “boys” hauling the canteens on a march.).23
With hard drink (and probably easily enough without it) Dollard’s racism came to the fore.24
Several black soldiers testified that on a dusky May evening in 1864, Dollard swaggered up to a supply depot and insisted that the black sergeant, Richardson Watson, who was from another company, allow him to use two of the black sentinels to help carry ammunition.
Watson refused, saying that “his men” were not under Dollard’s charge, reminding the captain that sentinels could not leave their posts.25
Outraged, Dollard belched some jumbled curse about “not giving a damn” about any “black niggers,” and that he didn’t care if the regiment procured its ammunition as the rebels were just up the river.
While saying this he surged toward one of the guards “just walking up and down his post,” slapped him with an open fist, and kicked him amid a storm of profanity.
This, at least, is how the black comrades told the story at Dollard’s court martial.
Dollard and fellow officers, however, told a different story; and though one white officer broke ranks and sided with the soldiers, Dollard was fully exonerated on all counts.
21 2nd USCT Cavalry Regimental Order and Letter Book: General Order No. 28. July 13, 1864, from headquarters of 2d US Colored Cavalry, Near Petersburg, Va. Record Group 94, NARA, Washington, DC.
22 Stealing food and systematic violence was not unique to Cole’s regiment, to be sure. For other examples, see: Howard C. Westwood, "The Cause and Consequence of a Union Black Soldier's Mutiny and Execution," Civil War History 31, no. 3 (1985), 222-36.; Ira Berlin and Leslie S. Rowland, Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era (New York: New Press, 1997), 58.
23 2nd USCT Cavalry Regimental Order and Letter Book: General Order No. 19. April 22, 1864, from Fort Monroe, Va. Record Group 92, NARA, Washington, DC.
24 Major General Benjamin Butler stated that “drunken officers are the curse of our Colored soldiers and I will reform it in this Department, if I can, in spite of… the Devil.” Butler quoted in: Edward G. Longacre, "Black Troops in the Army of the James, 1863-65," Military Affairs 45, no. 1 (1981), 3.
25 There seemed to be a fair amount of tension over the degree to which blacks felt compelled to obey the orders of a white officer who was not their immediate superior. As Dollard’s actions seem to suggest, some white officers seemed to believe that all black soldiers were interchangeable and because they commanded some black enlisted men, their authority simply extended over any and all black soldiers. See Dollard’s Court Martial where witness suggests this is a problem among the black troops.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
Cole’s Boy Major, continued ...
But Dollard’s memoirs and regimental records reveal another conflict which makes his “innocence” doubtful.
As the old soldier recounted it, sometime in late spring or early summer he attempted to break up a heated tiff between two privates about a fallen horse.
Dollard asked one of the men, Isaac Worrell, how he knew that the other was responsible, to which Worrell responded with his own question.
“Don’t ask me a question but answer the one I have asked you,” barked Dollard.
“But I will ask you a question Cap’n” returned Worrell.
Dollard ordered a company sergeant and two others to arrest Worrell, but — as Dollard remembered it — Worrell responded, “no damned nigger could arrest him.”
This exact language merits some doubt.
It would not have been unusual for a black private to protest being arrested and bound by a black non-commissioned officer.
Black companies, like white ones, experienced a sizable amount of gun waving and fisticuffs between men of the same race.
But these tensions seemed to emerge later in 1865, only as the war drew to an end.26
Instead of violence between black soldiers the conflicts in Cole’s regiment acquired a sort of ritualistic order where black soldiers snapped the moment white officers attempted to bind them with cord.
Even if Worrell did swear that no black man would tie his wrists that statement may have been made solely out of disgust with the ways in which promotion pitted black men against one another — and created unsavory fractiousness that replicated white/black relations.
Regardless of why the private resisted, when he did, Dollard drew his revolver and ordered Worrell to disarm.
The cowed soldier feigned like he was going to drop his carbine and, just as Dollard turned his eyes, pounced upon his captain.
Dollard shoved Worrell’s revolver toward the ground, squeezing it between his knees to prevent Worrell from firing lead into Dollard’s leg.
Then, like a deus ex machina, in the middle of the melee, Dollard’s “faithful” corporal, Allen Pierce bolted toward the confusion, grabbed a loaded carbine, and as he shoved the muzzle into Worrell’s guts, fired.
Nothing happened.
As Dollard would recount it, anyway, the carbine misfired.
The sergeant who originally resisted arresting Worrell, “following the example” of Corporal Pierce, then fired his revolver twice at Worrell.
But these shots misfired as well.
Dollard assured his readers that these mysteriously thwarted acts of bravery by his non-commissioned officers could be explained by the newly issued revolvers that had too much oil on the caps to ignite the powder.
Though Dollard felt justified in killing Worrell on the spot, he resisted and, without trial, subjected Worrell to some unnamed physical punishment that “did him some lasting good.”
Dollard justified his swift punishment by explaining how the camp began to break out into a general mutiny, some eighty soldiers against two officers.
Dollard was able to disarm most of the men by rallying the most obedient, and ordering them to arrest the emergent mutiny’s ring leaders who Dollard summarily subjected to the same physical punishment as Worrell’s.
Whatever the explanation for the misfiring guns, or the subjugation of a group of soldiers who outnumbered their commanders forty to one, Dollard hoped his wild narrative would convey “the intense loyalty of the colored soldier to his white commander.”27
Maybe excessive oil saved private Worrell.
But it’s more likely that Dollard only wished that his “loyal” black officers, like Corporal Pierce, had blazed away at insubordinate comrades, like armed Uncle Toms ready to defend their master.
The hazy records left behind by the 2nd Colored Cavalry, as it turns out, sketch out a story that Dollard could only partially shape with his literary desires.
In the same court martial in which he testified that he did not steal whiskey or kick a black sentinel, Dollard had to explain his own mysteriously malfunctioning weaponry.
As several black soldiers’ testimony agreed, in July (three days before Dollard allegedly horded the whiskey rations) as Sergeant Washington King gathered boards for an anticipated move to another camp, removing them from the summer rain, 2nd Lieutenant John Jones (the lowest rung of white commissioned officers) commanded King to let the boards alone.
“These are our boards, we hauled them out of the swamp,” protested King.
“Let them alone or I’ll tie you,” snapped Jones.
The Lieutenant ordered King back to his quarters three times and when King ignored the warnings, Jones ordered the Orderly Sergeant to tie King up.
But the Orderly refused, insisting he would only take such an order from Captain Dollard.
26 Some of the most violent threats during a future ship mutiny would come from angry common soldiers toward their black superiors, who were charged with enforcing the orders to force the men on board for Texas. At least one soldier from another regiment on the boats warned his officer that he better “lay low” and that he better not “stray off by himself on this boat tonight.” And several other privates threatened to hurt or kill their black superiors as the ships embarked. See court martial of soldiers from other brigades: RG 153, OO1394. William Holmes, Moses Woods, 36USCT.
27 Dollard, "Recollections of the Civil War and Going West to Grow Up with the Country", 111-12
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
Cole’s Boy Major, continued ...
But Dollard’s memoirs and regimental records reveal another conflict which makes his “innocence” doubtful.
As the old soldier recounted it, sometime in late spring or early summer he attempted to break up a heated tiff between two privates about a fallen horse.
Dollard asked one of the men, Isaac Worrell, how he knew that the other was responsible, to which Worrell responded with his own question.
“Don’t ask me a question but answer the one I have asked you,” barked Dollard.
“But I will ask you a question Cap’n” returned Worrell.
Dollard ordered a company sergeant and two others to arrest Worrell, but — as Dollard remembered it — Worrell responded, “no damned nigger could arrest him.”
This exact language merits some doubt.
It would not have been unusual for a black private to protest being arrested and bound by a black non-commissioned officer.
Black companies, like white ones, experienced a sizable amount of gun waving and fisticuffs between men of the same race.
But these tensions seemed to emerge later in 1865, only as the war drew to an end.26
Instead of violence between black soldiers the conflicts in Cole’s regiment acquired a sort of ritualistic order where black soldiers snapped the moment white officers attempted to bind them with cord.
Even if Worrell did swear that no black man would tie his wrists that statement may have been made solely out of disgust with the ways in which promotion pitted black men against one another — and created unsavory fractiousness that replicated white/black relations.
Regardless of why the private resisted, when he did, Dollard drew his revolver and ordered Worrell to disarm.
The cowed soldier feigned like he was going to drop his carbine and, just as Dollard turned his eyes, pounced upon his captain.
Dollard shoved Worrell’s revolver toward the ground, squeezing it between his knees to prevent Worrell from firing lead into Dollard’s leg.
Then, like a deus ex machina, in the middle of the melee, Dollard’s “faithful” corporal, Allen Pierce bolted toward the confusion, grabbed a loaded carbine, and as he shoved the muzzle into Worrell’s guts, fired.
Nothing happened.
As Dollard would recount it, anyway, the carbine misfired.
The sergeant who originally resisted arresting Worrell, “following the example” of Corporal Pierce, then fired his revolver twice at Worrell.
But these shots misfired as well.
Dollard assured his readers that these mysteriously thwarted acts of bravery by his non-commissioned officers could be explained by the newly issued revolvers that had too much oil on the caps to ignite the powder.
Though Dollard felt justified in killing Worrell on the spot, he resisted and, without trial, subjected Worrell to some unnamed physical punishment that “did him some lasting good.”
Dollard justified his swift punishment by explaining how the camp began to break out into a general mutiny, some eighty soldiers against two officers.
Dollard was able to disarm most of the men by rallying the most obedient, and ordering them to arrest the emergent mutiny’s ring leaders who Dollard summarily subjected to the same physical punishment as Worrell’s.
Whatever the explanation for the misfiring guns, or the subjugation of a group of soldiers who outnumbered their commanders forty to one, Dollard hoped his wild narrative would convey “the intense loyalty of the colored soldier to his white commander.”27
Maybe excessive oil saved private Worrell.
But it’s more likely that Dollard only wished that his “loyal” black officers, like Corporal Pierce, had blazed away at insubordinate comrades, like armed Uncle Toms ready to defend their master.
The hazy records left behind by the 2nd Colored Cavalry, as it turns out, sketch out a story that Dollard could only partially shape with his literary desires.
In the same court martial in which he testified that he did not steal whiskey or kick a black sentinel, Dollard had to explain his own mysteriously malfunctioning weaponry.
As several black soldiers’ testimony agreed, in July (three days before Dollard allegedly horded the whiskey rations) as Sergeant Washington King gathered boards for an anticipated move to another camp, removing them from the summer rain, 2nd Lieutenant John Jones (the lowest rung of white commissioned officers) commanded King to let the boards alone.
“These are our boards, we hauled them out of the swamp,” protested King.
“Let them alone or I’ll tie you,” snapped Jones.
The Lieutenant ordered King back to his quarters three times and when King ignored the warnings, Jones ordered the Orderly Sergeant to tie King up.
But the Orderly refused, insisting he would only take such an order from Captain Dollard.
26 Some of the most violent threats during a future ship mutiny would come from angry common soldiers toward their black superiors, who were charged with enforcing the orders to force the men on board for Texas. At least one soldier from another regiment on the boats warned his officer that he better “lay low” and that he better not “stray off by himself on this boat tonight.” And several other privates threatened to hurt or kill their black superiors as the ships embarked. See court martial of soldiers from other brigades: RG 153, OO1394. William Holmes, Moses Woods, 36USCT.
27 Dollard, "Recollections of the Civil War and Going West to Grow Up with the Country", 111-12
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
Cole’s Boy Major, concluded ...
Dollard arrived amid this chaos and dismounted his horse ready to stamp out the insubordination.
Some of the soldiers thought he had been off drinking again.
Others talked of arming themselves for trouble.
Waving a gun, Dollard lined up the company, attempting to get them out of their tents before they grabbed their own arms.
Once in line he laid into Sergeant King, who perhaps in a half taunt allegedly told Dollard, “If you think I’ve done wrong, tie me up.”
“I’ll blow your brains out,” Dollard barked.
“Well sir, if you think it is right you can blow them out,” King replied.
Repeating Lieutenant Jones’s orders, Dollard commanded Sergeant Henry Williams to tie up King.
But Williams refused as he did before, not only believing Dollard to be intoxicated, but responding that King had not done anything to warrant being tied up.
Probably directly following this, Dollard growled that he would “rather kill a God damned nigger than a rebel and if I had known as much as I do now I would have run you all into the rebel lines long ago!”
He raised his loaded pistol to King’s chest and throat area and pulled the trigger.
As several black witnesses attested, they heard the cap go off — but strangely no discharge followed.
Perhaps rain that day dampened the caps.
Or maybe the black witnesses were wrong about the gun being unloaded, and Dollard only wanted to feign murderous designs while still being able to feel the piece snap in his hands while pointed at King, the unruly sergeant.
King would testify that when brought to Colonel Cole’s tent he overheard Dollard admit that it was loaded and that he could not tell Cole why it failed to fire.
(In his testimony, Dollard claimed that his Colt revolver frequently went off at half cock. Why an officer in the cavalry, who would wear it on his belt, would settle with a handgun that went off at half cock was an issue left unparsed.)
As with the other accusations, Dollard’s fellow officers banded together to ensure acquittal.
But Dollard’s alleged loyal soldier, Corporal Pierce betrayed him.
This corporal who in Dollard’s narrative supposedly forsook racial allegiance and tried to shoot the soldier who jumped on Dollard, testified that his captain “popped a cap at Sergeant King,” because, among other things, Dollard “was a little intoxicated.”28
Pierce could not swear to hearing everything that Dollard said; he did recall the officer saying something like, “I’ll kill one of you — if you don’t mind; I’ll kill you, you damn black nigger.”
Dollard would later claim that his failing health had forced him to drink whiskey and quinine to keep his malarial fever in check.
Given that he had served in the South Carolina Sea Islands and remained in the tidewater regions of Virginia and North Carolina, it would be mildly surprising if this weren’t true.29
Hard drinking plagued the army.
Out of some 80,000 recorded general courts-marital in the Union army, over fourteen thousand listed alcohol as an inciting agent in the alleged crime.
Drinking took the edge off of pain, depression, and guilt.
It played a vital role in the bonding rituals between comrades who desperately sought conviviality — to temporarily ameliorate collective suffering and drown out the longing for home.
But hard liquor also brought tensions, urges, manias, and vendettas into the open, leading comrades into naked, mutual animosity.30
Though drunkenness varied from regiment to regiment, wherever it happened it brought on the simultaneous possibility of profound communion and violence.
In Cole’s neck of the war, liquor lubricated the cycle of body-breaking labor, inconsequential military expeditions, and the racial tensions that magnified misery.
28 Court Martial of Robert Dollard, NN2543, NARA, Washington, DC. The Court Martial took place August 1864. Colonel Cole and members of the tribunal tried Dollard for various infractions at once: intoxication, stealing rations, abuse and nearly shooting a soldier. In all of these Dollard obtained a “not guilty” verdict. Except for a few exceptions where white officers came forth and gave damaging testimony, the court record reveals a near perfect split between black soldiers and white officers. Strangely Colonel Cole was actually a witness and he more than any other officer gave damaging testimony about Dollard’s intoxication. But when Cole was asked to attest for Dollard’s character and gallantry he gave unqualified praise for Dollard. After admitting that while drunk Dollard was "sleepy, very stupid, and dull,” Cole then described his military character as: "Excellently good. I don't know a better officer in the service. I have not seen a better officer since I have been in the service--except when under the influence…” It is also curious that the defense did not ask Cole anything about the misfired gun as some of the black soldiers claimed that Dollard confessed what happened to Cole in the latter’s quarters; ibid., 122-24
29 Dollard experienced a somewhat similar geographic exposure, as did Charles Francis Adams, Jr. — who also imbibed whiskey and quinine to abate the pangs of malarial fever. Both of the army corps making up the Army of the James (X and XVIII) had been particularly plagued with respiratory illnesses, malaria and typhoid fever. See: Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 46-9
30 For more on alcohol and courts martial, see: Thomas P. Lowry, "New Access to a Civil War Resource," Civil War History 49, no. 1 (2003), 52-63. Also see: Wiley, "The Life of Billy Yank, the Common Soldier of the Union", 252-55; Robertson, "Soldiers Blue and Gray", 96-101
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
Cole’s Boy Major, concluded ...
Dollard arrived amid this chaos and dismounted his horse ready to stamp out the insubordination.
Some of the soldiers thought he had been off drinking again.
Others talked of arming themselves for trouble.
Waving a gun, Dollard lined up the company, attempting to get them out of their tents before they grabbed their own arms.
Once in line he laid into Sergeant King, who perhaps in a half taunt allegedly told Dollard, “If you think I’ve done wrong, tie me up.”
“I’ll blow your brains out,” Dollard barked.
“Well sir, if you think it is right you can blow them out,” King replied.
Repeating Lieutenant Jones’s orders, Dollard commanded Sergeant Henry Williams to tie up King.
But Williams refused as he did before, not only believing Dollard to be intoxicated, but responding that King had not done anything to warrant being tied up.
Probably directly following this, Dollard growled that he would “rather kill a God damned nigger than a rebel and if I had known as much as I do now I would have run you all into the rebel lines long ago!”
He raised his loaded pistol to King’s chest and throat area and pulled the trigger.
As several black witnesses attested, they heard the cap go off — but strangely no discharge followed.
Perhaps rain that day dampened the caps.
Or maybe the black witnesses were wrong about the gun being unloaded, and Dollard only wanted to feign murderous designs while still being able to feel the piece snap in his hands while pointed at King, the unruly sergeant.
King would testify that when brought to Colonel Cole’s tent he overheard Dollard admit that it was loaded and that he could not tell Cole why it failed to fire.
(In his testimony, Dollard claimed that his Colt revolver frequently went off at half cock. Why an officer in the cavalry, who would wear it on his belt, would settle with a handgun that went off at half cock was an issue left unparsed.)
As with the other accusations, Dollard’s fellow officers banded together to ensure acquittal.
But Dollard’s alleged loyal soldier, Corporal Pierce betrayed him.
This corporal who in Dollard’s narrative supposedly forsook racial allegiance and tried to shoot the soldier who jumped on Dollard, testified that his captain “popped a cap at Sergeant King,” because, among other things, Dollard “was a little intoxicated.”28
Pierce could not swear to hearing everything that Dollard said; he did recall the officer saying something like, “I’ll kill one of you — if you don’t mind; I’ll kill you, you damn black nigger.”
Dollard would later claim that his failing health had forced him to drink whiskey and quinine to keep his malarial fever in check.
Given that he had served in the South Carolina Sea Islands and remained in the tidewater regions of Virginia and North Carolina, it would be mildly surprising if this weren’t true.29
Hard drinking plagued the army.
Out of some 80,000 recorded general courts-marital in the Union army, over fourteen thousand listed alcohol as an inciting agent in the alleged crime.
Drinking took the edge off of pain, depression, and guilt.
It played a vital role in the bonding rituals between comrades who desperately sought conviviality — to temporarily ameliorate collective suffering and drown out the longing for home.
But hard liquor also brought tensions, urges, manias, and vendettas into the open, leading comrades into naked, mutual animosity.30
Though drunkenness varied from regiment to regiment, wherever it happened it brought on the simultaneous possibility of profound communion and violence.
In Cole’s neck of the war, liquor lubricated the cycle of body-breaking labor, inconsequential military expeditions, and the racial tensions that magnified misery.
28 Court Martial of Robert Dollard, NN2543, NARA, Washington, DC. The Court Martial took place August 1864. Colonel Cole and members of the tribunal tried Dollard for various infractions at once: intoxication, stealing rations, abuse and nearly shooting a soldier. In all of these Dollard obtained a “not guilty” verdict. Except for a few exceptions where white officers came forth and gave damaging testimony, the court record reveals a near perfect split between black soldiers and white officers. Strangely Colonel Cole was actually a witness and he more than any other officer gave damaging testimony about Dollard’s intoxication. But when Cole was asked to attest for Dollard’s character and gallantry he gave unqualified praise for Dollard. After admitting that while drunk Dollard was "sleepy, very stupid, and dull,” Cole then described his military character as: "Excellently good. I don't know a better officer in the service. I have not seen a better officer since I have been in the service--except when under the influence…” It is also curious that the defense did not ask Cole anything about the misfired gun as some of the black soldiers claimed that Dollard confessed what happened to Cole in the latter’s quarters; ibid., 122-24
29 Dollard experienced a somewhat similar geographic exposure, as did Charles Francis Adams, Jr. — who also imbibed whiskey and quinine to abate the pangs of malarial fever. Both of the army corps making up the Army of the James (X and XVIII) had been particularly plagued with respiratory illnesses, malaria and typhoid fever. See: Longacre, "Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865", 46-9
30 For more on alcohol and courts martial, see: Thomas P. Lowry, "New Access to a Civil War Resource," Civil War History 49, no. 1 (2003), 52-63. Also see: Wiley, "The Life of Billy Yank, the Common Soldier of the Union", 252-55; Robertson, "Soldiers Blue and Gray", 96-101
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
A Good Deal of Trouble
In regards to drinking and danger, Dollard had plenty of company.
For example, on a boiling day in June 1864, Dollard’s fellow captain, William Perrin supervised the building of Fort Wisconsin by Point of Rocks, Virginia.
After draining one canteen of whiskey during a rough morning, he filled out a second order for the commissary and signed another officer’s name to it.
(Perrin would argue that he and his Lieutenant had an understanding that they could sign one another’s names.)
By afternoon Perrin’s boisterous manner even began to worry some of his fellow officers.
Though he testified that Colonel Cole refused to approve whiskey orders “since we came from Camp Hamilton,” Perrin and comrades seemed to experience little want.
Within four months of the regiment’s formation, Colonel Cole (who was actually a teetotaler) had already surrendered to his junior officers’ predilection for the cup: “Officers of this Regiment,“ Cole capitulated, “who feel the necessity of getting drunk will notify the Adjutant and he will designate a suitable time, but not on march or move.”31
How Cole grew so seemingly powerless in enforcing his prohibitions is unclear.
He may have feared facing down his subordinates, not wanting to jeopardize the shoulder-strap fraternity.
He may have also been sporadically and (unofficially) out of commission, remaining close to his quarters due to chonic spells of illness.
In his testimony, Major Dennison, claimed that before evening there had already been “several complaints” brought to Cole’s quarters with regard to Captain Perrin.
Colonel Cole heard the “complaints” earlier in the day but apparently did nothing to address them until his subordinate, Major Dennison, returned to headquarters in the evening.
Cole ordered his major to go and see about the trouble.
Dennison soon returned, convinced that Perrin was unfit for duty.
Perrin, like Dollard — like hundreds of thousands of their comrades — drank too much in the army.
But what is strange about Perrin’s indiscretions is the ways in which they served as a sort of code for abusing black soldiers.
Though he would be brought before a military court, the strange thing about his ensuing court marital was that though on its surface it had nothing to do with the treatment of black soldiers, it was apparently on everybody’s mind.
The trial revealed how entangled racial tensions were with all other unrest.
While the formal charges were for drunkenness and falsely representing himself, Major Dennison and others mentioned other vague terms like “complaints” and “trouble.”
At the close, Perrin requested a final statement and made a somewhat convincing justification for why he forged his comrade’s signature, and why he and his fatigued men needed more whiskey.
But then Perrin defended himself from what no participant had explicitly accused him.
About the so-called “complaints” mentioned by Major Dennison, Perrin admitted before his appointed jurors:
perhaps you are aware that there has been a good deal of trouble among the officers and men of the Colored Cavalry. But I can say for my men and myself, that I have never struck a man a blow in earnest for eight months. And so far as that matter about complaints applies it does not apply to Company “G” 32
In this regiment, and probably more widely spread throughout the Union army than historians have allowed, the common sins of soldiers, the “complaints” of army life, became snarled with — and euphemisms for — race trouble.
31 2nd USCT Cavalry Regimental Order and Letter Book: General Order No. 19. April 22, 1864, from Fort Monroe, Va. Record Group 92, NARA, Washington, DC.
32 Court Marital of William H. Perrin, NN2543, NARA.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
A Good Deal of Trouble
In regards to drinking and danger, Dollard had plenty of company.
For example, on a boiling day in June 1864, Dollard’s fellow captain, William Perrin supervised the building of Fort Wisconsin by Point of Rocks, Virginia.
After draining one canteen of whiskey during a rough morning, he filled out a second order for the commissary and signed another officer’s name to it.
(Perrin would argue that he and his Lieutenant had an understanding that they could sign one another’s names.)
By afternoon Perrin’s boisterous manner even began to worry some of his fellow officers.
Though he testified that Colonel Cole refused to approve whiskey orders “since we came from Camp Hamilton,” Perrin and comrades seemed to experience little want.
Within four months of the regiment’s formation, Colonel Cole (who was actually a teetotaler) had already surrendered to his junior officers’ predilection for the cup: “Officers of this Regiment,“ Cole capitulated, “who feel the necessity of getting drunk will notify the Adjutant and he will designate a suitable time, but not on march or move.”31
How Cole grew so seemingly powerless in enforcing his prohibitions is unclear.
He may have feared facing down his subordinates, not wanting to jeopardize the shoulder-strap fraternity.
He may have also been sporadically and (unofficially) out of commission, remaining close to his quarters due to chonic spells of illness.
In his testimony, Major Dennison, claimed that before evening there had already been “several complaints” brought to Cole’s quarters with regard to Captain Perrin.
Colonel Cole heard the “complaints” earlier in the day but apparently did nothing to address them until his subordinate, Major Dennison, returned to headquarters in the evening.
Cole ordered his major to go and see about the trouble.
Dennison soon returned, convinced that Perrin was unfit for duty.
Perrin, like Dollard — like hundreds of thousands of their comrades — drank too much in the army.
But what is strange about Perrin’s indiscretions is the ways in which they served as a sort of code for abusing black soldiers.
Though he would be brought before a military court, the strange thing about his ensuing court marital was that though on its surface it had nothing to do with the treatment of black soldiers, it was apparently on everybody’s mind.
The trial revealed how entangled racial tensions were with all other unrest.
While the formal charges were for drunkenness and falsely representing himself, Major Dennison and others mentioned other vague terms like “complaints” and “trouble.”
At the close, Perrin requested a final statement and made a somewhat convincing justification for why he forged his comrade’s signature, and why he and his fatigued men needed more whiskey.
But then Perrin defended himself from what no participant had explicitly accused him.
About the so-called “complaints” mentioned by Major Dennison, Perrin admitted before his appointed jurors:
perhaps you are aware that there has been a good deal of trouble among the officers and men of the Colored Cavalry. But I can say for my men and myself, that I have never struck a man a blow in earnest for eight months. And so far as that matter about complaints applies it does not apply to Company “G” 32
In this regiment, and probably more widely spread throughout the Union army than historians have allowed, the common sins of soldiers, the “complaints” of army life, became snarled with — and euphemisms for — race trouble.
31 2nd USCT Cavalry Regimental Order and Letter Book: General Order No. 19. April 22, 1864, from Fort Monroe, Va. Record Group 92, NARA, Washington, DC.
32 Court Marital of William H. Perrin, NN2543, NARA.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
The Charming, Bright, Healthy Boy
As Cole’s most intimate comrade would come to believe, only threats of violence could postpone the trouble, and only for so long.
Captain Cole and Sergeant Edwin R. Fox had fought together in the 3rd New York Cavalry way back in late 1861.
Nearly fifteen years Cole’s junior, Fox had served as Cole’s orderly before the latter recruited him as a line officer for the Colored Cavalry.
When Captain Cole fell from his horse in 1862, Fox nursed Cole’s wounds, helping him convalesce in the privacy of his quarters.33
Before enlisting, Fox had been a student and had trained as a machinist: he clearly expected a bright future.34
His family would claim that the war ruined him.
He returned from war disillusioned, an exonerated murderer, with a blown out eardrum from Bull Run, bloody hemorrhoids, and a torn shoulder.
As his aunt would plaintively testify in a pension affidavit, “one thing is certain, he came from the war with a broken constitution, sickly, nervous and irritable.”
“As different as day from night,” she grieved, “was the charming, bright, healthy boy who left home and the wreck, he returned.”35
When Fox began his service in the black cavalry, he and fellow officers were “ordered to treat the men with kindness and punish them lightly.”
But as Fox would testify, he “soon learned the mistake in that.”
In the middle of April 1864 Cole’s regiment boiled over with discontent concerning the unequal pay received by black soldiers.
The previous summer, the War Department had announced that black soldiers would not be paid the same rate as their white counterparts.
Instead of receiving $13 per month plus clothing, black soldiers would only earn $10 per month minus $3 to cover their clothing.
(Blacks, of course, quickly wore out their uniforms hauling lumber and carving out breastworks after which they would be charged an additional $3.)
Even black non-commissioned officers would receive this decreased pay, which was made to match the minimum wage earned by government laborers.
The highest paid black non-commissioned officer, in other words, made roughly less than half what the lowest white soldier made, when costs for clothes were taken into account.
Outrage and resistance mounted until black units verged on mutiny during the first half of 1864.
Tens of thousands of men had enlisted with the explicit promise that they would receive the pay of white soldiers.
Though Cole’s Regiment had been organized six months after the War Department backed out of its original commitments, it suffered similar bouts of violence and resistance.
In response to the unequal pay; they too intermittently refused to obey orders.36
In the spring of ’64, Fox tried approaching the incensed soldiers and using cool reason to “persuade them to do their duty.”
After quickly realizing that preaching to them only fomented unrest, Fox dragooned one soldier up to a tree and ordered him tied by another.
Following what had become a sort of regimental ritual, this soldier too refused to tie up “one of his own color.”
Fox ordered another soldier.
He refused as well.
Scrambling to recover the hard edge of authority, Fox retrieved his gun and repeated his orders.
Finally, at the end of a muzzle, Fox’s soldiers followed orders contrary to their will.37
But Fox’s muzzle only temporarily muted, while compounding the problem.
Fox noted a general increase of insubordination.
In May he confronted a trooper who refused to mount his horse.
With profanity, the soldier dismissed Fox’s orders to climb in the saddle.
Now that recourse to arms was established as the baseline for suppressing the will of an enlisted man, Fox pulled his pistol on the trooper and threatened to kill him.
But the soldier pushed Fox to where he had hoped the precedent would not lead, by daring Fox to “Shoot and be God damned.”
Fox’s bluff had been called.
He froze and backed off in defeat, explaining later that he “didn’t like to shoot a man who was looking right into the muzzle of my pistol.”
His power had departed him.
33 In his memoirs Dollard suggests — but does not give names -- that it was Company C (Fox’s company) that ruined one of Dollard’s charges after the officers lost control of their troopers, turning an organized charge into murderous mayhem. There is no direct record of it between Dollard and Fox, but clearly many lower officers vied for their Colonel’s favor. See: Dollard, "Recollections of the Civil War and Going West to Grow Up with the Country", 101-04
34 For claim that he was a student see various papers in Pension File, Edwin R. Fox, NARA.
35 General Affidavit by Addie Mitchell, Dec. 10, 1884, in Edwin R. Fox’s pension file, NARA.
36 Glatthaar, "Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers", 169-76; Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland, The Black Military Experience, Vol. ser. 2 (Cambridge Cambridgeshire; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 20-1, 24.
37 Court Martial of Edwin R. Fox, NN2550, NARA.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
The Charming, Bright, Healthy Boy
As Cole’s most intimate comrade would come to believe, only threats of violence could postpone the trouble, and only for so long.
Captain Cole and Sergeant Edwin R. Fox had fought together in the 3rd New York Cavalry way back in late 1861.
Nearly fifteen years Cole’s junior, Fox had served as Cole’s orderly before the latter recruited him as a line officer for the Colored Cavalry.
When Captain Cole fell from his horse in 1862, Fox nursed Cole’s wounds, helping him convalesce in the privacy of his quarters.33
Before enlisting, Fox had been a student and had trained as a machinist: he clearly expected a bright future.34
His family would claim that the war ruined him.
He returned from war disillusioned, an exonerated murderer, with a blown out eardrum from Bull Run, bloody hemorrhoids, and a torn shoulder.
As his aunt would plaintively testify in a pension affidavit, “one thing is certain, he came from the war with a broken constitution, sickly, nervous and irritable.”
“As different as day from night,” she grieved, “was the charming, bright, healthy boy who left home and the wreck, he returned.”35
When Fox began his service in the black cavalry, he and fellow officers were “ordered to treat the men with kindness and punish them lightly.”
But as Fox would testify, he “soon learned the mistake in that.”
In the middle of April 1864 Cole’s regiment boiled over with discontent concerning the unequal pay received by black soldiers.
The previous summer, the War Department had announced that black soldiers would not be paid the same rate as their white counterparts.
Instead of receiving $13 per month plus clothing, black soldiers would only earn $10 per month minus $3 to cover their clothing.
(Blacks, of course, quickly wore out their uniforms hauling lumber and carving out breastworks after which they would be charged an additional $3.)
Even black non-commissioned officers would receive this decreased pay, which was made to match the minimum wage earned by government laborers.
The highest paid black non-commissioned officer, in other words, made roughly less than half what the lowest white soldier made, when costs for clothes were taken into account.
Outrage and resistance mounted until black units verged on mutiny during the first half of 1864.
Tens of thousands of men had enlisted with the explicit promise that they would receive the pay of white soldiers.
Though Cole’s Regiment had been organized six months after the War Department backed out of its original commitments, it suffered similar bouts of violence and resistance.
In response to the unequal pay; they too intermittently refused to obey orders.36
In the spring of ’64, Fox tried approaching the incensed soldiers and using cool reason to “persuade them to do their duty.”
After quickly realizing that preaching to them only fomented unrest, Fox dragooned one soldier up to a tree and ordered him tied by another.
Following what had become a sort of regimental ritual, this soldier too refused to tie up “one of his own color.”
Fox ordered another soldier.
He refused as well.
Scrambling to recover the hard edge of authority, Fox retrieved his gun and repeated his orders.
Finally, at the end of a muzzle, Fox’s soldiers followed orders contrary to their will.37
But Fox’s muzzle only temporarily muted, while compounding the problem.
Fox noted a general increase of insubordination.
In May he confronted a trooper who refused to mount his horse.
With profanity, the soldier dismissed Fox’s orders to climb in the saddle.
Now that recourse to arms was established as the baseline for suppressing the will of an enlisted man, Fox pulled his pistol on the trooper and threatened to kill him.
But the soldier pushed Fox to where he had hoped the precedent would not lead, by daring Fox to “Shoot and be God damned.”
Fox’s bluff had been called.
He froze and backed off in defeat, explaining later that he “didn’t like to shoot a man who was looking right into the muzzle of my pistol.”
His power had departed him.
33 In his memoirs Dollard suggests — but does not give names -- that it was Company C (Fox’s company) that ruined one of Dollard’s charges after the officers lost control of their troopers, turning an organized charge into murderous mayhem. There is no direct record of it between Dollard and Fox, but clearly many lower officers vied for their Colonel’s favor. See: Dollard, "Recollections of the Civil War and Going West to Grow Up with the Country", 101-04
34 For claim that he was a student see various papers in Pension File, Edwin R. Fox, NARA.
35 General Affidavit by Addie Mitchell, Dec. 10, 1884, in Edwin R. Fox’s pension file, NARA.
36 Glatthaar, "Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers", 169-76; Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland, The Black Military Experience, Vol. ser. 2 (Cambridge Cambridgeshire; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 20-1, 24.
37 Court Martial of Edwin R. Fox, NN2550, NARA.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
The Charming, Bright, Healthy Boy, continued ...
From that day forward, whenever Fox ordered his men to do something they especially despised, Fox would have to grab his pistol, each time with equal ineffectiveness.
And so in early August, months after the protests over unequal pay, the various violent, often inebriated tirades, and “hitches” in rations, Fox called on Henry Edwards (who Fox claimed to have seen up and about earlier in the day) to guard duty.
Edwards lay in his tent claiming he was too sick for the task.
Some believed him to be one of the many men troubled by illness; others thought him to be malingering.
Fox ordered Edwards to be taken to the guardhouse to which the soldier responded that the man who took him there would be a “son of a bitch.”
Later Fox summoned Edwards back to the quarters and ordered him to lug a large beam or log on his back and walk a beat through the company street.
Edwards reportedly hauled the beam for an hour and a half, while liberally cursing his superiors.
When Fox returned from supper, where he could hear Edwards’s cursing, he found the soldier resting on the beam he had cast to the ground.
Enraged, Fox ordered him “bucked and gagged.”38
Though more than one soldier claimed that up until this fallout Fox and Edwards had a mutually supportive relationship, Fox’s preceding troubles seemed to have cast a pall over any connection he had with his soldiers.
When Fox went to tie Edwards, the private insisted that he had done nothing wrong and would not let Fox tie him up.
When Fox became excited another officer convinced him to let fellow troopers bind Edwards.
But when one of the soldier’s tied Edwards’s wrists too loosely, Fox insisted on cinching the ropes himself.
(One of the soldiers tried to convince Edwards to just submit to a little pain to avoid the escalating trouble.)
When Edwards defied him again, Fox scurried to his tent to grab the last bit of authority he had left.
In front of a gathering crowd he brought his gun to the level and declared that he would give Edwards three chances to submit to his officer.
“Very composed and surly,” Edwards repeated that he would let others tie him, but Fox never.
“Will you let me tie you?” Fox queried.
“No, but the others can,” responded Edwards, with arms wrenched behind him.
When Fox asked a second time, Edwards begged to have a word.
“Lieutenant will you allow me the privilege of speaking three words?”
“I will,” consented Fox.
Looking at his officer, Edwards warned, “It is your time now and it is my time hereafter."
"My carbine never tells a lie.”39
Fox then asked the third, and final, time, and just as Edwards turned his back to Fox, desperately (or defiantly) gesturing to his comrades that they could refasten the ropes, Fox blew out Edwards’s brains from the back of the head.
One of the soldiers standing at Edwards’s side wrenched away and heard Edwards collapse face-forward to the ground.
Lying beneath the boughs of two plum trees, Edwards let out a parting groan.
Fox backed away.
Probably to avoid immediate revenge, another officer rushed Fox off to Colonel Cole’s quarters.
As the murderer departed, men began “crying” and “halooing” from their tents and throughout the camp.40
The once “charming” student crossed a line that his regiment — both officers and enlisted men — had fitfully etched out through harrowing negotiations.
They had been precariously walking this line for nine months.
Of course, these cycles of violence could be found in white regiments throughout the military.
From tying up privates, to thumb screws, to (although quite rare) killing an insubordinate soldier in order to set an example — Union officers frequently exploited the vague and seemingly boundless powers of wartime authority.
They often did so with limited repercussion.
But corporal brutality within the black units was too close to recent suffering.
Certain forms of violence within the USCT had the explosive possibilities of a powder keg.
Some black soldiers could not peacefully brook acts of white on black violence that smacked of the very brutalities of slavery they were risking their lives to end.41
Abusive officers seemed hardly better than cruel plantation masters, if not worse.
38 Bucking and gagging was a form of corporal punishment widely used throughout the military where a soldier’s limbs were tightly bound, knees drawn up between arms, and body locked into a painfully hunched posture upon the ground by running a pole under the folded knees and over the arms. A rag or rope was usually tied into an open mouth.
39 This was not an uncommon threat that relatively powerless enlisted men would make. No doubt this worried unpopular officers who entered battle with soldiers behind them who nursed old grievances. While it was not highly unusual for angry men to make such threats in the heat of dispute, it is impossible to know how often this happened during the chaos of battle. There are were many cases of “friendly fire” during the war; and a significant number of incidents of soldiers killing fellow soldiers. Hundreds of murders, of civilians and fellow soldiers, are on record within the Union army alone. One must conclude that the two categories of “friendly fire” and homicide overlapped, and that soldiers realized the dark possibilities. Death and destruction on the battlefield defied description, surveillance and honest retelling. When one Union general was evidently killed by his own man (it was claimed to be an accident), the orderlies kept the cause of death a secret for twenty one years. See: Webb B. Garrison, Friendly Fire in the Civil War: More than 100 True Stories of Comrade Killing Comrade (Nashville, Tenn.: Rutledge Hill Press, 1999), 91-2. Also see: Thomas P. Lowry, Tarnished Eagles: The Courts-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, 1st ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997), 226.
40 Court Marital of Edwin R. Fox, NN2550, NARA.
41 Berlin, Reidy and Rowland, "The Black Military Experience", 23-4
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, continued ...
The Charming, Bright, Healthy Boy, continued ...
From that day forward, whenever Fox ordered his men to do something they especially despised, Fox would have to grab his pistol, each time with equal ineffectiveness.
And so in early August, months after the protests over unequal pay, the various violent, often inebriated tirades, and “hitches” in rations, Fox called on Henry Edwards (who Fox claimed to have seen up and about earlier in the day) to guard duty.
Edwards lay in his tent claiming he was too sick for the task.
Some believed him to be one of the many men troubled by illness; others thought him to be malingering.
Fox ordered Edwards to be taken to the guardhouse to which the soldier responded that the man who took him there would be a “son of a bitch.”
Later Fox summoned Edwards back to the quarters and ordered him to lug a large beam or log on his back and walk a beat through the company street.
Edwards reportedly hauled the beam for an hour and a half, while liberally cursing his superiors.
When Fox returned from supper, where he could hear Edwards’s cursing, he found the soldier resting on the beam he had cast to the ground.
Enraged, Fox ordered him “bucked and gagged.”38
Though more than one soldier claimed that up until this fallout Fox and Edwards had a mutually supportive relationship, Fox’s preceding troubles seemed to have cast a pall over any connection he had with his soldiers.
When Fox went to tie Edwards, the private insisted that he had done nothing wrong and would not let Fox tie him up.
When Fox became excited another officer convinced him to let fellow troopers bind Edwards.
But when one of the soldier’s tied Edwards’s wrists too loosely, Fox insisted on cinching the ropes himself.
(One of the soldiers tried to convince Edwards to just submit to a little pain to avoid the escalating trouble.)
When Edwards defied him again, Fox scurried to his tent to grab the last bit of authority he had left.
In front of a gathering crowd he brought his gun to the level and declared that he would give Edwards three chances to submit to his officer.
“Very composed and surly,” Edwards repeated that he would let others tie him, but Fox never.
“Will you let me tie you?” Fox queried.
“No, but the others can,” responded Edwards, with arms wrenched behind him.
When Fox asked a second time, Edwards begged to have a word.
“Lieutenant will you allow me the privilege of speaking three words?”
“I will,” consented Fox.
Looking at his officer, Edwards warned, “It is your time now and it is my time hereafter."
"My carbine never tells a lie.”39
Fox then asked the third, and final, time, and just as Edwards turned his back to Fox, desperately (or defiantly) gesturing to his comrades that they could refasten the ropes, Fox blew out Edwards’s brains from the back of the head.
One of the soldiers standing at Edwards’s side wrenched away and heard Edwards collapse face-forward to the ground.
Lying beneath the boughs of two plum trees, Edwards let out a parting groan.
Fox backed away.
Probably to avoid immediate revenge, another officer rushed Fox off to Colonel Cole’s quarters.
As the murderer departed, men began “crying” and “halooing” from their tents and throughout the camp.40
The once “charming” student crossed a line that his regiment — both officers and enlisted men — had fitfully etched out through harrowing negotiations.
They had been precariously walking this line for nine months.
Of course, these cycles of violence could be found in white regiments throughout the military.
From tying up privates, to thumb screws, to (although quite rare) killing an insubordinate soldier in order to set an example — Union officers frequently exploited the vague and seemingly boundless powers of wartime authority.
They often did so with limited repercussion.
But corporal brutality within the black units was too close to recent suffering.
Certain forms of violence within the USCT had the explosive possibilities of a powder keg.
Some black soldiers could not peacefully brook acts of white on black violence that smacked of the very brutalities of slavery they were risking their lives to end.41
Abusive officers seemed hardly better than cruel plantation masters, if not worse.
38 Bucking and gagging was a form of corporal punishment widely used throughout the military where a soldier’s limbs were tightly bound, knees drawn up between arms, and body locked into a painfully hunched posture upon the ground by running a pole under the folded knees and over the arms. A rag or rope was usually tied into an open mouth.
39 This was not an uncommon threat that relatively powerless enlisted men would make. No doubt this worried unpopular officers who entered battle with soldiers behind them who nursed old grievances. While it was not highly unusual for angry men to make such threats in the heat of dispute, it is impossible to know how often this happened during the chaos of battle. There are were many cases of “friendly fire” during the war; and a significant number of incidents of soldiers killing fellow soldiers. Hundreds of murders, of civilians and fellow soldiers, are on record within the Union army alone. One must conclude that the two categories of “friendly fire” and homicide overlapped, and that soldiers realized the dark possibilities. Death and destruction on the battlefield defied description, surveillance and honest retelling. When one Union general was evidently killed by his own man (it was claimed to be an accident), the orderlies kept the cause of death a secret for twenty one years. See: Webb B. Garrison, Friendly Fire in the Civil War: More than 100 True Stories of Comrade Killing Comrade (Nashville, Tenn.: Rutledge Hill Press, 1999), 91-2. Also see: Thomas P. Lowry, Tarnished Eagles: The Courts-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, 1st ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997), 226.
40 Court Marital of Edwin R. Fox, NN2550, NARA.
41 Berlin, Reidy and Rowland, "The Black Military Experience", 23-4
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, concluded ...
The Charming, Bright, Healthy Boy, concluded ...
As slaves knew, masters had monetary incentives to limit violence towards what they deemed as property.
And while owning slaves served as a badge of honor in the antebellum South, for white officers, leading erstwhile slaves into war raised eyebrows in many circles throughout Lincoln’s loyal states.
Scholars have written about the “double-edged sword” where black soldiers from northern states had to fight against southern slavery and northern racism.42
In Cole’s regiment, though, runaway-slaves-turned-soldiers felt both edges in particularly striking and intimate ways.
A black soldier might be recaptured by his old master; or — as we have seen — mauled by a drunken officer.
The cruelty suffered by white and black troops was less different in kind than informed by significantly different motives.
Where white officers everywhere had to prove they merited superior rank, officers in the black army had an especially pressing need to prove their merit, particularly to white outsiders.
Cole’s fellow white officers lived under a “double edge” as well — though more psychological.
Not only did they have to establish their authority over their enlisted men; they had to shake the stigmatization that accompanied leading ex-slaves into battle.43
Through alternating acts of battlefield heroics, fatherly concern for subordinates, and continuous discipline, all officers had to convince subordinates of the distance that separated those who wore shoulder straps from those who took orders.44
An officer in the USCT, however, had to establish this distance, while also convincing whites in and out of the army that his promotion over blacks meant something.
To obtain the first objective, white officers commanding black soldiers often had to oppose the freedmen’s struggle to assert manhood, while to obtain the second, they simultaneously needed to tout the manliness of their subordinates to others.
Appreciating the incompatibility of these ends can help us better make sense of the schizophrenic words and actions of USCT officers who in one letter praise the loyalty, bravery and skill of black troops, but then in another confess their repugnance, or even reveal violent racial ruptures in their camp.
What we find among officers in the black military is not so much the benevolent and ideologically committed on one side, and racist mercenaries on the other as histories of the USCT often suggest.
Instead, many of these officers wore various masks.
Their own patterns of ferocity and sympathy were not so much hypocritical but reflective of their uniquely stigmatized promotions, which hitched power to shame.45
42 For an analysis of Frederick Douglass’ struggle with northern racism in the context of recruiting black soldiers see: David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 148-74.; Glatthaar, "Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers", 1-33
43 General Edward Wild, one of the fiercest advocates of arming the blacks claimed that because of his involvement with black troops he had “nothing but prejudice, jealousy, misrepresentation, persecution and treachery, to contend against….” Wild quoted in: Longacre, "Black Troops in the Army of the James, 1863-65", 5
44 Mitchell, "The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home", 39-54
45 For example, in a passage that argues that white officers were often the best advocates of equal pay for blacks, Joseph Glatthaar uses Colonel James Montgomery’s missive in which he vouchsafes for his black soldiers’ “loyalty and fidelity.” A reader, however, may be surprised to learn of the vicious relations that existed between Montgomery and these so-called “loyal” soldiers. Roughly a half year earlier, Montgomery callously had one of his soldiers killed, and wanted to kill others for sneaking away from camp to check on and visit their families. The point here is that sweeping narratives of black/white relations in the army have a tendency of glossing over the deep ambivalence, and inconsistent behaviors of white officers. See: Glatthaar, "Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers", 1-33; Christian G. Samito, "Proof of Loyalty: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Redefinition of Citizenship during the Civil War Era" (Ph.D, Boston College), 334-35.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 1: TEARS FOR UNCLE TOM, concluded ...
The Charming, Bright, Healthy Boy, concluded ...
As slaves knew, masters had monetary incentives to limit violence towards what they deemed as property.
And while owning slaves served as a badge of honor in the antebellum South, for white officers, leading erstwhile slaves into war raised eyebrows in many circles throughout Lincoln’s loyal states.
Scholars have written about the “double-edged sword” where black soldiers from northern states had to fight against southern slavery and northern racism.42
In Cole’s regiment, though, runaway-slaves-turned-soldiers felt both edges in particularly striking and intimate ways.
A black soldier might be recaptured by his old master; or — as we have seen — mauled by a drunken officer.
The cruelty suffered by white and black troops was less different in kind than informed by significantly different motives.
Where white officers everywhere had to prove they merited superior rank, officers in the black army had an especially pressing need to prove their merit, particularly to white outsiders.
Cole’s fellow white officers lived under a “double edge” as well — though more psychological.
Not only did they have to establish their authority over their enlisted men; they had to shake the stigmatization that accompanied leading ex-slaves into battle.43
Through alternating acts of battlefield heroics, fatherly concern for subordinates, and continuous discipline, all officers had to convince subordinates of the distance that separated those who wore shoulder straps from those who took orders.44
An officer in the USCT, however, had to establish this distance, while also convincing whites in and out of the army that his promotion over blacks meant something.
To obtain the first objective, white officers commanding black soldiers often had to oppose the freedmen’s struggle to assert manhood, while to obtain the second, they simultaneously needed to tout the manliness of their subordinates to others.
Appreciating the incompatibility of these ends can help us better make sense of the schizophrenic words and actions of USCT officers who in one letter praise the loyalty, bravery and skill of black troops, but then in another confess their repugnance, or even reveal violent racial ruptures in their camp.
What we find among officers in the black military is not so much the benevolent and ideologically committed on one side, and racist mercenaries on the other as histories of the USCT often suggest.
Instead, many of these officers wore various masks.
Their own patterns of ferocity and sympathy were not so much hypocritical but reflective of their uniquely stigmatized promotions, which hitched power to shame.45
42 For an analysis of Frederick Douglass’ struggle with northern racism in the context of recruiting black soldiers see: David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 148-74.; Glatthaar, "Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers", 1-33
43 General Edward Wild, one of the fiercest advocates of arming the blacks claimed that because of his involvement with black troops he had “nothing but prejudice, jealousy, misrepresentation, persecution and treachery, to contend against….” Wild quoted in: Longacre, "Black Troops in the Army of the James, 1863-65", 5
44 Mitchell, "The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home", 39-54
45 For example, in a passage that argues that white officers were often the best advocates of equal pay for blacks, Joseph Glatthaar uses Colonel James Montgomery’s missive in which he vouchsafes for his black soldiers’ “loyalty and fidelity.” A reader, however, may be surprised to learn of the vicious relations that existed between Montgomery and these so-called “loyal” soldiers. Roughly a half year earlier, Montgomery callously had one of his soldiers killed, and wanted to kill others for sneaking away from camp to check on and visit their families. The point here is that sweeping narratives of black/white relations in the army have a tendency of glossing over the deep ambivalence, and inconsistent behaviors of white officers. See: Glatthaar, "Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers", 1-33; Christian G. Samito, "Proof of Loyalty: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Redefinition of Citizenship during the Civil War Era" (Ph.D, Boston College), 334-35.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER
George W. Cole developed a complicated affection for his black soldiers which would become impossible to separate from his lust for rank.
The arming of black men brought him decorated shoulder straps.
While he rose above his subaltern counterparts (junior officers) before joining the USCT, by 1863 he feared he had reached a plateau as a major in the 3rd NY Cavalry.
For Cole the buildup of black armies directly affected his chances at obtaining higher rank.
After General Butler offered him a colonel’s commission Cole immediately set out to form his regiment from the tens of thousands of souls who took refuge in and around Portsmouth and Norfolk Virginia, and in New Berne, North Carolina.
In late December and January of 1864, Cole led the recruiting of some 1200 refugees and freedmen.
Under the direction of General Butler black laborers constructed “freedmen’s villages” on abandoned farms of confederate notables like Henry A. Wise (former governor of Virginia who signed the death warrant for John Brown).1
Most of Cole’s black soldiers began their service by constructing a place of refuge for family members, thus further cementing in their minds the connection between military service and care for one’s family.
Meanwhile, for Cole, this extraordinary moment vindicated his prior military feats while signaling greater things to come.
While his letters usually consisted of dour predictions of failure and rants about cronyism, in February 1864, Colonel Cole penned a jaunty missive to his brother about his new regiment.
(Though even as he relished the opportunities before him he couldn’t resist grousing new fears about unfairly won promotions.)
After the soldiers constructed cookhouses and stockades their greenhorn colonel bragged that the enormous project had cost the Government only “two kegs nails and two thousand feet roofing.”
“Not one [black recruit] has needed a reprimand yet, nor is there want of discipline,” he added.
Cole expressed disapproval of how the men squandered their $10 bounty on “a looking glass” and “buckskin gauntlets” — suggesting Cole’s belief that black soldiers had not earned the right to relish military accoutrements.2
But Cole made it clear that before they purchased fine riding gloves, the soldiers crowded in line to purchase spelling books.
“Their tireless & persistent efforts to learn to read, shame me into about six hours a day study, which is long enough for me.”3
But while the soldiers filed into line looking to make themselves anew with military accoutrements and books, there was a part of their past they carried with them.
When the recruits were stripped for examination “nearly all” had “awful whip scars.”
Cole approached one old soldier with a particularly “horrible back” and asked the senior freedman if he was going “to settle” for the cruelty.
Just then Cole realized that this was the same runaway slave who had guided Cole’s comrades during a march through Kinston and Goldsboro.
The unnamed soldier, submitted Cole, had “piloted me to that battery that my company took by assault, where I earned my leaf.”
“Another burly chap kept looking at me,” he continued.
Cole looked closely into the chap’s face.
“And to my astonishment I recognized a once skeleton, that was attracted by my firing to the edge of a swamp, and suspiciously gave himself up."
"After being fed he returned and brought out four more wretches — all that were left of some sixteen that had been escaping for four months, the balance having been killed by dog and gun.”
Within the regimental camps he found “lots of contraband I have picked up in raids and they know me but they all look the same to me,” Cole contradictorily added.
He recognized some of them but most remembered him.
When he stopped to read their scars or peer into their eyes, however, Cole discovered himself, or rather, his exploits — and promises of future glory.
For those who weren’t going to “settle,” torn up backs augured future military operations of revenge.
A face led him to the place where he earned his “leaf” (referring to the gold oak leaf that adorned a major’s shoulder straps).
Behind the burl he glimpsed a skeleton at swamp’s edge begging to be rescued.
In their reading primers he discovered a flagged teacher in a colonel’s jacket (himself).
“I expect trouble to restrain these men when active duty comes, there is bitter & vindictive feeling in nearly all.”
These soldiers, Cole wanted to believe, joined the regiment for vindictive warfare.
“I think few better [regiments] than this will prove itself to be in time."
"I am confident & hopeful for I know this colored cavalry will be a success,” he confided.
Cole apologized for going on at length about his past and future connection with the ex-slaves.
“But it attaches these fellows to me,” concluded Cole, “to know I was their usher into liberty.”4
Cole, and many of his junior officers, had truly played the part of freedom’s “ushers.”
In the first year of the war, while Union troops began capturing port cities throughout tidewater Virginia and North Carolina, many slaves broke for federal lines.
Even before Union troops established pockets of refuge, many slaves escaped from Confederate officers who recently impressed bondsmen to erect rebel fortifications in anticipation of looming war.
A substantial number of local masters moved their slaves deeper into the Confederacy, while some slaves remained on the land abandoned by masters who cut and ran.
But for thousands, the movement of Union troops signaled a slowly expanding (if sometimes contracting) haven.5
1 The Christian Recorder, February 13, 1864.
2 Of course many white troopers wore buckskin gauntlets while mounted; just recently a pair of like gloves, finely embroidered, were auctioned off by a collector in Newbern, N.C., that were worn by one of Cole’s white subordinates in the 3rd NY Cavalry, Corporal William C. Barber. (Pictures and sale listing in author’s possession.)
3 George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers", 1833).
4 In February, Congressman Cornelius Cole of California (George’s older brother) read a large portion of this letter during a speech encouraging the further arming of slaves. This was doubtless a treasured moment for George as his words were used by Cornelius to challenge Abraham Lincoln to move towards a more aggressive war. But Cornelius left out some of the more objectionable portions like the soldiers’ spending habits and the fact that they “all look the same.” The Congressman also took liberty to polish some of the prose and to rearrange some of the sentences. Cornelius also emphasized the black soldiers’ ability to work on the cheap (while leaving out the part about them reading voraciously). Perhaps the politician was playing to the dual fear that freedmen would not work or that they would eventually elevate themselves above drudge labor and compete for white men’s jobs through education. Compare the texts: Cornelius Cole, Speech of Hon. Cornelius Cole, of California, on Arming the Slaves, Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 18, 1864 (S.L.: , 1864), 11., George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers".
5 Berlin, "The Destruction of Slavery", 59-70; Robert Francis Engs, Freedom's First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861-1890 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 236.; Louis S. Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865, Vol. 29 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 11-64. For specific references to New Berne and North Carolina during war, see: John Gilchrist Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), 484.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER
George W. Cole developed a complicated affection for his black soldiers which would become impossible to separate from his lust for rank.
The arming of black men brought him decorated shoulder straps.
While he rose above his subaltern counterparts (junior officers) before joining the USCT, by 1863 he feared he had reached a plateau as a major in the 3rd NY Cavalry.
For Cole the buildup of black armies directly affected his chances at obtaining higher rank.
After General Butler offered him a colonel’s commission Cole immediately set out to form his regiment from the tens of thousands of souls who took refuge in and around Portsmouth and Norfolk Virginia, and in New Berne, North Carolina.
In late December and January of 1864, Cole led the recruiting of some 1200 refugees and freedmen.
Under the direction of General Butler black laborers constructed “freedmen’s villages” on abandoned farms of confederate notables like Henry A. Wise (former governor of Virginia who signed the death warrant for John Brown).1
Most of Cole’s black soldiers began their service by constructing a place of refuge for family members, thus further cementing in their minds the connection between military service and care for one’s family.
Meanwhile, for Cole, this extraordinary moment vindicated his prior military feats while signaling greater things to come.
While his letters usually consisted of dour predictions of failure and rants about cronyism, in February 1864, Colonel Cole penned a jaunty missive to his brother about his new regiment.
(Though even as he relished the opportunities before him he couldn’t resist grousing new fears about unfairly won promotions.)
After the soldiers constructed cookhouses and stockades their greenhorn colonel bragged that the enormous project had cost the Government only “two kegs nails and two thousand feet roofing.”
“Not one [black recruit] has needed a reprimand yet, nor is there want of discipline,” he added.
Cole expressed disapproval of how the men squandered their $10 bounty on “a looking glass” and “buckskin gauntlets” — suggesting Cole’s belief that black soldiers had not earned the right to relish military accoutrements.2
But Cole made it clear that before they purchased fine riding gloves, the soldiers crowded in line to purchase spelling books.
“Their tireless & persistent efforts to learn to read, shame me into about six hours a day study, which is long enough for me.”3
But while the soldiers filed into line looking to make themselves anew with military accoutrements and books, there was a part of their past they carried with them.
When the recruits were stripped for examination “nearly all” had “awful whip scars.”
Cole approached one old soldier with a particularly “horrible back” and asked the senior freedman if he was going “to settle” for the cruelty.
Just then Cole realized that this was the same runaway slave who had guided Cole’s comrades during a march through Kinston and Goldsboro.
The unnamed soldier, submitted Cole, had “piloted me to that battery that my company took by assault, where I earned my leaf.”
“Another burly chap kept looking at me,” he continued.
Cole looked closely into the chap’s face.
“And to my astonishment I recognized a once skeleton, that was attracted by my firing to the edge of a swamp, and suspiciously gave himself up."
"After being fed he returned and brought out four more wretches — all that were left of some sixteen that had been escaping for four months, the balance having been killed by dog and gun.”
Within the regimental camps he found “lots of contraband I have picked up in raids and they know me but they all look the same to me,” Cole contradictorily added.
He recognized some of them but most remembered him.
When he stopped to read their scars or peer into their eyes, however, Cole discovered himself, or rather, his exploits — and promises of future glory.
For those who weren’t going to “settle,” torn up backs augured future military operations of revenge.
A face led him to the place where he earned his “leaf” (referring to the gold oak leaf that adorned a major’s shoulder straps).
Behind the burl he glimpsed a skeleton at swamp’s edge begging to be rescued.
In their reading primers he discovered a flagged teacher in a colonel’s jacket (himself).
“I expect trouble to restrain these men when active duty comes, there is bitter & vindictive feeling in nearly all.”
These soldiers, Cole wanted to believe, joined the regiment for vindictive warfare.
“I think few better [regiments] than this will prove itself to be in time."
"I am confident & hopeful for I know this colored cavalry will be a success,” he confided.
Cole apologized for going on at length about his past and future connection with the ex-slaves.
“But it attaches these fellows to me,” concluded Cole, “to know I was their usher into liberty.”4
Cole, and many of his junior officers, had truly played the part of freedom’s “ushers.”
In the first year of the war, while Union troops began capturing port cities throughout tidewater Virginia and North Carolina, many slaves broke for federal lines.
Even before Union troops established pockets of refuge, many slaves escaped from Confederate officers who recently impressed bondsmen to erect rebel fortifications in anticipation of looming war.
A substantial number of local masters moved their slaves deeper into the Confederacy, while some slaves remained on the land abandoned by masters who cut and ran.
But for thousands, the movement of Union troops signaled a slowly expanding (if sometimes contracting) haven.5
1 The Christian Recorder, February 13, 1864.
2 Of course many white troopers wore buckskin gauntlets while mounted; just recently a pair of like gloves, finely embroidered, were auctioned off by a collector in Newbern, N.C., that were worn by one of Cole’s white subordinates in the 3rd NY Cavalry, Corporal William C. Barber. (Pictures and sale listing in author’s possession.)
3 George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers", 1833).
4 In February, Congressman Cornelius Cole of California (George’s older brother) read a large portion of this letter during a speech encouraging the further arming of slaves. This was doubtless a treasured moment for George as his words were used by Cornelius to challenge Abraham Lincoln to move towards a more aggressive war. But Cornelius left out some of the more objectionable portions like the soldiers’ spending habits and the fact that they “all look the same.” The Congressman also took liberty to polish some of the prose and to rearrange some of the sentences. Cornelius also emphasized the black soldiers’ ability to work on the cheap (while leaving out the part about them reading voraciously). Perhaps the politician was playing to the dual fear that freedmen would not work or that they would eventually elevate themselves above drudge labor and compete for white men’s jobs through education. Compare the texts: Cornelius Cole, Speech of Hon. Cornelius Cole, of California, on Arming the Slaves, Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 18, 1864 (S.L.: , 1864), 11., George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers".
5 Berlin, "The Destruction of Slavery", 59-70; Robert Francis Engs, Freedom's First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861-1890 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 236.; Louis S. Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865, Vol. 29 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 11-64. For specific references to New Berne and North Carolina during war, see: John Gilchrist Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), 484.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER
George W. Cole developed a complicated affection for his black soldiers which would become impossible to separate from his lust for rank.
The arming of black men brought him decorated shoulder straps.
While he rose above his subaltern counterparts (junior officers) before joining the USCT, by 1863 he feared he had reached a plateau as a major in the 3rd NY Cavalry.
For Cole the buildup of black armies directly affected his chances at obtaining higher rank.
After General Butler offered him a colonel’s commission Cole immediately set out to form his regiment from the tens of thousands of souls who took refuge in and around Portsmouth and Norfolk Virginia, and in New Berne, North Carolina.
In late December and January of 1864, Cole led the recruiting of some 1200 refugees and freedmen.
Under the direction of General Butler black laborers constructed “freedmen’s villages” on abandoned farms of confederate notables like Henry A. Wise (former governor of Virginia who signed the death warrant for John Brown).1
Most of Cole’s black soldiers began their service by constructing a place of refuge for family members, thus further cementing in their minds the connection between military service and care for one’s family.
Meanwhile, for Cole, this extraordinary moment vindicated his prior military feats while signaling greater things to come.
While his letters usually consisted of dour predictions of failure and rants about cronyism, in February 1864, Colonel Cole penned a jaunty missive to his brother about his new regiment.
(Though even as he relished the opportunities before him he couldn’t resist grousing new fears about unfairly won promotions.)
After the soldiers constructed cookhouses and stockades their greenhorn colonel bragged that the enormous project had cost the Government only “two kegs nails and two thousand feet roofing.”
“Not one [black recruit] has needed a reprimand yet, nor is there want of discipline,” he added.
Cole expressed disapproval of how the men squandered their $10 bounty on “a looking glass” and “buckskin gauntlets” — suggesting Cole’s belief that black soldiers had not earned the right to relish military accoutrements.2
But Cole made it clear that before they purchased fine riding gloves, the soldiers crowded in line to purchase spelling books.
“Their tireless & persistent efforts to learn to read, shame me into about six hours a day study, which is long enough for me.”3
But while the soldiers filed into line looking to make themselves anew with military accoutrements and books, there was a part of their past they carried with them.
When the recruits were stripped for examination “nearly all” had “awful whip scars.”
Cole approached one old soldier with a particularly “horrible back” and asked the senior freedman if he was going “to settle” for the cruelty.
Just then Cole realized that this was the same runaway slave who had guided Cole’s comrades during a march through Kinston and Goldsboro.
The unnamed soldier, submitted Cole, had “piloted me to that battery that my company took by assault, where I earned my leaf.”
“Another burly chap kept looking at me,” he continued.
Cole looked closely into the chap’s face.
“And to my astonishment I recognized a once skeleton, that was attracted by my firing to the edge of a swamp, and suspiciously gave himself up."
"After being fed he returned and brought out four more wretches — all that were left of some sixteen that had been escaping for four months, the balance having been killed by dog and gun.”
Within the regimental camps he found “lots of contraband I have picked up in raids and they know me but they all look the same to me,” Cole contradictorily added.
He recognized some of them but most remembered him.
When he stopped to read their scars or peer into their eyes, however, Cole discovered himself, or rather, his exploits — and promises of future glory.
For those who weren’t going to “settle,” torn up backs augured future military operations of revenge.
A face led him to the place where he earned his “leaf” (referring to the gold oak leaf that adorned a major’s shoulder straps).
Behind the burl he glimpsed a skeleton at swamp’s edge begging to be rescued.
In their reading primers he discovered a flagged teacher in a colonel’s jacket (himself).
“I expect trouble to restrain these men when active duty comes, there is bitter & vindictive feeling in nearly all.”
These soldiers, Cole wanted to believe, joined the regiment for vindictive warfare.
“I think few better [regiments] than this will prove itself to be in time."
"I am confident & hopeful for I know this colored cavalry will be a success,” he confided.
Cole apologized for going on at length about his past and future connection with the ex-slaves.
“But it attaches these fellows to me,” concluded Cole, “to know I was their usher into liberty.”4
Cole, and many of his junior officers, had truly played the part of freedom’s “ushers.”
In the first year of the war, while Union troops began capturing port cities throughout tidewater Virginia and North Carolina, many slaves broke for federal lines.
Even before Union troops established pockets of refuge, many slaves escaped from Confederate officers who recently impressed bondsmen to erect rebel fortifications in anticipation of looming war.
A substantial number of local masters moved their slaves deeper into the Confederacy, while some slaves remained on the land abandoned by masters who cut and ran.
But for thousands, the movement of Union troops signaled a slowly expanding (if sometimes contracting) haven.5
1 The Christian Recorder, February 13, 1864.
2 Of course many white troopers wore buckskin gauntlets while mounted; just recently a pair of like gloves, finely embroidered, were auctioned off by a collector in Newbern, N.C., that were worn by one of Cole’s white subordinates in the 3rd NY Cavalry, Corporal William C. Barber. (Pictures and sale listing in author’s possession.)
3 George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers", 1833).
4 In February, Congressman Cornelius Cole of California (George’s older brother) read a large portion of this letter during a speech encouraging the further arming of slaves. This was doubtless a treasured moment for George as his words were used by Cornelius to challenge Abraham Lincoln to move towards a more aggressive war. But Cornelius left out some of the more objectionable portions like the soldiers’ spending habits and the fact that they “all look the same.” The Congressman also took liberty to polish some of the prose and to rearrange some of the sentences. Cornelius also emphasized the black soldiers’ ability to work on the cheap (while leaving out the part about them reading voraciously). Perhaps the politician was playing to the dual fear that freedmen would not work or that they would eventually elevate themselves above drudge labor and compete for white men’s jobs through education. Compare the texts: Cornelius Cole, Speech of Hon. Cornelius Cole, of California, on Arming the Slaves, Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 18, 1864 (S.L.: , 1864), 11., George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers".
5 Berlin, "The Destruction of Slavery", 59-70; Robert Francis Engs, Freedom's First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861-1890 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 236.; Louis S. Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865, Vol. 29 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 11-64. For specific references to New Berne and North Carolina during war, see: John Gilchrist Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), 484.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER
George W. Cole developed a complicated affection for his black soldiers which would become impossible to separate from his lust for rank.
The arming of black men brought him decorated shoulder straps.
While he rose above his subaltern counterparts (junior officers) before joining the USCT, by 1863 he feared he had reached a plateau as a major in the 3rd NY Cavalry.
For Cole the buildup of black armies directly affected his chances at obtaining higher rank.
After General Butler offered him a colonel’s commission Cole immediately set out to form his regiment from the tens of thousands of souls who took refuge in and around Portsmouth and Norfolk Virginia, and in New Berne, North Carolina.
In late December and January of 1864, Cole led the recruiting of some 1200 refugees and freedmen.
Under the direction of General Butler black laborers constructed “freedmen’s villages” on abandoned farms of confederate notables like Henry A. Wise (former governor of Virginia who signed the death warrant for John Brown).1
Most of Cole’s black soldiers began their service by constructing a place of refuge for family members, thus further cementing in their minds the connection between military service and care for one’s family.
Meanwhile, for Cole, this extraordinary moment vindicated his prior military feats while signaling greater things to come.
While his letters usually consisted of dour predictions of failure and rants about cronyism, in February 1864, Colonel Cole penned a jaunty missive to his brother about his new regiment.
(Though even as he relished the opportunities before him he couldn’t resist grousing new fears about unfairly won promotions.)
After the soldiers constructed cookhouses and stockades their greenhorn colonel bragged that the enormous project had cost the Government only “two kegs nails and two thousand feet roofing.”
“Not one [black recruit] has needed a reprimand yet, nor is there want of discipline,” he added.
Cole expressed disapproval of how the men squandered their $10 bounty on “a looking glass” and “buckskin gauntlets” — suggesting Cole’s belief that black soldiers had not earned the right to relish military accoutrements.2
But Cole made it clear that before they purchased fine riding gloves, the soldiers crowded in line to purchase spelling books.
“Their tireless & persistent efforts to learn to read, shame me into about six hours a day study, which is long enough for me.”3
But while the soldiers filed into line looking to make themselves anew with military accoutrements and books, there was a part of their past they carried with them.
When the recruits were stripped for examination “nearly all” had “awful whip scars.”
Cole approached one old soldier with a particularly “horrible back” and asked the senior freedman if he was going “to settle” for the cruelty.
Just then Cole realized that this was the same runaway slave who had guided Cole’s comrades during a march through Kinston and Goldsboro.
The unnamed soldier, submitted Cole, had “piloted me to that battery that my company took by assault, where I earned my leaf.”
“Another burly chap kept looking at me,” he continued.
Cole looked closely into the chap’s face.
“And to my astonishment I recognized a once skeleton, that was attracted by my firing to the edge of a swamp, and suspiciously gave himself up."
"After being fed he returned and brought out four more wretches — all that were left of some sixteen that had been escaping for four months, the balance having been killed by dog and gun.”
Within the regimental camps he found “lots of contraband I have picked up in raids and they know me but they all look the same to me,” Cole contradictorily added.
He recognized some of them but most remembered him.
When he stopped to read their scars or peer into their eyes, however, Cole discovered himself, or rather, his exploits — and promises of future glory.
For those who weren’t going to “settle,” torn up backs augured future military operations of revenge.
A face led him to the place where he earned his “leaf” (referring to the gold oak leaf that adorned a major’s shoulder straps).
Behind the burl he glimpsed a skeleton at swamp’s edge begging to be rescued.
In their reading primers he discovered a flagged teacher in a colonel’s jacket (himself).
“I expect trouble to restrain these men when active duty comes, there is bitter & vindictive feeling in nearly all.”
These soldiers, Cole wanted to believe, joined the regiment for vindictive warfare.
“I think few better [regiments] than this will prove itself to be in time."
"I am confident & hopeful for I know this colored cavalry will be a success,” he confided.
Cole apologized for going on at length about his past and future connection with the ex-slaves.
“But it attaches these fellows to me,” concluded Cole, “to know I was their usher into liberty.”4
Cole, and many of his junior officers, had truly played the part of freedom’s “ushers.”
In the first year of the war, while Union troops began capturing port cities throughout tidewater Virginia and North Carolina, many slaves broke for federal lines.
Even before Union troops established pockets of refuge, many slaves escaped from Confederate officers who recently impressed bondsmen to erect rebel fortifications in anticipation of looming war.
A substantial number of local masters moved their slaves deeper into the Confederacy, while some slaves remained on the land abandoned by masters who cut and ran.
But for thousands, the movement of Union troops signaled a slowly expanding (if sometimes contracting) haven.5
1 The Christian Recorder, February 13, 1864.
2 Of course many white troopers wore buckskin gauntlets while mounted; just recently a pair of like gloves, finely embroidered, were auctioned off by a collector in Newbern, N.C., that were worn by one of Cole’s white subordinates in the 3rd NY Cavalry, Corporal William C. Barber. (Pictures and sale listing in author’s possession.)
3 George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers", 1833).
4 In February, Congressman Cornelius Cole of California (George’s older brother) read a large portion of this letter during a speech encouraging the further arming of slaves. This was doubtless a treasured moment for George as his words were used by Cornelius to challenge Abraham Lincoln to move towards a more aggressive war. But Cornelius left out some of the more objectionable portions like the soldiers’ spending habits and the fact that they “all look the same.” The Congressman also took liberty to polish some of the prose and to rearrange some of the sentences. Cornelius also emphasized the black soldiers’ ability to work on the cheap (while leaving out the part about them reading voraciously). Perhaps the politician was playing to the dual fear that freedmen would not work or that they would eventually elevate themselves above drudge labor and compete for white men’s jobs through education. Compare the texts: Cornelius Cole, Speech of Hon. Cornelius Cole, of California, on Arming the Slaves, Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 18, 1864 (S.L.: , 1864), 11., George W. Cole to Cornelius Cole, February 15 and 16, 1864, Cole family, "Papers".
5 Berlin, "The Destruction of Slavery", 59-70; Robert Francis Engs, Freedom's First Generation: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861-1890 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), 236.; Louis S. Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865, Vol. 29 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 11-64. For specific references to New Berne and North Carolina during war, see: John Gilchrist Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), 484.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: GENERAL COLE AND THE MURDER OF SEN. HISCOCK
UNMADE: AMERICAN MANHOOD IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, continued ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
From inside this imagined haven, soldiers looking for military glory grew restless because very little ground was permanently gained after initial victories in the war’s first two years.
In fact, Union forces would not gain complete control of the region until the final hour of the war.
Instead of major campaigns, soldiers in the area participated in intermittent skirmishes and raids on small towns.
For example, in the summer of ‘63 Cole participated in what became known as “Potter’s raid” or the “Tarboro raid.”
Under the command of Brigadier General Edward Potter, the fairly recently promoted Major Cole led a battalion of cavalry, in conjunction with other battalions, into the interior of North Carolina to lay waste to several strategic towns and mills.
They also were charged with tearing up railroad track and burning bridges to prevent sorely needed supplies from reaching General Lee’s pummeled army, still recuperating from Gettysburg.6
Over several days, Cole’s unit — many of which came from the same region in upstate New York — took the war to the parlors and bedrooms of southerners.
Early in the raid they captured the confederate official in charge of distributing relief funds, stealing over $6000 appropriated for desperate families of soldiers.7
The Union raiders were accused of breaking into homes around midnight, turning citizens out of their beds, leaving “many a lady & her helpless little children” to sleep in the woods.
Throughout the expedition Cole’s comrades pilfered as many southerners’ horses and mules they could handle, sometimes shooting the rest.
In and around the town of Rocky Mount troopers seized tons of bacon and ammunition, burnt railroad cars, and ran the engine off the tracks.
Others looted confederate homes, taking mounds of cash, and removing earrings, breastpins and watches off their victims.
Water tanks, warehouses, bridges, and thousands of barrels of flour, succumbed to the torch.
Some of Cole’s fellow soldiers busted into homes and forced wedding bands from contorted fingers, and lifted “petty trinkets,” jewelry, children’s clothing, and loads of liquor.
One southern newspaper emphasized, “both officers and men stole and plundered.”8
In Tarboro, Cole personally destroyed huge quantities of cotton and a stockpile of medical supplies badly needed in confederate hospitals.
Raiders donning blue smashed their way through a Masonic lodge, stealing the “fine regalia,” jewels, the gavel, and sacred emblems.9
When the majority of the forces began their return to New Berne, Cole and his men remained in Tarboro to keep “a party of citizens” from salvaging their burning bridge.10
On their return to New Berne, Cole’s Union raiders got cornered.
As it happened over and again during the length of the war, it was an African American who provided the Union soldiers with life-saving information.
When Cole’s forces were ambushed while trying to cross a creek and surrounded by sharpshooters, a local black man told the Union soldiers about a ford where the Union men would cross and elude the enemy.
While Cole had been “piloted,” just six months earlier by a black man, which culminated in a battle victory and in Cole’s promotion to major, now the “ushered” freedman helped Yankees escape capture or death.
Over and again, African Americans provided Union soldiers with crucial knowledge of the region and the enemy by pointing out shortcuts, revealing imminent ambushes, feeding famished soldiers, or tipping Union soldiers off about where confederates where hiding.11
At its best the relationship between Union soldiers and African-American Southerners functioned as a loose alliance, alternating between soldiers “ushering” slaves into freedom by dint of rifle and cannon, and local blacks imparting knowledge to “guide” these same armies to safety.
6 David A. Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863," North Carolina Historical Review 73, no. 1 (1996), 4.
7 “Another Raid on the Wil and Weldon Railroad” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
8 “The Yankees in Tarboro” in Weekly State Journal, August 12, 1863. In a report a month later a rebel correspondent listed several Union regiments in Newbern besides Cole’s regiment, calling the 3rd NY Cavalry “a band of thieves and robbers.” See: “From our ‘Contraband’ Correspondent” in Weekly State Journal, September 1, 1863.
9 "Weekly State Journal," (1860-1864).. “The Yankee Raid to Rocky Mount, &c.” in Western Democrat, August 12, 1863.
10 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 20, part II, p. 970
11 Most of this narrative generally follows the work of David A. Norris: Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863", 18 Also see: Barrett, "The Civil War in North Carolina", 162-7; Mark A. Lause, "Turning the World Upside Down: A Portrait of Labor and Military Leader, Alonzo Granville Draper," Labor History [Great Britain] 44, no. 2 (2003), 196. In letters, reports and diaries, one frequently finds brief mention of the ways in which blacks served as guides to confused, endangered, or overmatched Union soldiers. For a few examples see: Wiley, "The Life of Billy Yank, the Common Soldier of the Union", 116; United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1 - Volume 46 (Part II), page 243; Berlin and Rowland, "Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era", 32, 58. For an example of how a black boy rescued a white officer who was shot point blank by a rebel and left for dead, for having served in a black regiment, see: Hollandsworth Jr., James G., "The Execution of White Officers from Black Units by Confederate Forces during the Civil War" in Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War, ed. Gregory J. W. Urwin (Carbondale Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), 59. One fellow officer in Cole’s 3rd NY Cavalry, Lieutenant Enoch Stahler, reminisced that his “colored boy, Banquo” who had “taken a fancy to my personal company.” When Stahler was shot off his horse and in danger of being captured, “I was wondering where that little darkey of mine could be with my other horse, when whom should I see galloping toward me with the stateliness of a prince but Banquo on my dark sorrel.” Stahler’s reminiscence may be a product of white Americans’ early twentieth-century nostalgia for loyal African Americans; but no doubt the story also reveals how amid the chaos of war and injury white men depended on the “dependent.” Ironically, after Banquo saved Stahler’s life, another white soldier rushing to get away from the enemy, caught Stahler by the stirrups and flipped him on his back, to be captured by confederate soldiers. Enoch Stahler, Enoch Stahler, Miller and Soldier: The First Lieutenant Third New York Cavalry, Member of the Loyal Legion (Washington, D.C: Hayworth Pub. House, 1909), 2, 5.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by Michael E. DeGruccio
CHAPTER 2: THE USHER, continued ...
From inside this imagined haven, soldiers looking for military glory grew restless because very little ground was permanently gained after initial victories in the war’s first two years.
In fact, Union forces would not gain complete control of the region until the final hour of the war.
Instead of major campaigns, soldiers in the area participated in intermittent skirmishes and raids on small towns.
For example, in the summer of ‘63 Cole participated in what became known as “Potter’s raid” or the “Tarboro raid.”
Under the command of Brigadier General Edward Potter, the fairly recently promoted Major Cole led a battalion of cavalry, in conjunction with other battalions, into the interior of North Carolina to lay waste to several strategic towns and mills.
They also were charged with tearing up railroad track and burning bridges to prevent sorely needed supplies from reaching General Lee’s pummeled army, still recuperating from Gettysburg.6
Over several days, Cole’s unit — many of which came from the same region in upstate New York — took the war to the parlors and bedrooms of southerners.
Early in the raid they captured the confederate official in charge of distributing relief funds, stealing over $6000 appropriated for desperate families of soldiers.7
The Union raiders were accused of breaking into homes around midnight, turning citizens out of their beds, leaving “many a lady & her helpless little children” to sleep in the woods.
Throughout the expedition Cole’s comrades pilfered as many southerners’ horses and mules they could handle, sometimes shooting the rest.
In and around the town of Rocky Mount troopers seized tons of bacon and ammunition, burnt railroad cars, and ran the engine off the tracks.
Others looted confederate homes, taking mounds of cash, and removing earrings, breastpins and watches off their victims.
Water tanks, warehouses, bridges, and thousands of barrels of flour, succumbed to the torch.
Some of Cole’s fellow soldiers busted into homes and forced wedding bands from contorted fingers, and lifted “petty trinkets,” jewelry, children’s clothing, and loads of liquor.
One southern newspaper emphasized, “both officers and men stole and plundered.”8
In Tarboro, Cole personally destroyed huge quantities of cotton and a stockpile of medical supplies badly needed in confederate hospitals.
Raiders donning blue smashed their way through a Masonic lodge, stealing the “fine regalia,” jewels, the gavel, and sacred emblems.9
When the majority of the forces began their return to New Berne, Cole and his men remained in Tarboro to keep “a party of citizens” from salvaging their burning bridge.10
On their return to New Berne, Cole’s Union raiders got cornered.
As it happened over and again during the length of the war, it was an African American who provided the Union soldiers with life-saving information.
When Cole’s forces were ambushed while trying to cross a creek and surrounded by sharpshooters, a local black man told the Union soldiers about a ford where the Union men would cross and elude the enemy.
While Cole had been “piloted,” just six months earlier by a black man, which culminated in a battle victory and in Cole’s promotion to major, now the “ushered” freedman helped Yankees escape capture or death.
Over and again, African Americans provided Union soldiers with crucial knowledge of the region and the enemy by pointing out shortcuts, revealing imminent ambushes, feeding famished soldiers, or tipping Union soldiers off about where confederates where hiding.11
At its best the relationship between Union soldiers and African-American Southerners functioned as a loose alliance, alternating between soldiers “ushering” slaves into freedom by dint of rifle and cannon, and local blacks imparting knowledge to “guide” these same armies to safety.
6 David A. Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863," North Carolina Historical Review 73, no. 1 (1996), 4.
7 “Another Raid on the Wil and Weldon Railroad” in Western Democrat, July 28, 1863.
8 “The Yankees in Tarboro” in Weekly State Journal, August 12, 1863. In a report a month later a rebel correspondent listed several Union regiments in Newbern besides Cole’s regiment, calling the 3rd NY Cavalry “a band of thieves and robbers.” See: “From our ‘Contraband’ Correspondent” in Weekly State Journal, September 1, 1863.
9 "Weekly State Journal," (1860-1864).. “The Yankee Raid to Rocky Mount, &c.” in Western Democrat, August 12, 1863.
10 United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1, Vol. 20, part II, p. 970
11 Most of this narrative generally follows the work of David A. Norris: Norris, ""the Yankees have been here!": The Story of Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter's Raid on Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount, July 19-23, 1863", 18 Also see: Barrett, "The Civil War in North Carolina", 162-7; Mark A. Lause, "Turning the World Upside Down: A Portrait of Labor and Military Leader, Alonzo Granville Draper," Labor History [Great Britain] 44, no. 2 (2003), 196. In letters, reports and diaries, one frequently finds brief mention of the ways in which blacks served as guides to confused, endangered, or overmatched Union soldiers. For a few examples see: Wiley, "The Life of Billy Yank, the Common Soldier of the Union", 116; United States. War Dept and others, "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies", Series 1 - Volume 46 (Part II), page 243; Berlin and Rowland, "Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era", 32, 58. For an example of how a black boy rescued a white officer who was shot point blank by a rebel and left for dead, for having served in a black regiment, see: Hollandsworth Jr., James G., "The Execution of White Officers from Black Units by Confederate Forces during the Civil War" in Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War, ed. Gregory J. W. Urwin (Carbondale Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), 59. One fellow officer in Cole’s 3rd NY Cavalry, Lieutenant Enoch Stahler, reminisced that his “colored boy, Banquo” who had “taken a fancy to my personal company.” When Stahler was shot off his horse and in danger of being captured, “I was wondering where that little darkey of mine could be with my other horse, when whom should I see galloping toward me with the stateliness of a prince but Banquo on my dark sorrel.” Stahler’s reminiscence may be a product of white Americans’ early twentieth-century nostalgia for loyal African Americans; but no doubt the story also reveals how amid the chaos of war and injury white men depended on the “dependent.” Ironically, after Banquo saved Stahler’s life, another white soldier rushing to get away from the enemy, caught Stahler by the stirrups and flipped him on his back, to be captured by confederate soldiers. Enoch Stahler, Enoch Stahler, Miller and Soldier: The First Lieutenant Third New York Cavalry, Member of the Loyal Legion (Washington, D.C: Hayworth Pub. House, 1909), 2, 5.
TO BE CONTINUED ...