Maryland's Black Civil War Soldiers: 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops
Maryland's Black Civil War Soldiers: 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops
More than a thousand Black men served in Maryland's 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops. Many had been enslaved only weeks or months before entering the United States Army. This book tells their individual stories.
Organized at Camp Stanton in Benedict, Maryland, during the winter of 1863-64, the 19th Regiment drew most of its enlisted men from Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Many were formerly enslaved men recruited from farms and plantations; others were free Black men, draftees, or substitutes.
After training, the regiment marched through Baltimore and Washington on its way to Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln watched the men pass along Pennsylvania Avenue before they entered the campaigns of 1864.
The regiment suffered heavily at the Battle of the Crater outside Petersburg on July 30, 1864. Men were killed, wounded, captured, or permanently disabled. Disease was an even greater danger, following the regiment from Camp Stanton through Virginia and into its postwar service in Texas. The 19th remained on duty along the Rio Grande until January 1867.
At the heart of this book are 1,151 individual soldier profiles, compiled principally from military service and pension records at the U.S. National Archives.
These records preserve details often lost in traditional regimental histories: age, birthplace, occupation, former slaveholder, enlistment, wounds, illnesses, promotions, hospital stays, capture, family relationships, pensions, postwar life, death, and burial.
Some stories survive only in fragments. Others reveal extraordinary lives. John Bond wrote lovingly to his wife while serving on recruiting duty, only to die months later of pneumonia. James Brooks entered the Army under a different name after having been enslaved, and his photograph was later found in his pension file and displayed by the National Archives.
The book also includes a photo gallery, regimental orders, and historic documents concerning the recruitment of enslaved men and the creation of the Bureau for Colored Troops.
These men fought for the Union, endured battle and disease, served long after Appomattox, and returned-when they survived-to build lives in freedom. This book restores their names and stories to the history of the Civil War.
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