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Sesquicentennial Celebration of Freedom ~ US Colored Troops during the US Civil War

by Katrina Koerting ~ Reprint
7 U.S. Colored Troops regiments at Appomattox had close to 5,000 men, many including President Abraham Lincoln suggest that the US Colored Troops had a profound impact on the US Civil War, Why is it a secret?
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The National Park Service always has known there were seven U.S. Colored Troop regiments at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, but not much was known about the men within these Union groups, including who they were or even how many were there.

Originally it was believed there were about 2,000 U.S. Colored Troops present at the fighting and subsequent surrender, but park ranger Chris Bingham has discovered the number actually is closer to 5,000. This, along with all of his research on the colored troops, officially will be unveiled at a presentation April 10, sponsored by the Appomattox 1865 Foundation, the friends group for Appomattox Court House National Historical Park.

“We didn’t know a lot about the African-American soldiers here and now that gap has partially been filled,” Bingham said.

The purpose of the talk is to correct a long-standing error in the number of colored troops present at Appomattox, as well as offer more information about who the men were and their contributions to the Appomattox campaign, including surrounding Gen. Robert E. Lee and forcing him to surrender, Bingham said.

Bingham began researching the topic two summers ago at the request of other rangers at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park as a way to learn more about the black soldiers in Appomattox, including an exact number. The upcoming sesquicentennial, coupled with the advance of the digitization of more service records from the war, made it an opportune time to start researching.

Previously, the records were stored at the National Archives and researchers would have to go through microfilm. Now, researchers can go to fold3.com, which is essentially the military records version of ancestry.com, to find military history for individual units and soldiers.

The records have personal information too, including the soldiers’ ages, occupations before joining the Army, and when and where they signed up.

“What started as how many of these guys were here has turned into a look at who these guys were, which has been fascinating,” Bingham said.

By using a list of the seven regiments of colored troops present at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, Bingham has been able to look at each soldier to determine who was present on April 9 or absent and why. He was able to whittle down the original 10,000 names to a list of about 5,000, which he hopes to have in the visitors center in the park and online so people can search easily for their ancestors, much like the record of Confederate soldiers who surrendered there.

“We didn’t have anything like that for the Union side until now,” Bingham said. “Even though it’s a small portion of the Union Army, it’s much more than we offered before.”

In addition to the registry and presentation, there also will be handouts printed, which will be used beyond the sesquicentennial. The entire project is funded by a combined $20,000 contribution from Appomattox 1865 Foundation and the National Park Foundation.

Bingham found the actual number of colored troops present and the makeup of these regiments to be the most interesting aspects of his research.

“I have found this is probably the most diverse group of soldiers in either army,” Bingham said.

When he began researching, he expected to find mostly northern-born, free black men and escaped slaves. While those men are there, they’re joined by black foreign-born men, including those who lived in China, Indonesia and the Philippines. The foreigners make up about 3 percent of the colored troops and are largely sailors by trade.

There are also a number of black soldiers who joined the army because they were serving as substitutes for northern white men who were drafted, as well as black men who were drafted themselves. He said he didn’t expect to see black men drafted because in certain places in the North, blacks weren’t considered to be citizens.

While a lot of the white units were comprised of men from the same towns and areas, the colored troops had men from all over.

“You have a former slave from South Carolina standing next to a man who was born free in New York City, standing next to a sailor from China,” Bingham said. “You don’t see that in other units in the Civil War.”

Also of interest: the 116th U.S.C.T., a regiment based out of Kentucky and one of the groups involved in the April 9 fighting.

While Kentucky was a slave state, it didn’t join the Confederacy, so the federal government paid slave owners there a lump sum to allow their slaves to fight for the Union.

“For a time, the federal government was compensating emancipation,” Bingham said.

Bingham said he hopes his research not only helps those looking for ancestors who served with the colored troops, but expands the Appomattox story and provides more information on a group that for decades hadn’t really been discussed at the park.

“It’s a very diverse group of men and a diverse history of units, but they’re all together on April 9 and have an impact on the war,” he said.
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