2022 California Armed Service Day - Tribute to United States Colored Troops

The 209,145 names are drawn from official records of the Bureau of US Colored Troops (USCT) at the National Archives and engraved on the Wall of Honor of the African American Civil War Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Following are the numbers of enlistees attributed to the states in which they enlisted:

Louisiana - 24,052 Kentucky - 23,703 Tennessee - 20,133 Mississippi - 17,869 Maryland - 8,718 Pennsylvania - 8,612 Missouri - 8,344 Virginia - 5,919 Arkansas - 5,526 South Carolina - 5,462 Ohio - 5,092 North Carolina - 5,035 Alabama - 4,969 New York - 4,125 Massachusetts - 3,966 Georgia - 3,486 District of Columbia - 3,269 Kansas - 2,080 Rhode Island - 1,837 California - 1,918 Illinois - 1,811 Connecticut - 1,764 Indiana - 1,537 Michigan - 1,387 New Jersey - 1,185 Florida - 1,044 Delaware - 954 Iowa - 440 Wisconsin - 165 Maine - 104 Other States and Areas - 35,786

The United States Colored Troops made up over ten percent of the Union or Northern Army even though they were prohibited from joining until July 1862, fifteen months into the war.

They comprised twenty-five percent of the Union navy. Yet, only one percent of the Northern population was African American. Clearly overrepresented in the military, African Americans played a decisive role in the Civil War.

In July of 1862, Congress passed the Militia Act of 1862. It had become an “indispensable military necessity” to call on America’s African descent population to help save the Union.

A few weeks after President Lincoln signed the legislation on July 17, 1862, free men of color joined volunteer regiments in Illinois and New York. Such men would go on to fight in some of the most noted campaigns and battles of the war to include, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign.

On September 27, 1862, the first regiment to become a United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiment was officially brought into the Union army. All the captains and lieutenants in this Louisiana regiment were men of African descent.

The regiment was immediately assigned combat duties, and it captured Donaldsonville, Louisiana on October 27, 1862.

Before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, two more African descent regiments from Kansas and South Carolina would demonstrate their prowess in combat.

After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, the War Department publicly authorized the recruiting of African Americans.

The first regiment raised with such authority was the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. (Leading many to report that it was the first African descent regiment.) By the end of 1863, General Ulysses S. Grant viewed the African descent population armed with the Proclamation as a “powerful ally.”

African Americans fought in every major campaign and battle during the last two years of the war earning twenty-five Medals of Honor.

USCT regiments captured Charleston, the Cradle of Secession, and Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.

Lincoln recognized their contributions. He declared, “Without the military help of the black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.”

And without the Emancipation Proclamation, these soldiers and sailors would have had little reason to fight for the Union.