LibGuides: Freemantown Research Guide: African Americans in the U.S. Civil War

Thomas Freeman's Unit, the 44th U.S. Colored Infantry

In 1862 the Union had begun to enlist Black men in military service. After the 1 Jan 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freed all those enslaved in Confederate territory, recruitment was extended. During the Atlanta campaign of May-September 1864, the enrollment of Black soldiers began in occupied areas of northwestern Georgia under authority granted to Colonel Ruben D. Mussey, the Nashville, Tennessee-based commissioner for the Organization of U.S. Colored Troops in the Department of the Cumberland. From July to September 1864, the 44th U.S. Colored Infantry was stationed in Rome, for recruiting purposes. By late summer the 44th USCI contained some 800 Black enlisted men, including Thomas Freeman, who enlisted in Company I on 30 June 1864. The unit was commanded by Colonel Lewis Johnson, who was white.

Organized at Chattanooga, Tenn., April 7, 1864. Attached to District of Chattanooga, Dept. of the Cumberland, to November, 1864. Unattached, District of the Etowah, Dept. of the Cumberland, to December, 1864. 1st Colored Brigade. District of the Etowah, Dept. of the Cumberland, to January, 1865. Unattached, District of the Etowah, to March, 1865. 1st Colored Brigade, Dept. of the Cumberland, to July, 1865. 2nd Brigade, 4th Division, District of East Tennessee, July, 1865. Dept. of the Cumberland and Dept. of Georgia to April, 1866.

SERVICE

Post and garrison duty at Chattanooga, Tennessee until November, 1864.
Action at Dalton, Georgia, October 13, 1864.
Battle of Nashville, Tennessee, December 15-16, 1864.
Pursuit of Hood to the Tennessee River, December 17-28, 1864
Post and garrison duty at Chattanooga, Tennessee, in District of East Tennessee and in the Dept. of Georgia until April, 1866.
Mustered out April 30, 1866.

African-American soldiers in the Civil War by Robert Scott Davis. Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 7, 2013.
Battle Unit Details (National Park Service)
Black Troops in Civil War Georgia by Clarence L. Mohr. New Georgia Encyclopedia, December 10, 2008.
Freedom earned: Marker recalls role of black soldiers in Civil War. Dalton Daily Citizen.
The dedication of a new historical marker on Fort Hill, the site of the only Civil War battle involving black soldiers to take place in Georgia.
He found freedom, then risked it to fight for others by Jeremy Redmond. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 18, 2024.
Honoring 44th U.S. Colored Troops: From Slaves to Union Warriors. The Civil War Picket, October 4, 2010.
Roster, 44th U.S. Colored Troops Infantry
Story of an African-American Civil War Regiment by Robert Scott Davis. Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 21, 2013.
What Happened to Private Pryor and the 44th US Colored Infantry? by Angela Y. Walton-Raji. USCT Chronicle, February 10, 2011
White and Black in Blue: The Recruitment of Federal Units in Civil War North Georgia by Robert S. Davis. Georgia Historical Quarterly 85, no. 3 (2001): 347-74.
"The new black regiment moved to Rome, Georgia, in the middle of July 1864. Wagon trains of mixed white and black recruiting parties fanned out across the countryside in search of enlistees. To the disdain of white Georgians, Johnson quickly raised the minimum number needed for a regiment, some eight hundred men total, from fugitive slaves from Alabama and North Georgia. Muster records do not survive for the Forty-fourth to show place of residence, but a partial list of the former slaves indicates that they escaped from plantations and farms throughout northwest Georgia ... Colonel Mussey, formerly captain in the Nineteenth United States Infantry, wrote of his new soldiers: "For raiders in the enemy's country, these Colored Troops will prove superior, they are good riders - have quick eyes at night . . . know all the byways."
“This Is the Point on Which the Whole Matter Hinges”: Locating Black Voices in Civil War Prisons by Caroline Wood Newhall. Thesis, University of North Carolina, 2016.

The 44th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment and the Dalton Fort by E Raymond Evans and David Scott

Books on African Americans in the U.S. Civil War

A few sources to get started on learning more about what Thomas Freeman's military life might have been like, as well as the history and politics of Black men's service during the Civil War.

Find more books on African Americans in the U.S. Civil War
The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis
In The Black Civil War Soldier, Deborah Willis explores the crucial role of photography in (re)telling and shaping African American narratives of the Civil War, pulling from a dynamic visual archive that has largely gone unacknowledged. With over 70 images, The Black Civil War Soldier contains a huge breadth of primary and archival materials, many of which are rarely reproduced. The photographs are supplemented with handwritten captions, letters, and other personal materials; Willis not only dives into the lives of Black Union soldiers, but also includes stories of other African Americans involved with the struggle--from left-behind family members to female spies. Willis thus compiles a captivating memoir of photographs and words and examines them together to address themes of love and longing; responsibility and fear; commitment and patriotism; and--most predominantly--African American resilience. In combating the erasure of this often overlooked history, Willis asks how these images might offer a more nuanced memory of African-American participation in the Civil War, and in doing so, points to individual and collective struggles for citizenship and remembrance.
Black Soldiers in Blue: African American troops in the Civil War era by John David Smith (Editor)
Call Number: Main Book Collection - E540.N3 B63 2002
The 14 original essays in this book tell the stories of the African American soldiers who fought for the Union cause. An introductory essay surveys the history of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) from emancipation to the end of the Civil War. Seven essays focus on the role of the USCT in combat, chronicling the contributions of African Americans who fought at Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Olustee, Fort Pillow, Petersburg, Saltville, and Nashville. Other essays explore the recruitment of black troops in the Mississippi Valley; the U.S. Colored Cavalry; the military leadership of Colonels Thomas Higginson, James Montgomery, and Robert Shaw; African American chaplain Henry McNeal Turner; the black troops who occupied postwar Charleston; and the experiences of USCT veterans in postwar North Carolina. Collectively, these essays probe the broad military, political, and social significance of Black soldiers' armed service, enriching our understanding of the Civil War and African American life during and after the conflict.
Freedom by the Sword: the U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867 by William A. Dobak
From late 1862 to the spring of 1865, the federal government accepted more than 180,000 black men as soldiers, something it had never done before on such a scale. Known collectively as the United States Colored Troops and organized in segregated regiments led by white officers, some of these soldiers guarded army posts along major rivers; others fought Confederate raiders to protect Union supply trains; and still others took part in major operations like the siege of Petersburg and the battle of Nashville.
See especially Chapter 9: Middle Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, 1863-1865.
The Negro in the Civil War by Benjamin Quarles
"The Civil War was a revolution in many ways," writes Benjamin Quarles in this renowned work. "But on one point there is common agreement: without slavery there would have been no resort to arms. Hence the slave was the key factor in the war ... To him freedom was a two-way street; indeed he gave prior to receiving." Quarles writes powerfully about the role of three-and-a-half million Black people in the South, who were impressed into non-combatant service--building forts and entrenchments, working in factories and mines. In the North, Black Americans fought with distinction on the front lines, shedding blood for an ideal--emancipation--that was cruelly betrayed during Reconstruction. The story of Black Americans in the Civil War, in which they, in more ways than one, stood in the middle, was largely untold until this 1953 book by a distinguished Black scholar offered the wisdom and verve to make a great episode in our history come alive.
Paying Freedom's Price: A History of African Americans in the Civil War by Paul David Escott
Rather than focusing on black military service, the white-led abolitionist movement, or Lincoln's emergence as the great emancipator, Escott concentrates on the Black military and civilian experience in the North as well as the South. He argues that African Americans--slaves, free Blacks, civilians, soldiers, men, and women--played a crucial role in transforming the sectional conflict into a war for black freedom. Escott provides a thematic structure, tracing the causes of the war and African American efforts to include abolition, Black military service, and racial equality in the wartime agenda.

<< Previous: Other Resources
Next: A Side Note: Dr. A.J. Higginbotham >>