Black Soldiers and Sailors during the Civil War : Selected Links & Materials

Approximately 200,000 men of color would serve in the Union Army or Union Navy during the Civil War. Some of the men were free black men from Northern states; some were former enslaved men from the states which seceded from the United States of America. Because the area around Port Royal and St. Helena Sounds was occupied by the Federal government so early in the Civil War, three of the four regiments of USCT soldiers raised in South Carolina were organized here. The list of materials below provide a starting point to learn more about the individual Black soldiers and sailors and their contributions to the war effort.

This list of selected links and materials was compiled by Grace Morris Cordial, MLS, SL, CA, Manager of the Beaufort District Collection. Latest update: 17 April 2024; Created 24 February 2012.

Online Resources:

The American Battlefield Trust has a United States Colored Troops hub that offers primary source materials, articles, a slideshow, and a quiz about actions in which the men of the USCT participated.

“The Civil War Archive: Union Regimental Index, United States Colored Troops“

Compendium of the War of the Rebellion by Frederick H. Dyer. (3 vols.) Be certain to look at both the U.S. Colored Troops and the Corps de Afrique.

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (130 vols.)

The New South, a Civil War era newspaper published in Beaufort, SC from 1862-1866. Other newspapers recently digitized are the Palmetto Herald and the Free South.

There is a list of materials about Robert Smalls, a local African-American Civil War naval hero elsewhere in this blog.

National Park Service, Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System allows one to search for specific military personnel by name, regiment, Army (Union or Confederate) or Navy (Union or Confederate). Information is also provided about battles and prisoners of war.

“Resources for Documenting United States Colored Troops Veterans,” by Toni Carrier, International African American Museum’s Center for Family History blog post, 31 December 2019.

In honor of the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War, the Navy has posted an online brochure “Blacks in Blue Jackets: African Americans in the Civil War.”

“Black Men in Navy Blue During the Civil War” by Joseph P. Reidy, Prologue, Fall 2001, vol. 33, no. 3, is a very good introduction to what life was like for Black sailors in the Union Navy.

“The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship” at the Library of Congress has several sections worth review. Select “The Civil War” section and read “Soldiers and Missionaries” and “Fighting for Freedom.”

“The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War Preserving the Legacy of the United States Colored Troops” by Budge Weidman is part of the “Teaching With Documents” series offered to the schools by the National Archives.

The National Park Service’s Fort Scott National Historic Site Kansas website page “First to Serve” states: “Kansas was the first Northern state to recruit, train, and send Black soldiers into combat during the Civil War.”

“Keep the Flag to the Front” is a history of the Kansas Colored Troops.

The Camp William Penn database and online archive managed by Edward McLaughlin includes detailed information for USCT soldiers trained at the camp in Pennsylvania.

(Combahee River Raid, Harper’s Weekly, BDC Print #43)

The Massachusetts Historical Society displays some of its archival holdings of photographs, broadsides, and manuscripts relating to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The 54th Mass. was the first military unit consisting of black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War.

The Beaufort County Library’s digital collections of Civil War and Reconstruction Era photographs include some images of Black soldiers while based in this area:

• Civil War and Reconstruction Era Stereoscope Photographs of the Port Royal Region
• L.A. Hall Civil War and Reconstruction Eras Stereoscopic Images

The Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs at the Library of Congress contains almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. The Civil War era is the primary time period covered.

The Library of Congress Digital Collections has at least 22 collections directly related to African American History. For example, the Frederick Douglass Papers contains a digital copy of The Negro as Soldier written by former USCT soldier, Christian A. Fleetwood in 1895.

The Library of Congress created a landing page for some of its Civil War images that lets the researcher explore the faces, places and events of the U.S. Civil War through photographs, prints and drawings across many collections. Among the pictures combined in this category are:

• Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints
• Gladstone Collection (photographs relating to the Civil War)
• Liljenquist Family Collection (many ambrotype and tintype portraits)
• Drawings (Documentary) (eyewitness drawings from the Civil War)
• Stereograph Cards (relating to the Civil War)
• Selected illustrations from pictorial newspapers such as Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper

Search the Naval History and Heritage Command website for articles about the history of African-American sailors and nurses.

Search the Naval History and Heritage Command website for articles and images relating to Robert Smalls, one of Beaufort’s most influential native sons.

Angela Y. Walton-Raji wrote a blog entitled “The USCT Chronicle: Telling African American Civil War Stores, of Soldiers, Civilians, Contrabands, First Days of Freedom, and the Events that led to Freedom“. Although no longer active, the blog contains helpful information.

Journals of Charlotte Forten edited by Ray Allen Billington, 1953.

“War-Time Letters From Seth Rogers, M.D. Surgeon of the First South Carolina Afterwards the Thirty-third U.S.C.T. 1862-1863“, Florida History Online website.

“Montgomery’s Raids in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina” by William Lee Apthorp, Lt. Col., 34th United States Colored Infantry, June 1864, Florida History Online website.

“Black Floridians and the Civil War: The 21st, 33rd, and 34th United States Colored Infantry Regiments“, Florida History Online website.

Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany [Excerpt photocopied from book]: Sub-assistant Commissioner Bureau Relief of Refugees, Freedmen, and of Abandoned lands, and Late Major 104th U.S. Colored Troops by Frank A. Rollin (Kraus Reprint Co., 1969, c1868).

You can check out these materials from a SCLENDS library:

An’ We Ob Jubilee: The First South Carolina Volunteers by John Saucer (Aaron Book Publishing, c2012).

Army Life in a Black Regiment [audio recording] by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1869, many reprint editions by various publishers.

Black Soldiers / Blue Uniforms: The Story of the First South Carolina Volunteers by Thomas Higginson (Fireship Press, 2009).

Black Soldiers / Blue Uniforms: The Story of the First South Carolina Volunteers by Thomas Higginson (Fireship Press, 2009).

Black Soldiers in Blue : African American Troops in the Civil War by John David Smith (University of North Carolina Press, 2002).

A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers by Susie King Taylor (M. Wiener Publishing, 1988).

Blue-eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw edited by Russell Duncan (University of Georgia Press 1999).

Camp William Penn, 1863-1865: America’s First Federal African American Soldiers’ Fight for Freedom by Donald Scott (Schiffer Pub., ©2012).

Civil War in the South Carolina Lowcountry: How a Confederate Artillery Battery and a Black Union Regiment Defined the War by Ron Roth (McFarland, 2019).

The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson edited by Christopher Looby (University of Chicago Press, 2000).

Congressman Robert Smalls [DVD]: A Patriot’s Journey from Slavery to Capitol Hill narrated by Sean Patrick Thomas; written and directed by Adrena Ifill. (DoubleBack Productions, c2005).

Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor [edited by] William B. Gould IV (Stanford University Press, 2002).

Eagles on Their Buttons: A Black Infantry Regiment in the Civil War by Versalle F. Washington (University of Missouri Press, c1999).

Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments that Changed the Course of the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash (W.W. Norton & Co., c2008).

For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War by James M. McPherson (Oxford University Press, 1997).

Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers by Joseph T. Glatthaar (Free Press, c1990).

Forgotten Confederates: An Anthology about Black Southerners compiled & edited by Charles Kelly Barrow, J.H. Segars & R.B. Rosenburg (Southern Heritage Press, c1995).

Freedom by the Sword: The United States Colored Troops, 1862 – 1867 by William A. Dobak (U.S. Army, Center of Military History, 2011).

Freedom’s Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War edited by Donald Yacovone (Lawrence Hill Books, c2004).

Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke edited by Brenda Stevenson (Oxford University Press, 1988).

Like Men of War : Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862-1865 by Noah Andre Trudeau (Little, Brown, c1998).

The Massachusetts 54th [DVD]: Colored Infantry by Jacqueline Shearer (WGBH Boston Video, [2006]).

Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters: The 1st South Carolina Volunteers by Bennie J. McRae, Jr., Curtis M. Miller [and] Cheryl Trowbridge-Miller (Arcadia, 2006).

The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 by Dudley Taylor Cornish (University Press of Kansas, 1987).

Slavery in the Clover Bottoms: John McCline’s Narrative of his Life during Slavery and the Civil War edited by Jan Furman (University of Tennessee Press, c1998).

The Slaves’ War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves by Andrew Ward (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008).

South Carolina African-Americans in the Civil War: Two Sides to a Story, compiler and author, Roberta V.H. Copp; editing, Judith M. Brimelow (Public Programs Division, South Carolina Dept. of Archives and History, c1990).

Swamp Angels: A Biographical Study of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment: True Facts about the Black Defenders of the Civil War by Robert Ewell Greene (BoMark/Greene Pub. Group, 1990).

They Served: Stories of the United States Colored Troops from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina edited and compiled by Nancy Burke, Patricia Burker and Susie Marquis (Heritage Library, 2017).

Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America by Douglas R. Egerton (Basic Books, 2016).

A Woman Doctor’s Civil War : Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary edited with foreword and afterword by Gerald Schwartz (University of South Carolina Press, c1984).

Come to the BDC Research Room to see these items:

B DELANY Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany [Excerpt photocopied from book]: Sub-assistant Commissioner Bureau Relief of Refugees, Freedmen, and of Abandoned lands, and Late Major 104th U.S. Colored Troops by Frank A. Rollin (Kraus Reprint Co., 1969, c1868).

B SHAW Blue-eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw edited by Russell Duncan (University of Georgia Press 1999).

B SMALLS Congressman Robert Smalls [DVD]: A Patriot’s Journey from Slavery to Capitol Hill narrated by Sean Patrick Thomas; written and directed by Adrena Ifill. (DoubleBack Productions, c2005).

SC 306.3621 HUN South Carolina Volunteers [Pamphlet Articles] : Letter from the Secretary of War, in Answer to a Resolution of the House of June 8, 1862, Transmitting Correspondence of Major General Hunter, in relation to arming South Carolina Volunteers: Fugitive Slaves : July 2, 1862 by D. Hunter (War Department, 1862).

SC 306.3621 RAC 2013 Race and Recruitment by John David Smith (Kent State University Press, 2013).

SC 371.1 JOU The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke edited by Brenda Stevenson (Oxford University Press, 1988).

SC 929.196 BRA 1997 Guide to Tracing Your African Ameripean Civil War Ancestor by Jeanette Braxton-Secret (Heritage Books, 1997).

SC 973.7 BRO Desperate Deliverance: The Story of African Americans in the Civil War by Robert Broadwater; edited by Patricia Mitchell [and] Judy Gowan (Daisy Publishing, c1998).

SC 973.7 HAW A Woman Doctor’s Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks’ Diary edited with foreword and afterword by Gerald Schwartz (University of South Carolina Press, c1984).

SC 973.7 HEL South Carolina’s African American Confederate Pensioners, 1923-1925 by Alexia Jones Helsley (South Carolina Department of Archives and History, c1998).

SC 973.7 HIG The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson edited by Christopher Looby (University of Chicago Press, 2000).

SC 973.7 OFF Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (25 vols.) (United States. Navy War Records Office, 1894-1922).

SC 973.7 ROS The Roster of Union Soldiers, 1861-1865. United States Colored Troops edited by Janet B. Hewett (Broadfoot Pub. Co., 1997).

SC 973.7 SUP Supplement to the Official records of the Union and Confederate Armies edited by Janet Hewett (Broadfoot Pub. Co., 1994-<1998>).

SC 973.7 TAY A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of my Life in Camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers by Susie King Taylor edited by Patricia W. Romero with a new introduction by Willie Lee Rose (M. Wiener Pub.,  c1988).

SC 973.7 WAR The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (130 vols.)

SC 973.7415 ASH Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments that Changed the Course of the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash (W.W. Norton & Co., c2008).

SC 973.7415 BLA Black Soldiers in Blue : African American Troops in the Civil War by John David Smith (University of North Carolina Press, 2002).

SC 973.7415 EGE Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America by Douglas R. Egerton (Basic Books, 2016).

SC 973.7415 FOR Forgotten Confederates : An Anthology about Black Southerners compiled & edited by Charles Kelly Barrow, J.H. Segars & R.B. Rosenburg (Southern Heritage Press, c1995).

SC 973.7415 FUL Men of Color, To Arms!: Vermont African-Americans in the Civil War by James Fuller (IUniversity Press, c2001).

SC 973.7415 GLA Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers by Joseph T. Glatthaar (Free Press, c1990).

SC 973.7415 GOO On the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier’s Civil War Letters from the Front by James Henry Gooding (University of Massachusetts Press, c1991).

SC 973.7415 GOU 104th Infantry Regiment-USCT, Colored Civil War Soldiers from South Carolina by J. Raymond Gourdin (Heritage Books, 1997).

SC 973.7415 GRE Swamp Angels: A Biographical Study of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment: True Facts about the Black Defenders of the Civil War by Robert Ewell Greene (BoMark/Greene Pub. Group, 1990).

SC 973.7415 HUM Intensely Human: The Health of the Black Soldier in the American Civil War by Margaret Humphreys (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

SC 973.7415 SMI 2013 Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops by John David Smith (Southern Illinois University Press, 2013)

SC 973.7415 WES Black Troops, White Commanders, and Freedmen during the Civil War by Howard C. Westwood; with a foreword by John Y. Simon (Southern Illinois University Press, c1992).

SC 973.74157 BUR 2017 They Served: Stories of the United States Colored Troops from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina edited and compiled by Nancy Burke, Patricia Burke and Susie Marquis (Heritage Library, 2017).

SC 973.74157 MCR Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters: The 1st South Carolina Volunteers by Bennie J. McRae Jr., Curtis M. Miller, Cheryl Trowbridge-Miller (Arcadia, 2006).

SC 973.74157 SAU An’ We Ob Jubilee: The First South Carolina Volunteers by John Saucer (Aaron Book Publishing, c2012).

SC 973.742 HIG Army Life in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1869, many reprint editions by various publishers).

SC 973.77579 ROT 2020 Civil War in the South Carolina Lowcountry: How a Confederate Artillery Battery and a Black Union Regiment Defined the War by Ron Roth (McFarland, 2019).

SC 973.896 KIN Wounds that Bind: A Comparative Study of the Role played by Civil War Veterans of African Descent in Community Formation in Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1865-1915 by Lisa Yolande King. Thesis (Ph. D.)–Howard University, 1999. (UMI [University Microfilms International], c1999).

VERTICAL FILES

Records on Microfilm in the Beaufort District Collection Research Room:

NEWSPAPERS

New South, 1862 – 1866

Free South, 1863-1864

Palmetto Herald, 1864 – Please note: the microfilm contains more issues than are included in the Chronicling America database.

Beaufort Republican, 1871-1873

Port Royal Commercial and Beaufort County Republican, 1873 -1874

Palmetto Post, 1882-1906

LAND RECORDS

Index to and Heads of Family Land Certificates, 1863-1872

Tax Sale Certificates, 1864

Land Sale Certificates, 1869-1870; 1875-1876

VOTER REGISTRATION

Abstract of Voter Registrations reported to the Military Government,  (South Carolina) 1868

CENSUS RECORDS

1890 Federal Census of Union Veterans and Widows 

1790 – 1880, 1900 – 1930 Federal Census for Beaufort County. Also available electronically in all branch libraries through Ancestry Library Edition database.

1870, 1880, 1900-1930 Federal Census for Hampton County.  Also available electronically in all branch libraries through Ancestry Library Edition database.

1910-1930 Federal Census for Jasper County. Also available electronically in all branch libraries through Ancestry Library Edition database.

Suggested Subscription Databases AVailable through Beaufort County Library

Biography in Context, Academic Search Premier, StudySC, and Historic American Newspapers databases are particularly helpful when learning more about key figures and military actions during the Civil War era, including the role of the members of the USCT. Please note: The Historic American Newspapers database links directly into the Chronicling America database which is free and open on the internet.

ANCESTRY LIBRARY EDITION

The Beaufort County Library offers access to the Ancestry Library Edition database inside our facilities on public computers. You can also access the ALE database from your laptop inside our facilities.

To get the most out of the experience, prepare a list of the names of  USCT or Civil War Sailor ancestors to research before sitting down to the public computer or laptop inside our facilities. Go to the Ancestry Database Card Catalog tab, type in “Civil War” as keyword and filter the location to the “United States.” (This eliminates records to civil wars in other countries). You will discover more than 175 databases that may help forward your research. New content is added regularly.

The FamilySearch.org database is free upon registration. Use the Research Wiki to explore guides to locating more information about United States Colored Troops and Black sailors.

Suggested Sources for Images and Maps of the Civil War

We have a number of digital images embedded within our Library’s website that our customers can view and photocopy for educational use. Note: If you should choose to download our images, please attribute us with the phrase “Image courtesy of Beaufort County Library.” When an image used is credited in this fashion, it increases public awareness of the Beaufort County Library, the Beaufort District Collection, and the contribution that archival and historical collections make to community life throughout our nation.

SCIway hosts a number of online historic maps on its site including:

• Port Royal Sound – circa 1860 –
• City map of Beaufort – circa 1860 (with sites of Civil War hospitals)
• Map of Saint Helena Sound compiled from U.S. Coast Survey – 1861 -.
• Port Royal entrance – 1862
• Port Royal entrance and Hilton Head Island – 1862
• Beaufort River – Compiled from U.S. Coast Survey – 1864
• Trigonometrical survey of Saint Helena Sound – 1864
• Broad River – Beaufort and Jasper Counties – 1865 –

Note: The Beaufort District Collection (BDC) exists to acquire, preserve, maintain and make accessible a research collection of permanent value which records the history, culture, and environment of the South Carolina lowcountry wedged between the Combahee (pronounced “kum-bee”) and Savannah Rivers.

Contact the Beaufort District Collection at 843-255-6468 or e-mail bdc@bcgov.net for additional information about local history and archives relating to the people, places, and themes of the history, culture, and natural environment of Beaufort County, Jasper County and Hampton County, South Carolina.

Please check the Beaufort County Library (SC) system’s homepage for current hours of operation and terms of access.