Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment

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Chapter 1: Introductory.

These pages record some of the adventures of the First South Carolina Volunteers,--the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late civil war. It was, indeed, the first colored regiment of any kind so mustered, except a portion of the troops raised by Major-General Butler at New Orleans. These scarcely belonged to the same class, however, being recruited from the free colored population of that city, a comparatively self-reliant and educated race. “The darkest of them,” said General Butler, “were about the complexion of the late Mr. Webster.”

The First South Carolina, on the other hand, contained scarcely a freeman, had not one mulatto in ten, and a far smaller proportion who could read or write when enlisted. The only contemporary regiment of a similar character was the “First Kansas colored,” which began recruiting a little earlier, though it was not mustered in — the usual basis of military seniority till later.¹ These were the only colored regiments recruited during the year 1862. The Second South Carolina and the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts followed early in 1863.