1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Colored)

The 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Colored) was a Union Army regiment during the American Civil War, formed by General Rufus Saxton. It was composed of escaped slaves from South Carolina and Florida. It was one of the first black regiments in the Union Army.[lower-alpha 1]

1st Regiment South Carolina Volunteer Infantry (Colored)
“We, their officers, did not go there to teach lessons, but to receive them. There were more than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any of my young captains had incurred in all their lives.” — Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson[1]
ActiveJanuary 31, 1863, to February 8, 1864
CountryUnited States
AllegianceUnited States of America
Union
BranchInfantry
EquipmentRifled muskets
Commanders
Notable
commanders		Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson

History

Department of the South staff officer James D. Fessenden was heavily involved in efforts to recruit volunteers for the 1st South Carolina. Although it saw some combat, the regiment was not involved in any of the war's major battles. As would be true of all future regiments composed of black men, the officers of the 1st South Carolina were white. A proclamation by Confederate President Jefferson Davis had ordered that members of the regiment would not be treated as prisoners of war if taken in battle: The enlisted men were to be delivered to state authorities to be auctioned off or otherwise treated as runaway slaves, while the white officers were to be hanged.[2][3]

"Emancipation Day in South Carolina" - the Color-Sergeant of the 1st South Carolina (Colored) addressing the regiment, after having been presented with the Stars and Stripes, at Smith's plantation, Port Royal, January 1, 1863

The regiment was particularly effective at conducting raids along the coast of Florida and Georgia, due to the men’s familiarity with the terrain.[4] For example, as early as November 1862, men from Company A of the regiment under the command of Lt. Colonel Oliver T. Beard conducted raids on saltworks in north east Florida.[5]

The regiment was a step in the evolution of Union thinking towards the escaped slaves who crossed their lines. Initially they were returned to their owners. Next they were considered contraband and employed as laborers. Finally the legal fiction that they were property was abandoned and they were allowed to enlist in the Army, although in segregated units commanded by white officers. Harriet Tubman served with these men as a cook, nurse, spy, and scout. Susie King Taylor, whose husband and other relatives fought with the regiment, also served as a laundress and nurse for the men from August 1862 until mustering out on February 9, 1866.[6] As a holdover from the "contraband" days, black privates were paid $10 per month, the rate for laborers, rather than the $13 paid to white privates. The men served as the precedent for the over 170,000 "colored" troops who followed them into the Union Army.

Officers

The regiment’s first commander was Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a minister, author and abolitionist. He wrote of his men, “We, their officers, did not go there to teach lessons, but to receive them. There were more than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any of my young captains had incurred in all their lives.”

During the war Higginson documented the Gullah dialect spoken by some of the men and made a record of the spirituals that they sang. Higginson later wrote a book about his experiences titled Army Life in a Black Regiment.[1]

Major Seth Rogers was regimental surgeon and wrote extensive wartime letters. His nephew, Captain James Seth Rogers, previously of the 51st Massachusetts, was captain of Company B.[7]

Redesignation

The regiment was re-designated the 33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment on February 8, 1864.

See also

Note
  1. The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, whose exploits are memorialized in the film Glory, was formed afterwards and drew from free Northern blacks.

References
  1. "Army Life in a Black Regiment, By Thomas Wentworth Higginson". www.gutenberg.org.
  2. Nicolay, John G.; Hay, John (1890). Abraham Lincoln: A History, Volume VI. New York: The Century Co. pp. 470-473.
  3. "Jefferson Davis's Proclamation Regarding Captured Black Soldiers, December 23, 1862". Freedmen & Southern Society Project. 10 December 2017. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  4. "The Color of Bravery". American Battlefield Trust. July 29, 2013.
  5. Winsboro, Irvin D. S. (Summer 2007). "Give Them Their Due: A Reassessment of African Americans and Union Military Service in Florida during the Civil War". The Journal of African American History. 92 (3): 330. doi:10.1086/JAAHv92n3p327. JSTOR 20064203. S2CID 141122588. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  6. Taylor, Susie King (1902). Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops late 1st S.C. Volunteers. Boston. Archived from the original on 2015-09-06. Retrieved 2012-10-10.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. "War-Time Letters From Seth Rogers, M.D. Surgeon of the First South Carolina Afterwards the Thirty-third U.S.C.T. 1862-1863". Retrieved 2016-05-03.

Other sources
  • Stephen V. Ash, Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments That Changed the Course of the Civil War (W. W. Norton & Company 2008).
  • Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Army Life in a Black Regiment, 1869.
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