BLACKS IN THE UNION ARMY OF TENNESSEE (1861-1866)

Black Tennesseans were active participants in the American Civil War. They contributed immeasurably to the Union victory. In 1860, Tennessee had 275,719 slaves, who represented twenty-five percent of the population. Tennessee also had 7,300 free blacks in 1860, but they suffered racial discrimination and second-class citizenship without the right to vote. The slaves were owned by 36,894 persons, less than twenty percent of Tennessee's white families. The majority non-slaveholding whites belonged to the yeoman class (farmers and the poor, landless white class). Many white (i.e., East) Tennesseans opposed slavery and wanted it stopped.
        After the Civil War hostilities began at Fort Sumter, South Carolina (in April, 1861), Tennessee's radical Democrats, slaveowners, and southern nationalists led a campaign for secession. The voters defeated the first secession ordinance. But in May, 1861, emotions and pressure by the pro-Confederates ran high after Fort Sumter, causing the secession ordinance to pass. Still the Confederates were no more than a vocal minority because white Unionists (thirty-five percent) and blacks (twenty-six percent) outnumbered them. However, the Confederate minority used conscription acts, loyalty requirements, intimidation, racist propaganda, outright oppression, and occupation of East Tennessee to control most Tennessee inhabitants.
        The illegal control of Tennessee by the minority Confederates was short-lived. They never had real support among the people in the countryside and could not command the state's resources to effectively prosecute the war. In great paradox, even the slaveowners generally refused to furnish slave labor for the Confederate army. The Confederate General Assembly passed a law to draft free blacks as military laborers in June of 1861.
        However, a large Union army arrived in February of 1862, when General U. S. Grant's Union army easily defeated the Confederates at Fort Donelson. Nashville was surrendered quickly on February 23. Then the powerful Union army pushed the Confederates from Shiloh into Mississippi and occupied all Tennessee regions by late 1863. The state Confederate government and the secessionist leader, Governor Isham G. Harris, fled into exile.
        The slaves no longer feared slave patrols, empty threats from the plantation mistresses, and movements of Confederate armies. By the fall of 1862, a flood of fugitive slaves caused the federal government to begin a contraband camp system at Grand Junction. Throughout Tennessee, tens of thousands of contraband camp dwellers became an essential labor force for the Union army. They helped to build huge forts, like Nashville's Fort Negley and Memphis' Fort Pickering. From Memphis to Nashville, to Chattanooga, to Knoxville, and even to Bristol, black men and women laborers repaired roads, bridges, and railroads, and served as teamsters, common laborers, military hospital workers, servants to officers, cooks, laundresses, cattle herders, assistant surgeons, blacksmiths, and military spies.
        In the spring of 1863, the Union began to recruit and organize black soldiers. By war's end, some 20, 133 black Union army soldiers served in Tennessee within the following United States Colored Troops units:

        Another 3,000 blacks served in Tennessee's Home Guards militia units. Tennessee's USCT units fought in every major skirmish, engagement, and battle in the area. Some Tennessee USCT units assisted General William F. Sherman with his successful "March through Georgia" (in the summer of 1864), and they fought in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. In the West Tennessee area, the USCT fought in the battles of Moscow, Brice's Crossroads, Memphis, Tupelo, and the Fort Pillow Massacre. At Fort Pillow (April of 1864), Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his larger army massacred black soldiers and black families who sought to escape or surrender. Forrest's racially motivated Confederate troops yelled and waved their pro-slavery symbol (the Confederate battle flag) and swore to give "no quarter" to former slaves who joined the Union army. After Fort Pillow, the Memphis USCT wore medal badges defiantly inscribed with the words, Remember Fort Pillow. Eight months later, revenge came in the decisive Battle of Nashville (December 15-19, 1864), when nearly 13,000 USCT soldiers participated in the humiliating defeat of the (confederate army of Tennessee (including Forrest's unit). The war ended with a Union victory just four months later. Memphis' 3rd U. S. Colored Cavalry joined the pursuit of CSA President Jefferson Davis, when he made an unsuccessful attempt to escape to Mexico.
       One can find the graves of many of Tennessee's USCT at the national cemeteries in Tennessee: Nashville (1,909), Memphis (4,208) -- which includes the "Fort Pillow Section"-- Chattanooga (103), Knoxville (663), Cumberland River and Stones River (186). Their gravestones are marked distinctively with USCT. These men and women constitute some of Tennessee's real heroes who defied evil Confederate principles: racism, treason, and rebellion against the United States.