A Trio of USCT Group Portraits Identified
By Kurt Luther and Bryan Cheeseboro Group portraits of U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), like all photos of USCT, are rare, and identifying their subjects rarer still. Back in 2015, this
Tag: African American soldiers
“Better Men Were Never Better Led”
By Scott Valentine Many a Northern man did not answer the call to join the Union army in 1861. One of them, Samuel Augustus Duncan, continued teaching students at Dartmouth
Identifying a USCT Officer Connected to Two Pioneering Civil War Women
By Kurt Luther When MI Senior Editor Rick Carlile approached me to help identify a carte de visite of a seemingly unremarkable Union officer, I did not expect that this
The Black Phalanx at Benton Barracks: Transforming men of color into U.S. soldiers, late 1863 to early 1864
By Ronald S. Coddington An officer in the 1st Missouri Colored Infantry recalled how recruits for a new regiment marched with “sluggish step and plantation gait” through St. Louis in
USCT Troops Commissioned and Enlisted during the Civil War
The total number of United States Colored Troops who served in the Civil War was 186,017, as reported in the 1866 Report of the Provost Marshal General by James B.