In Defense of the Nation: Black Iowans at War, 1863-1991 (eBook)

During the period of its status as a territory, Iowa opened for settlement in 1833 but few Blacks, free or escaped slaves, migrated to the fertile farmlands of Iowa; “the land of the black earth.” By 18401 only 188 Black Iowans could be found in residence, a mere 0.4 percent of the territory’s population. On the eve of the Civil War in 1861, the state included between 1,069 and 1,500 Blacks, 2 although this number likely did not include dozens of contraband escaped slaves who fled north to freedom, largely from the slaveholding state of Missouri. While the young states population contained a mix of residents hailing from various European countries, and the eastern US, 3 Iowa’s Black Codes adopted by the territorial legislature at the constitutional convention of 1844 were overtly racially restrictive, reflecting a fear of an influx of cheap black labor. The Black Codes adopted at the second Iowa constitutional convention in May 1846, outlawed chattel slavery, but asserted that only a “white male citizen” could vote, serve as a member of the Iowa General Assembly, be included in the state census of population, or be required to serve in the state militia.4 Nevertheless, militant Iowa abolitionists, Democrats, Whigs, and finally Republicans, would wage a hotly contested battle over the issue of racial exclusion and the legal status of Blacks well into the Civil War. Unquestionably, the service of the men of the First Iowa Volunteers of African Descent, later re-designated the 60th Regiment of Infantry, United States Colored Troops, that compelled the Iowa Legislature to officially recognize black male suffrage in 1868; and repeal the Black Codes from state law in 1884. Iowa Governor William M. Stone, raised a Democrat, was for many years averse to the issue of black suffrage in Iowa, even though he later became a Republican. Stone nonetheless came to grudgingly recognize that voting rights could not possibly be lawfully denied Iowans who had spilled blood for the Union. 5 Equality before the law was a principle laid down by the Founding Fathers in 1787 along with slavery, and even moderate Republicans like Governor Stone could not resist the tide of change. He gave a speech after the Civil War, casually referring to the contributions of Iowa’s 60th Regiment U.S.C.T., stating how those black volunteers credited to Iowa’s wartime manpower quota and had exempted over two thousand white Iowans from the 1864 Draft.6 Missouri was allotted 200 members of the Regiment to its own manpower quota, but Iowa received credit for the remaining 700 three-year enlistments7.This sentiment reflected popular opinion in the north, where white Americans appalled by the enormous Union battlefield losses by 1863 had come to realize that “Niggers could take bullets meant for white men,” in a war of attrition.

The issue of Black service in the US Army in 1861 was initially nonexistent. In response to a letter from Jacob Dodson,8 a Washington man of color and former frontiersman, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton curtly countered, “In reply to your letter of 23rd instant, I have to say that this Department has no intention to call into the service of the Government any colored soldiers.”9 Following the Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter, commencing April 12, 1861, thousands of free blacks in cities and towns all across the northern and southern states immediately offered their services to both Union and Confederate armies. Official unwillingness to entertain the idea of Negro enlistments was seated in the widely held belief by most whites that the war would be of short duration. “Jeff Davis & Co. will be swinging from the battlements of Washington at least by the 4th of July. We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice,” 10 screamed Horace Greeley’s New York Daily. The Chicago Tribune boldly roared, “Illinois can whip the South. We insist on the matter being turned over to us.” 11

Behind all the editorial and official bravado on the War’s abbreviated duration lay a deep-seated hesitation to label the War’s goal as the destruction of chattel slavery. So ambivalent were the attitudes on the slavery issue held by northern whites that President Abraham Lincoln insisted on labeling the secessionist states as law breakers, goaded the Confederacy into firing the first shots at Fort Sumter, and repeatedly stated that he was prepared to retain slavery in the states where it then existed, in order to preserve the Union. Basically, northern whites would not, in 1861 or 1862, fight a war to destroy slavery, which would mean economic competition with large numbers of freed slaves. Yet neither would these same whites permit expansion of slavery westward, as poor whites could similarly find themselves incapable of “underbidding” black slave labor.

The United States military in 1861 had ample historical evidence of black bravery under fire. Thousands of free Black men fought for George Washington during the Revolution; hundreds supported Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, particularly at the Battle for New Orleans. Black men were among the first non-native explorers of the New World, accompanying Spanish and French expeditions across the southwest and west central North America. Esteban, a Moorish slave brought to the New World in 1528 led shipwrecked Spanish sailors and soldiers from Tampa Bay (Florida) through present day Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. Manuel Camero was one of the founders of Los Angeles, California, and one of the town’s first councilmen. The slave York was a member of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 authorized by President Thomas Jefferson, serving as a guide and scout up the Missouri river. Popular with Indian tribes because of his dark skin, receiving the names “Great Medicine” and “Black White man”, York was likely the first African American to set foot in what later became the state of Iowa.12

Jean Baptist Point du Sable established a post in 1784 which would later become the city of Chicago, Illinois. Jacob Dodson accompanied John C. Fremont in his expeditions to the far west in 1843 and fought in the Mexican War. It was this same Jacob Dodson in 1861 who wrote to Secretary of War Stanton offering to raise a regiment of 300 free Negroes for the defense of Washington, D. C., said offer being abruptly declined. 13

The reality of mass warfare finally struck home in both Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia at the Battle of Shiloh in early April 1862. In two days of fighting, both Union and Confederate armies suffered great losses - 3,500 soldiers were killed, and 16,500 were wounded. 14 Thousands more were missing or captured. Seven thousand Iowans fought at Shiloh; some 2,600 were killed, wounded, missing, or taken prisoner, and no community in the state was spared losses. 15 Overall, Iowa contributed 58 infantry and cavalry regiments, and four batteries of artillery to the Union war effort between 1861 and 1865. In the Western department of operations, 76,000 Iowans fought in every major campaign, representing nearly half of its prewar white military age population. 16 The Hawkeye state units suffered 13,000 casualties, nineteen percent of total northern losses, and a further 10,000 were maimed for life. The men and boys from Iowa died from disease in greater proportion than troops from any other northern state. Sickness took more Union lives than Confederate gunfire throughout the war, and this stark fact is reflected in the losses of the Iowa Regiment of Color. Of the 1,153 Black Iowans and Missourians who served in the 60th U. S. C. T., eleven were killed in action, two wounded (one of whom later died), and 332 died of disease. 17

The US Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, Section 11, and Sections 12, 13, and 15 of the Militia Act of July 17, 1862, 18 authorized President Abraham Lincoln for the first time to, “receive into the service of the United States, for the purpose of constructing entrenchments or performing camp duty, or any labor, or any military or naval service for which they were found to be competent, persons of African descent, and provided that such persons should be enrolled and organized, under such regulations nor inconsistent with the Constitutions and laws as the President might prescribe.” 19

Section 15 of the Militia Act provided a double standard in pay for Black troops which was not corrected until March 1865: “persons of African descent who under the law shall be employed, shall receive $10.00 a month, one ration, $3.00 of such monthly pay may be in clothes.” 20 Outrage over this overt discrimination was exhibited in black regiments all across the north, including the 60th in Iowa.

One account identifies a Sergeant Phillips and some other troops in the regiment “agitated the propriety of refusing to accept the seven dollars per month offered by the Government and refusing to do duty because of it”. Fortunately, “Sergeant Barton was able to avoid mutiny by calling on his...