The scarce 1863 edition of the military manual issued specifically for the training of African-American soldiers during the Civil War. This is especially poignant for being published mere months after the Emancipation Proclamation when the training of Black troops began in earnest.
Drawn from material in Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, and Silas Casey’s Infantry Tactics, it is a streamlined version of both, omitting obsolete or needlessly complex manoeuvres, in order to train newly eligible recruits as quickly as possible. The volume was likely circulated among higher-ranking officers who conducted the training and carried it into the field and potentially into battle, resulting in a low survival rate.
Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, added a note to this edition: “This system of United States Infantry Tactics, prepared under the direction of the War Department for the use of the colored troops of the United States Infantry, having been approved by the President, is adopted for the instruction of such troops.”
While African American troops first entered the Union army in July, 1862, it wasn’t until the next year, with the establishment of the Bureau of Colored Troops in May, 1863 that Black regiments were standardised. It come as little surprise to learn that these troops were housed in segregated camps and received lower pay. Nonetheless, “[i]n taking up arms against the Confederacy, black soldiers helped make emancipation a reality. The impact of African American soldiers on the fortunes of the war was manifest in the Confederacy’s desperate decision to arms slaves in its dying days despite staunch slaveholder opposition” (Sinha).
While reasonably well held institutionally, this book is rare in the trade with just two copies listed at auction, this one and another at Waverley in 1981.
Sinha M., “Architects of Their Own Liberation: African Americans, Emacipation, and the Civil War” in OAH Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 2 (April, 2013), p.8.
