Always in need of more men, the Union Army began enlisting African Americans about half way through the 1861-65 Civil War. Most were runaway slaves, but there were also a number of free black men, some who had been drafted, and some who had been paid to substitute for someone else, a controversial practice allowed during the war. The new African American units were designated the U. S.Colored Troops, consisting of 120 Infantry Regiments, 12 Heavy Artillery Regiments, 10 Heavy Artillery Batteries, and 7 Cavalry Regiments. This book profiles the 1,151 soldiers in one of the infantry regiments, Maryland's 19th Regiment. The information is taken from the soldiers' military service and pension records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Training of the 19th Regiment took place during the winter of 1863-64 at Camp Stanton near the port town of Benedict, Maryland on the Patuxent River, followed by two months in Baltimore in the Spring of 1864. In mid-April, the regiment marched to Washington, crossed the Potomac River into Virginia, and joined up with General Grant's Army of the Potomac. As Grant's army fought its way south towards Richmond and Petersburg during May and June 1864, the 19th Regiment saw action at the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Topolotomy Creek, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and Old Church. Arriving at Petersburg, the 19th Regiment joined other Union troops in the trenches outside that besieged city. During the siege of Petersburg, the regiment saw action at the battles of Weldon Railroad, Poplar Grove Church, Bermuda Hundred, Chapin's Farm, and Hatcher's Run. The regiment's largest battle was as part of the Union Army's July 30, 1864 assault against Confederate forces outside Petersburg, Virginia. Many of its men were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. The assault was recorded in military records at the time as the Battle of Cemetery Hill or the Battle of the Mine, but in later years was popularized as the Battle of the Crater. The fall of Petersburg came eight months later. On April 1st, General Grant sent the 19th and other regiments from Petersburg to attack Richmond. Sensing defeat, General Lee pulled his Confederate troops from Petersburg and Richmond the next day, retreating westward towards Appomattox. Early in the morning of April 3rd, the 19th Regiment's soldiers were among the first to enter Richmond. Captain James H. Rickard, commanding Company G, wrote in his company report that day: Advanced on the enemy's works at 6 AM. Found they had evacuated Richmond. On April 9th, General Lee surrendered his army to General Grant about 50 miles west of Richmond at Appomattox Courthouse. All remaining Confederate Army units still in the field surrendered over the course of the next two weeks, and the great Civil War was over. But military service was not over for the men of the 19th Regiment. Their term of enlistment was three years. Unlike most white regiments that had been formed earlier in the war, the men of the 19th Regiment had served barely half their three-year enlistment when the war ended. Instead of disbanding the regiment as the men had hoped, the regiment was sent to Texas as an occupation force to preserve order in the formerly Confederate state, and to protect the rights of the former slaves in that state. The regiment served in Texas from June 24, 1865 to January 15, 1867. It then sailed back to Baltimore, arriving on February 7, 1867. The men disembarked, received their final pay and discharge papers, and went home. Free at last. The entire number of men serving in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War was 186,097. By the time the war was over, 68,178 of these brave men were lost from all causes.

This is the story of Maryland's 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops, during the Civil War. The enlisted men were black, mostly escaped slaves. The officers were white. They suffered and died together. Many were killed in action, died from their wounds, died in prisoner of war camps, or died from disease. Many of those who survived their service suffered for the rest of their lives from battlefield wounds and amputations, or the effects of malaria, scurvy, cholera, chronic dysentery, typhoid fever, acute rheumatic fever, pneumonia, measles, blindness, hearing loss, and other illnesses contracted during their service. The 19th Regiment trained in Maryland during the winter of 1863-64, and fought in Virginia until General Lee surrendered. The regiment took part in the bloody Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Virginia, and was among the first units to enter and occupy Richmond when Lee abandoned it. After the war, the regiment was posted to Texas where it kept the peace along the Mexican border. The men returned to Maryland when the regiment was disbanded in January 1867, but not everyone stayed home. Alfred Dennis (Company K) enlisted in the 10th Cavalry, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, and served five years in Oklahoma Indian Territory. Richard Combs (Company A) also joined the 10th Cavalry. He fought the Indians in Texas, and went to Cuba in 1898 with the 10th Cavalry and Teddy Roosevelt to fight at San Juan Hill. Others also returned to live out their final years in Texas.The book includes similar profiles on the lives of each of the 1,142 soldiers who served in the 19th Regiment. The information on the soldiers is taken from their military and pension files at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., a ten year project.

When the first Federal troops arrived in the spring of 1861, Maryland was in the precarious position of a border state. Predominately loyal to the Union, Marylanders saw the influx of soldiers as defenders. Yet for the minority supporting the Confederacy, the Federals were oppressors. Historian Claudia Floyd explores this complex relationship between Maryland civilians and their Union occupiers. Residents on both sides of the conflict faced pillaging, vandalizing and criminal acts from errant soldiers. Civilians also quickly realized that Federal troops could not guarantee protection from Confederate invasions. Meanwhile, there was a strong backlash over African American emancipation and enlistment in the longtime slave state. Through contemporary accounts, Floyd creates a nuanced portrait of citizens and soldiers caught up in the turbulent upheaval of war.

The most contentious event in our nation's history, the Civil War deeply divided families, friends, and communities. Both sides fought to define the conflict on their own terms -- Lincoln and his supporters struggled to preserve the Union and end slavery, while the Confederacy waged a battle for the primacy of local liberty or "states' rights." But the war had its own peculiar effects on the four border slave states that remained loyal to the Union. Internal disputes and shifting allegiances injected uncertainty, apprehension, and violence into the everyday lives of their citizens. No state better exemplified the vital role of a border state than Maryland -- where the passage of time has not dampened debates over issues such as the alleged right of secession and executive power versus civil liberties in wartime. In Maryland Voices of the Civil War, Charles W. Mitchell draws upon hundreds of letters, diaries, and period newspapers to portray the passions of a wide variety of people -- merchants, slaves, soldiers, politicians, freedmen, women, clergy, civic leaders, and children -- caught in the emotional vise of war. Mitchell reinforces the provocative notion that Maryland's Southern sympathies -- while genuine -- never seriously threatened to bring about a Confederate Maryland. Maryland Voices of the Civil War illuminates the human complexities of the Civil War era and the political realignment that enabled Marylanders to abolish slavery in their state before the end of the war.

CONTENTS: Introduction, Jean H. Baker and Charles W. Mitchell “Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland,” Richard Bell “Charity Folks and the Ghosts of Slavery in Pre–Civil War Maryland,” Jessica Millward “Confronting Dred Scott: Seeing Citizenship from Baltimore,” Martha S. Jones “‘Maryland Is This Day . . . True to the American Union’: The Election of 1860 and a Winter of Discontent,” Charles W. Mitchell “Baltimore’s Secessionist Moment: Conservatism and Political Networks in the Pratt Street Riot and Its Aftermath,” Frank Towers “Abraham Lincoln, Civil Liberties, and Maryland,” Frank J. Williams “The Fighting Sons of ‘My Maryland’: The Recruitment of Union Regiments in Baltimore, 1861–1865,” Timothy J. Orr “‘What I Witnessed Would Only Make You Sick’: Union Soldiers Confront the Dead at Antietam,” Brian Matthew Jordan “Confederate Invasions of Maryland,” Thomas G. Clemens “Achieving Emancipation in Maryland,” Jonathan W. White “Maryland’s Women at War,” Robert W. Schoeberlein “The Failed Promise of Reconstruction,” Sharita Jacobs Thompson “‘F––k the Confederacy’: The Strange Career of Civil War Memory in Maryland after 1865,” Robert J. Cook

CONTENTS: Introduction, Jean H. Baker and Charles W. Mitchell “Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland,” Richard Bell “Charity Folks and the Ghosts of Slavery in Pre–Civil War Maryland,” Jessica Millward “Confronting Dred Scott: Seeing Citizenship from Baltimore,” Martha S. Jones “‘Maryland Is This Day . . . True to the American Union’: The Election of 1860 and a Winter of Discontent,” Charles W. Mitchell “Baltimore’s Secessionist Moment: Conservatism and Political Networks in the Pratt Street Riot and Its Aftermath,” Frank Towers “Abraham Lincoln, Civil Liberties, and Maryland,” Frank J. Williams “The Fighting Sons of ‘My Maryland’: The Recruitment of Union Regiments in Baltimore, 1861–1865,” Timothy J. Orr “‘What I Witnessed Would Only Make You Sick’: Union Soldiers Confront the Dead at Antietam,” Brian Matthew Jordan “Confederate Invasions of Maryland,” Thomas G. Clemens “Achieving Emancipation in Maryland,” Jonathan W. White “Maryland’s Women at War,” Robert W. Schoeberlein “The Failed Promise of Reconstruction,” Sharita Jacobs Thompson “‘F––k the Confederacy’: The Strange Career of Civil War Memory in Maryland after 1865,” Robert J. Cook

Material is arranged by rank and then alphabetically. The roster includes those on both sides.