Rochester[, N.Y.] 1 August 1863.

Major G. L. STEARNSStearns, George Luther

A leading financial supporter of John Brown, George Luther Stearns (1809-67) was the son of a teacher from Medford, Massachusetts. Stearns earned progressively larger fortunes as a ship chandler, a linseed oil processor, and a lead-pipe manufacturer. He joined the antislavery movement in the early 1840s as a Liberty party activist and later was an important organizer of the Massachusetts Free Soil and Republican parties. While chairman of a committee to raise funds to arm free-state settlers in Kansas Territory, Stearns met John Brown and became a convert to his plan for inciting a slave insurrection. Although he fled to Canada after Harpers Ferry, Stearns soon returned to the United States and testified before congressional investigators that he had no advance knowledge of Brown's plans but now condoned the attack. During the Civil War, Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew engaged Stearns to enlist troops for the first black regiment raised in the North, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry. Establishing recruiting offices across the North and Canada and hiring agents including Frederick Douglass, Stearns quickly enlisted enough blacks to fill two regiments for Massachusetts. Impressed by his success, the federal government commissioned Stearns a major and placed him in charge of recruiting blacks into federal army units. By January 1864 Stearns had brought substantial order to these efforts but then resigned; in part, to protest the unequal pay and treatment of black soldiers. He remained a friend of equal rights for blacks and, in the 1860s, helped found such periodicals as the Nation and The Right Way to champion that cause. Frank Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns (Philadelphia, 1907); Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (New York, 1956), 235,-38, 242-43; Rossbach, Ambivalent Conspirators, 56-63, 83-8, 221-23, 239-40, 254-57. :—

My DEAR SIR—

Having declined to attend the meeting to promote enlistments, appointed for me at Pittsburgh, in present circumstances, I owe you a word of explanation. I have hitherto deemed it a duty, as it certainly has been a pleasure, to cooperate with you in the work of raising colored troops in the free states, to fight the battles of the Republic against the slaveholding rebels and traitors. Upon the first call you gave me to this work, I responded with alacrity. I saw, or thought I saw a ray of light, brightening the future of my whole race as well as that of our war troubled country, in arousing colored men to fight for the nation’s life, I continue to believe in the black man’s arm, and still have some hope in the integrity of our rulers. Nevertheless, I must for the present leave to others the work of persuading colored men

to join the Union Army.¹Douglass determined to end his recruiting duties after growing impatient with the government’s unequal treatment of black troops. Black troops were denied officer commissions, and Congress decreed in June 1863 that U.S. Colored Troops, even noncommissioned officers, would be paid only $10 a month, with three dollars deducted for clothing, while white privates were paid $13 monthly, and white noncommissioned officers between $17 and $21. In addition, Douglass was dismayed by reports of mistreatment of black troops at the Battle of Fort Wagner, which were made even more personal through a letter from his son Lewis, who survived the debacle. Blight, , 160-63; Donald Yacovone, “The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, the Pay Crisis, and the “Lincoln Despotism,’” in Blatt, Brown, and Yacovone, , 37-39. I owe it to my long abused people, and especially those of them already in the army, to expose their wrongs and plead their cause. I cannot do that in connection with recruiting. When I plead for recruits, I want to do it with all my heart, without qualification. I cannot do that now[.] The impression settles upon me that colored men have much overrated the enlightenment, justice and generosity of our rulers at Washington. In my humble way I have contributed somewhat to that false estimate. You know, that when the idea of raising colored troops was first suggested, the special duty to be assigned them, was the garrisoning of forts and arsenals in certain warm, unhealthy and miasmatic localities in the South.²The discrimination that African Americans faced in society was mirrored in their experience in the military. Many white commanders, believing them to be inferior, assigned them to manual labor and other menial duties. In the humid conditions of South Carolina and Louisiana, for example, black troops were often set to “fatigue duty,’ digging trenches and fortifications. In June 1864, Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas issued an order dividing fatigue duty equally between white and black soldiers. Michael A. Eggleston, (Jefferson, N.C., 2013), 42-48; John David Smith, (Carbondale, Ill., 2013), 56-57; Cornish, , 244-47. They were thought to be better adapted to that service than white troops[.] White troops, trained to war, brave and daring, were to take fortifications, and the blacks were to hold them and keep them from falling again into the hands of the rebels—Three advantages were to arise out of this wise division of labor. Ist. The spirit and pride of white troops was not to waste itself in dull and monotonous inactivity in fort-life. Their arms were to be kept bright by constant use. 2dly. The health of the white troops was to be preserved. 3rdly. Black troops were to have the advantage of sound military training, and be otherwise useful at the same time that they should be tolerably secured from capture by the rebels, who early avowed their determination to enslave and slaughter them in defiance of the laws of war. Two out of the three advantages, were to accrue to the white troops. Thus far however, I believe that no such duty as holding fortifications has been committed to colored troops. They have done far other and more important work than holding fortifications. I have no special complaint to make at this point, and I simply mention it to strengthen the statement that from the beginning of this business it was the confident belief among both the colored and white friends of colored enlistments that President Lincoln as Commander-in[-]Chief of the army and navy would certainly see to it, that his colored troops should be so handled and disposed of as to be but [little] exposed to capture by the rebels, and that—if so exposed—as they have repeatedly been from the first, the President possessed both the disposition and the means for compelling the rebels to respect the rights of such as might fall into their hands[.]³Although Lincoln learned of the atrocities that black soldiers faced at the hands of Confederates, he waited until the end of July 1863 to issue a special general order providing for their protection in the field. Cornish, , 168-69; Westwood, , 94-95. The piratical proclamation of President Davis, announcing Slavery and assassination to colored prisoners⁴On 12 January 1863, Jefferson Davis officially responded to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation by declaring that “all negro slaves captured in arms” would be tried under the laws of the Confederate states. The Confederate War Department soon stipulated that runaway slaves captured while fighting for the Union army could either be reenslaved and returned to their masters or executed for inciting servile rebellion. , 130 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1880-1901), ser. 2, 5:807—08 (1885); John Davis Smith, (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), 45-46. was before the country and the world. But men had faith in Mr. Lincoln and his advisors. He was silent, to be sure, but charity suggested that being a man of action rather than words, he only waited for a case in which he should be required to act This faith

in the man enabled us to speak with warmth and effect in urging enlistments among colored men. That faith, my dear Sir, is now nearly gone. Various occasions have arisen during the last six months for the exercise of his power in behalf of the colored men in his service. But no word comes from Mr. Lincoln or from the War Department, sternly assuring the Rebel Chief that inquisitions shall yet be made for innocent blood. No word of retaliation when a black man is slain by a rebel in cold blood[.] No word was said when free men from Massachusetts were caught and sold into slavery in Texas. No word is said when brave black men who according to the testimony of both friend and foe, fought like heroes to plant the star spangled banner on the blazing parapets of Fort Wagner, and in doing so were captured, some mutilated and killed, and others sold in to slavery.⁵None of the soldiers captured at Fort Wagner were enslaved. Of twenty-four U.S. Colored Troops captured, four were determined by the Confederate authorities to be fugitive slaves. All twenty-four were held in a jail in Charleston, South Carolina, for several months following their capture. A trial involving the four alleged slaves ended with the finding that the court lacked jurisdiction to convict them. All were eventually exchanged according to the rules of war. Howard C. Westwood, “Captive Black Union Soldiers in Charleston: What to Do?,” in , ed. Gregory J. W. Unwin (Carbondale, IIl., 2004), 38-39; Westwood, , 86—95; Cornish, , 169. The same crushing silence reigns over the scandalous outrage as over that of the slaughtered teamsters at Murfeesboro—the same as over that at Millikens Bend and Vicksburg.⁶The Battle of Milliken’s Bend in June 1863, part of the Vicksburg Campaign, was one of the first live engagements of U.S. Colored Troops that resulted in a Union victory, but black troops suffered heavy casualties. Unable to fathom an armed engagement with blacks, Texas infantry brutally hanged, shot in ditches, or otherwise murdered captured African American troops. Black troops captured during the siege of Vicksburg likewise faced brutal treatment that was sanctioned by the Confederate government. Anne J. Bailey, “A Texas Cavalry Raid: Reaction to Black Soldiers and Contrabands,” in Unwin, , 22-25; Westwood, , 28—31; Cornish, , 169-170. I am free to say, my dear sir, that the case looks as if the confiding colored soldiers had been betrayed into bloody hands by the very Government in whose defense they were heroically fighting. I know what you will say to this; you will say; “wait a little longer, and after all, the best way to have justice done to your people is to get them into the army as fast as possible.” You may be right in this; my argument has been the same, but have we not already waited, and have we not already shown the highest qualities of soldiers and on this account deserve the protection of the Government for which we are fighting? Can any case stronger than that before Charleston ever arise? If the President is ever to demand justice and humanity, for black soldiers, is not this the time for him to do it? How many 54ths must be cut to pieces, its mutilated prisoners killed and its living sold into Slavery, to be tortured to death by inches before Mr. Lincoln shall say: “Hold, enough!"⁷Macbeth, act 5, sc. 8.

You know the 54th. To you, more than any one man belongs the credit of raising that Regiment. Think of its noble and brave officers literally hacked to pieces while many of its rank and file have been sold into slavery; worse than death, and pardon me if I hesitate about assisting in raising a fourth Regiment until the President shall give the same protection to them as to white soldiers.⁸Following the debacle at Fort Wagner and in the wake of Confederate atrocities committed against African American troops, President Lincoln issued General Order No. 252 on 30 July 1863. The order affirmed the responsibility of the federal government to protect all U.S. soldiers, regardless of race. The order specifically provided for retaliation against the Confederate murder or enslavement of U.S. Colored Troops. It provided that one Confederate soldier would be executed in retaliation for each black soldier killed in violation of the rules of war. For each Union soldier enslaved, one Confederate soldier would be placed at hard labor on public works until the Union soldier was released. , 5:853 (August 1863); Donald Yacovone, ed., (Chicago, 2004), xxxiv.

With warm and sincere regards,

FREDERICK DOULGASS⁹When Douglass had his letter reprinted in , it was accompanied by the following editorial comment: “Since writing the foregoing letter, which we have now put upon record, we have received assurances from Major Stearns that the Government of the United States is already taking measures which will secure for the captured colored soldiers, at Charleston and elsewhere, the same protection against slavery and cruelty, extended to white soldiers. What ought to have been done at the beginning, comes late but it comes. The poor colored soldiers have purchased this interference dearly. It really seems that nothing of justice liberty or humanity can come to us except through tears and blood.”

PLSr: DM, 6:649 (August 1863).