A Liberal
Dose
October 28,
2021
Troy D.
Smith
“Sparta’s
Black Union Troops Deserve Honor”
This past Saturday (October 23), the city of Franklin
unveiled on their town square a statue of a black Union soldier. Roughly
180,000 black men served in the Union Army after the Emancipation Proclamation,
most of them former slaves. There were more from Tennessee, by the way, than
from any other state. Some of those black troops were at the Battle of Franklin
(November 30, 1864), and even more were at the Battle of Nashville two weeks
later. They performed so admirably under fire that they were singled out for
praise by the Union commander, General George Thomas.
And some of the black troops in those battles were
from White County.
African American soldiers were placed in segregated
regiments, with white commanders, that were collectively known as USCT (United
States Colored Troops). One such regiment, the 14th United States
Colored Infantry (USCI), was formed in November of 1863 in Gallatin. The
regiment was commanded by Colonel Thomas Jefferson Morgan, an abolitionist from
Ohio who would later serve as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Upon formation,
they were initially assigned to Chattanooga to work on the city’s
fortifications.
In March of 1864 Morgan received orders to finish
filling his regiment via a recruiting expedition to the Caney Fork and Calfkiller
Rivers -Sparta, in other words. Morgan’s second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel
Henry Corbin, led a contingent of the 14th to Sparta, where he
reported to the Union headquarters of Colonel William Brickly Stokes,
commanding the 5th Tennessee (Union) Cavalry. Stokes had placed his
headquarters at Sparta Methodist Church (now Sparta First United Methodist
Church, on Church Street), tearing out the flooring of the sanctuary and
turning it into a stable. Stokes noted in a report on March 28 that “Lieutenant-Colonel
Corbin is here with a portion of the Fourteenth Regiment, U. S. Colored Troops,
and is recruiting very rapidly.” While the recruiting was going on, Stokes used
some of the black troops in pursuit of local guerrillas.
120 new troops were signed up on the expedition. Those
who were physically fit for combat were inducted into the 14th;
those too old or too young to fight were inducted into the 44th
USCI, and would spend the war doing garrison duty in Chattanooga. Why was
Corbin specifically sent to Sparta? There were some slaves in White County
-1145 in the 1860 census -who would have been freed (if they had not already
run away and freed themselves) upon occupation of the area by Federals. That
number put White County at #4 of the 14 Upper Cumberland counties for slaves.
However, that census also recorded 162 free blacks in the county. That is a
much smaller number than the slave population, but was still the largest free
black population of any county at the time between Nashville and Knoxville. The
new recruits included both free blacks and former slaves. Some of them probably
came from surrounding counties, but considering the population data it is
likely that the majority were from White County. David Anderson was a slave on
a cotton farm in the southern part of the county (one of the few in the area);
he had married a free black woman from Rock Island, Mary Rickman, whose family
had been free since the 1700s. Anderson, his brothers, and his free-born
brother-in-law Joseph Rickman all joined the 14th. So did J. W.
Grant, a teenaged slave who would one day be dean of the law school at Central
Tennessee College.
These men were not mentioned in any of the county
histories, or on any of the military memorials in town -largely because their
service was forgotten after the war. I believe that needs to change, the sooner
the better. They risked (and some gave) their lives for their country, their
families, and their freedom. We need to start calling for some kind of memorial
for them right here, in their home county. It is way past due.
--Troy D. Smith,
a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech.
His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
A complete list of Liberal Dose columns can be found HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE
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