USCT: Untrue, Spurious, Concocted Twaddle

One of the consistent themes of Burnished Rows of Steel is TFSmith's insistence on denying the level of racism in the contemporary North. In turn, this leads to the litany of errors, lies and misjudgements which characterise his treatment of the US Coloured Troops.


In chapter 13 part 1, we are told that:

Use of men of African ancestry had advocated [sic] by abolitionists, white and black, in 1861, but Lincoln had chosen not to do so, given the opposition such a policy would raise among conservatives, especially in the border states.

Lincoln could not choose not to do so: it was not legal for him to do so. The 1792 militia act stipulated that military service was for whites only:

each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia (Militia Act, 8 May 1792)

This was only changed in mid-1862:

And be it further enacted, That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to receive into the service of the United States, for the purpose of constructing intrenchments, or performing camp service or any other labor, or any military or naval service for which they may be found competent, persons of African descent (Militia Act, 17 July 1862)

This fact is well-established in secondary sources. However, as there is no mention of the 1862 Militia Act or an equivalent measure being introduced, we can only conclude that TFSmith does not actually know this. This ignorance is confirmed in chapter 10 part 2, where we are told that coloured troops were 'raised under the auspices of the Emancipation Proclamation in August'. In reality, this would have been illegal: presidential proclamations cannot supercede legislation. If they could, why would Congress have had to pass the 1862 Militia Act in the first place?

Historically, even after it was legal to recruit black people, Lincoln did not use the power until later in the war. The two units that TFSmith sends into battle in October 1862 did not actually exist at that time: the 1st USV is clearly the 1st USCT, which was raised in May 1863, while the 34th Massachusetts is the 54th Massachusetts which was raised in March 1863.

But why is the Union raising these troops? When Lincoln took the step of actually enlisting black people in March 1863, Union attempts to capture Richmond had failed (Peninsula Campaign, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg), and the South had managed to invade the North (Antietam). More importantly, the latest call for troops had only just been met using the threat of compulsory service. It was clear that the need for manpower was desperate.

As of July 1862 in Burnished Rows of Steel, the Union has had no such setbacks. In Canada, the Union has captured London, Prescott, Toronto, Montreal, and Kingston. In Maine, they have defeated the British at Alewife Brook; at sea, they have crushed a British squadron on the Delaware. In the South, they have burned Norfolk, defeated Stonewall Jackson at Kernstown to leave them in undisputed possession of the Shenandoah Valley, and are making slow progress in North Virginia with victory at Centreville. Their only loss so far is a defeat in Middle Tennessee, where they initially outnumbered the Confederates by 72,000 to 70,000. Under these circumstances, it is hard to see why the Union would need to raise any troops at all- let alone to go to the extent of raising coloured troops six months earlier than historically.

The reason Lincoln did not raise coloured troops earlier in the war was because of the undoubtedly high levels of domestic opposition to putting arms in the hands of black troops. Ubiquitous bigotry, which had led Northern states to ban free blacks from settling there before the war, led them to pay their black soldiers less during the war: when the 54th Massachusetts protested, the same racism led a supposedly abolitionist colonel to proclaim:

You are a race of slaves. A few years ago your fathers worshipped snakes and crocodiles in Africa. Your features partake of a beastly character. Your religious exercises in this camp is a mixture of barbarism and Christianity... Fred Douglass is far above the mass of his race; but he is not equal to the great men of this country

Other officers were just as racist. By 1864, Captain Ralph Buckley of the 197th Pennsylvania Volunteers had still not shifted his belief that 'they are not greatly improved over the babbone [sic]'; in February 1863 A.J. McGarrah of Indiana believed that raising black troops would mean 'the negroes will have the fighting to do alone for I don’t believe there is many white men that will fight with the negro'; during the 1863 siege of Charleston, Zouaves of the 9th New York Volunteers kicked a 'contraband' into unconsciousness before hitting him in the face with a bayonet and breaking his teeth.

In the hands of TFSmith, this inconvenient racism is neatly excised. The Union is transformed into a shining beacon of egalitarianism; Britain and Canada are condemned repeatedly for fighting to maintain the slavery which the Union possessed until 1865, and which (as of mid-1862) they were actively supporting by returning escaped slaves to their masters where it suited them to do so. TFSmith's interpretation of events may be propaganda or delusion, but it is certainly not history.