Sambo and Coffee

TEACHING THE NEGRO RECRUITS THE USE OF THE MINIE RIFLE.

A Democratic Party oriented newspaper maintained that blacks would have to be drafted to fight for their freedom.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in March 1863:

Drafting the Negroes.

All the highly colored stories concerning negro volunteers at Port Royal, have proved to be mere fiction, and were doubtless gotten up to subserve Abolitionism at the North. The latest news from South Carolina is that Gen. HUNTER has issued a formal order drafting all the able-bodied male negroes within the lines of his military department into the service of the general Government. – Even Sambo and Coffee must be conscripted. They do not willingly rush to arms even when the freedom of themselves and their race is at stake. What say our Abolition friends to this? Shall we hear any more of the “fiery zeal” of the negroes at Port Royal?

The March 14, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly (hosted at Son of the South) published a great deal of information about General David Hunter and black troops. There are favorable reports about the First Kansas Colored Volunteers and the First South Carolina Volunteers (colored).

The above image came from the same issue of Harper’s Weekly.

The following photo is entitled “Religious service aboard the monitor Passaic, Port Royal, S.C., 1863” and would seem to support the idea that the Union navy was more integrated than the army.

church on a raft