Very glad you did this I love history and those little history bits not much people know about

Shortly after the Battle of First Bull Run (July, 1861) Richard Ewell corresponded with President Davis, and proposed for the liberation & recruitment of African Americans, throughout the CSA. He wanted them to serve on the frontlines, in the Confederate Armies, but President Davis rejected the idea, as too difficult and impractical.

Where are the other 3 parts?

Great job, Ryan! Thank you!

“Fighting for Their Freedom: The United States Colored Troops” by Steward Henderson A Review of the February 2021 Program by Greg Mertz Our speaker is a founder of the 23rd United States Colored Troops (USCTs) living history unit. Henderson and his fellow living historians portray the unit that was the very first black regiment to fight any element of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The action occurred on May 15, 1864 during the battle of Spotsylvania Court House at Alrich’s Farm, at the intersection of the Orange Plank Road and the Catharpin Road. The 23rd USCTs were protecting supply wagons at the nearby Chancellorsville crossroads when they were called to assist the 2nd Ohio Cavalry, then being driven east on the Catharpin Road by Gen. Thomas Rosser’s Confederate cavalry. A photograph exists of Sgt. Nimrod Burke, a civilian teamster and scout for the 36th Ohio before he joined the 23rd USCTs. The regiment also had twelve members named “George Washington.” It could mean that the soldier had no name, or more likely, they wanted to conceal their real name from their owner, and to protect their enslaved family members from retaliation. As Henderson shares the history of the black Civil War soldiers, he found that many people tend to think that the 54th Massachusetts was the only black unit. The regiment, featured in in the movie “Glory,” is best known for spearheading an attack on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina. The 54th made it to the parapets of the fort, during an assault on July 18, 1863, but could not take the position. They seized it on September 7, 1863 following a long siege and after the Confederates abandoned it. By the end of the Civil War as many as 20,000 black men served in the United States army and perhaps 29,000 served in the navy. Black men comprised about 10% of the Union army in 166 regiments. They fought in 450 engagements and suffered 38,000 deaths, with 2/3rds dying from disease. The vast majority of officers in these black units were white - some 7,000 white officers were in USCT units. Frederick Douglass was a strong proponent of the recruitment of black troops as an important step in the struggle for equality. Douglass wrote, “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny he has earned the right to citizenship.” The advent of black troops in uniform was not officially recognized by the United States government early in the war and the manner in which the first black troops were recruited and their designations were quite varied. It was not Massachusetts but Kansas to be the first Northern state to send black soldiers into combat. On August 5, 1862, Senator and General James H. Lane from Kansas issued an order based upon the Second Confiscation Act to raise a black regiment. The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, later renamed the 79th USCTs, fought in the October 28, 1862 skirmish at Mound Island, Missouri, which was officially the first engagement involving black troops. Though many black units eventually became redesignated as USCTS, Henderson indicated that four units maintained their state designations throughout their service: the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Colored, the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry Colored, and the 29th Connecticut Infantry Colored. At the outset of the war, the Louisiana Native Guard in New Orleans consisted of black men filling not only its ranks, but its officer corps as well. They first offered their services to the Confederacy, but were turned down. After Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler’s request for reinforcements through proper channels was declined, he took it upon himself to raise three predominantly black Native Guard units in October, 1862. The 1st South Carolina Colored Infantry claims the distinction of being the first black unit to be officially raised by the authority of the War Department. In May of 1862, Union Gen. David Hunter announced the emancipation of slaves and began recruiting troops near Port Royal, South Carolina. Lincoln required Hunter to rescind the emancipation order and disband the unit. But with the release of Lincoln’s own Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, officially authorizing the recruitment of black troops, Hunter reformed the regiment which was formally accepted at the end of the month. The experiences of the black soldiers were dramatically different than those of the white soldier -- either by the Confederates or by their own government. While white Union soldiers were paid $13 per month along with a $3 per month uniform allowance, the black soldiers made only $10 per month plus were charged $3 per month for uniforms rather than being provided the uniform stipend. The USCTs protested but when the pay was equalized in 1864, only the soldiers who had been free received the back pay. When in combat, on several occasions black troops found that Confederates would not honor their surrender and executed them rather than take them prisoner. Some light-skinned African-Americans passed as white and served as officers. It is generally recognized that Lt. Col. William N. Reed of the 1st North Carolina Colored, later 35th USCTs, who was mortally wounded in the February 20, 1864 battle of Olustee, Florida, was the highest ranking African-American of the war. However, Col. John Wayles Jefferson, who lived most of his life as white and commanded the 8th Wisconsin, a unit comprised of only white men. Originally going by the surname of Hemings, his paternal grandmother was an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings, and it is widely believed his paternal grandfather was her owner President Thomas Jefferson. Henderson concluded with a quote from Gen. Benjamin F. Butler regarding his promise to never forsake the USCT men who fought so bravely at New Market Heights on September 29, 1864, where they were awarded fourteen Medals of Honor. Butler vowed “‘to defend the rights of these men who have given their blood for me and my country this day and for their race forever!’ and God help me, I will keep that oath.”

"The musical composition "Brown's Island" appears courtesy of Geoff White, copyright 2020."

"The First Battle of Manassas and the Experience of War” by Marc Thompson A Review of the August 2020 Virtual Program by Greg Mertz Among the officers serving on the battlefield of the first major engagement of the war, past round table president and retired Air Force Colonel Marc Thompson selected the six soldiers who were both actively involved in the combat and would gain significant prominence in the war, highlighting their roles. The performances of these officers at First Manassas was generally good, but they also gained precious experience in the largest battle in United States military history up to that time. Both sides had two sizeable armies confronting each other in northern Virginia in July 1861. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was to prevent Union General Robert Patterson from entering the lower Shenandoah Valley, while a force under Confederate General G.T. Beauregard near Manassas Junction challenged Union General Irvin McDowell on the outskirts of Washington. As McDowell’s Army of Northeastern Virginia advanced toward Beauregard’s Army of the Potomac, Johnston had slipped away from Patterson, utilizing the railroads to reinforce Beauregard. Beauregard, one of the six officers Thompson highlighted, had few friends when attending West Point, but was an excellent student and had gained critical military experience when serving on the staff of Winfield Scott during the Mexican War, where he was breveted twice. On the morning of July 21, 1861, Beauregard planned to set his troops in motion at 7:00 am to attack the left flank of the enemy. Ironically McDowell planned an identical movement, only his troops got underway on a much earlier timetable - a predawn 2:30 am kick off. Despite delay’s in coordinating a rather complicated plan for a green army, McDowell’s men unleashed their attack before Beauregard could spring his plan. McDowell would commit 26,000 of his 35,000 men to the fight. He used half of the men who would see combat, in a division under General Daniel Tyler, to pin down the Confederate front while the other half, in divisions commanded by Generals David Hunter and Samuel P. Heintzelman, struck Beauregard’s left flank. Believing that the flanking column had been allowed sufficient time to get into position, Tyler fired cannon shots at 6:00 am in the vicinity of a stone bridge across Bull Run that was to be the signal for the flank attack, but the flanking troops were not able to launch the main attack until 9:00 am. While Confederates under General N. G. “Shanks” Evans focused on Tyler’s diversion in his front, young signal officer Captain E. Porter Alexander observed the Union flank maneuver and sent a message to Evans to watch out to his left. Evans boldly shifted 900 of his men to Matthews Hill to meet the flanking column, while the other 300 troops continued to keep an eye on Tyler. The second of the soldiers emphasized by Thompson, Col. Ambrose E. Burnside, soon entered the fray. Slightly wounded while fighting the Apaches, inventor of a breach-loading carbine, and working for a railroad under his friend George B. McClellan before the war, Burnside led the brigade launching the initial attack in the Union flanking movement. Aligning the six cannon accompanying his brigade, but making the first attack with only one of his regiments, Burnside was easily repulsed by Evans. The wounding of division commander Hunter early in the conflict thrust Burnside into command of the field, but being inexperienced in both combat and command, he was observed to be “hysterically excited.” Johnston had both received Alexander’s warning and heard the fighting and dispatched two of his four brigades to reinforce Evans, and Burnside could never quite put more men into the fight on his front than the Confederate had amassed. Serving with Tyler in his only battle in the eastern theater of the Civil War was William T. Sherman, the third highlighted soldier. Tyler instructed Sherman to find a ford across Bull Run, and because Louisiana Major Roberdeau Wheat had earlier ridden across a ford to shout obscenities at the Yankees, Sherman knew just where to cross. Advancing to the sound of the shooting, Sherman extended Burnside’s line and contributed substantially to forcing the Confederate withdrawal to Henry Hill. Burnside would be heard of no more once the fighting left Matthews Hill. As more Union troops arrived, the fourth highlighted officer, recent West Point graduate brevet 2nd Lieut. George A. Custer in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, helped to protect the right flank of the Federal position. After earlier delivering a message from Scott to McDowell, Custer was assigned to command a company of regulars, recalling that just three days earlier he was a mere school boy. After a two-hour artillery bombardment in the middle of the day, McDowell grew frustrated at not being able to drive the Confederates off of Henry Hill. He decided to run the cannon right up to the Confederate line in the spirit of Napoleon. The rifled guns of the Union army had held a decided advantage over the Confederate smoothbores when dueling at a distance across the valley between Matthews and Henry Hills, but once the Union guns advanced, the superiority of the rifled cannon over the smoothbore guns was lost. The fighting resumed on Henry Hill about 1:30 pm. The new Union artillery position was not only then under Confederate artillery fire, but also under infantry fire. At first that infantry fire was predominantly from the fifth officer underscored by Thompson, General Thomas J. Jackson. This former VMI professor of experimental philosophy (called “physics” today) earned the nickname of “Stonewall” for the stand he made on Henry Hill that day, when he calmly reassured Confederate General Bernard Bee that all was well. Beauregard took command of the conduct of the battle on the front lines of Henry Hill while Johnston directed reserves from the rear to Beauregard’s sector. In doing so, Beauregard was in the very thick of the fight, rallying the troops, directing reinforcements into line, and leading attacks. Beauregard excelled in managing the battlefield. It was Jackson who turned to the sixth officer to be spotlighted in the talk for help. Jackson ordered Col. J.E.B. Stuart, commander of the 1st Virginia Cavalry, to charge the flank of the Union artillery’s infantry supports, contributing to the route of a zouave regiment. Sherman’s brigade joined in the fight for Henry Hill, but the inexperienced commander committed his regiments one at a time rather than strike a concerted blow that might have been decisive. Attacks and counterattacks meant that control of the Union guns went back and forth. By 3:30 pm, Henry Hill was in sole possession of the Confederates, with eight of the Union eleven guns falling into Confederate hands. Custer was called upon to make up part of the rearguard covering the Union retreat, and was among the last soldiers to leave the field. An assessment of the three Confederate officers examined showed that Beauregard did exceedingly well in adjusting from his planned flank attack to meeting and repulsing the Union flank attack on the opposite side of the field. Jackson performed superbly and would go on to prove that the reputation he earned on Henry Hill was deserved. Stuart was aggressive and successful in his limited role and saw what a quick, hard-hitting cavalry charge could do to the enemy. The three Union officers did not fare so well as a group. Burnside demonstrated aggressiveness by attacking right away, but he fought a piecemeal battle, struggling to take control of the situation and failing to mass the superior numbers that he had over the Confederates on his front. Sherman also displayed initiative and made an important contribution to the morning phase of the battle, but poorly managed his brigade as the battle reached its climax on Henry Hill. Custer did well in his limited role, gaining some all-important experience in his first ever battle of his long career.