WILLIAM HARVEY CARNEY

On 22 September, 1862, already almost two years into the US Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation stating that, as of 1 January, 1863, all slaves within any State would be “thenceforward, and forever free”. This proclamation freed 3.5 million men and women of African-American descent and included in the proclamation was the sentence that “the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom”. This meant that African-Americans could serve in the armed forces of the Union.

The first unit which took advantage of the new-won ability of African-American men to serve in Union armies was the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment, which mustered less than two weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect, on 13 January. This unit was formed without the authority (and against the wishes) of the Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton. The second unit to form was sanctioned, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, which began recruiting on 26 January. Stanton had instructed the Governor of Massachusetts, John A Andrew, to begin raising the regiment; it