This may be a “markers, artillery, and battlefields” blog, but sometimes I must bring in some of the strategic and political factors in order to properly frame a set of posts. That’s the case today. Allow me to look back a bit on the sesquicentennial time line to some orders posted in March of 1863, and applicable to the Department if the South.
General David Hunter issued General Orders No. 17 from his headquarters at Hilton Head on March 6, 1863. The entire text is too lengthy for full citation here. The text is posted on “Lest We Forget” although with some erroneous heading at the top mentioning the wrong headquarters. But allow me to summarize it in “plain speak”:
- Hunter drafted all “able-bodied male negroes between the ages of eighteen and fifty.”
- Exempted were any currently working with the quartermaster or commissary.
- These drafted men would go to colored (not yet USCT) regiments organized by Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton.
- Saxton would provide arrangements for the families of drafted men.
- Planned employment of these troops was garrisoning the fortifications protecting base camps. This freed white troops to active field duties on operations against Charleston, Savannah, and other points.
- Military training and discipline was “the very safest and quickest school in which these enfranchised bondsmen can be elevated to the level of our higher intelligence and cultivation….”
- White officers would lead the colored regiments. The department would screen officers who applied for this duty to ensure quality of appointments.
General Orders No. 24, issued on March 19, added provisions to the base order. The first paragraph added engineer department duty to the list of draft exempted details.
The second paragraph of the second order insisted that all able-body negroes – save those employed directly by commissioned officers, employed by the three named departments, or medically unfit – were covered under the terms of the draft. Perhaps a moot point, but no plantations could hold back employed (or enslaved) individuals from the draft. Nor could blacks find exemption in the employ of sutlers or private interests. All blacks within the Federal lines were to be employed by or drafted into the army.
The final paragraph of the amended order allowed the military to investigate cases where negroes had been defrauded. An officer would investigate complaints and offer a report, if necessary detailing redress.
On face, Hunter’s orders had a practical side, which we should consider in context. Federal footholds along the Atlantic Coast became havens for escaped slaves, particularly after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. The raw numbers of humanity living on marginal barrier islands was a disaster waiting to happen. The apparatus of these general orders allowed the military to enforce practices leading to healthy living conditions (a series of contemporary general orders laid forth the requirements for such practices).
Another issue with on the overpopulated Federal bases was the corruption which naturally sprung up where a profit was to be had. The amended orders did address that issue head on. And the original orders gave some hope of support for families.
Militarily, these orders pushed directly against a shortage Confederate leaders were acutely aware – slave labor. As I’ve discussed on several posts, the Confederates in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida complained every project was delayed due to the lack of detailed labor. Now many of those who would have been building fortifications on the Confederate side were employed building works on the Federal side. Sort of a double setback.
General Orders No. 17 and 24 were raw applications of the Emancipation Proclamation to the field. Remember – “… that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.” But there is some contradiction in play. Those who had fled slavery were then forced into service. And at that, unequal service (pay in particular) to those in white regiments. But to some degree, as the text of the orders argued, this was a function of military necessity and practicality.
But where the orders stopped, and the Proclamation applied further, was beyond the Federal lines. Although Hunter was one to push the envelope. If the orders applied to areas within the Federal lines, what happened when those lines advanced – even temporarily – into new areas? While I’d contend Hunter originally brought this up with orders issued at Fort Pulaski the previous spring, now he had coverage in the form of the proclamation. General Orders No. 17 and 24 were but a couple of tools used to implement emancipation, even if imperfect.