By Victor Greto
It was a long time coming.
Nearly three years into the Civil War and shortly after the battle of Gettysburg that helped turn the tide of the war in favor of the North, the call came out, ordered by President Abraham Lincoln and the assistant adjutant-general: the “exigencies of war” now required that “colored troops should be recruited” into the Union Army.
There had been a handful of black regiments before this, including from Louisiana, South Carolina and Kansas. But it wasn’t until after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, that the federal government allowed the military to use African Americans for any purpose it “may judge best for the public welfare.”
Despite the October 1863 order, it had not included Delaware among the “border states” – slave states that chose not to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy – it named, but Republican Gov. William Cannon asked that the order also be applied to the First State and its nearly 20,000 African-American residents, fewer than 2,000 of whom were slaves, according to Census records.
The governor got his way, over the state legislature’s objections, and opened recruitment stations for people of color – which included American Indians – in Smyrna, Georgetown, Milford and Wilmington.
In only a few weeks, 304 Delawareans enlisted in regiments that became known as the United States Colored Troops, or USCT. By the end of the war, about 2,000 Delawareans of color would join, said Dr. Steve Newton, professor of history and political science at Delaware State University.
“It’s difficult to get a feel about how many African Americans enlisted, because most of them enlisted in Maryland and Pennsylvania regiments,” Newton said.
The hundreds of troops from Delaware became part of nearly 210,000 USCT troops throughout the country who had enlisted to either become free or fight for those who weren’t.
“I think they had tremendous character, to fight for a Union that didn’t recognize them as citizens,” said Bev Laing, manager of historic sites with Delaware’s historical and cultural affairs. “The story is so powerful, and it’s important that everyone should know this.”
Because they were not considered citizens, African-Americans did not have the right to vote or assemble. However, they could own property and make a living for themselves and their families.
One of these individuals, William Oliver of Frankford, is included in an exhibit at the Delaware State Archives in Dover, called “The Civil War: Five Delaware Soldiers’ Stories,” part of the DSA’s “We Poor Devils” exhibit.
Other people of color recognized who fought from Delaware include George Burris of Willow Grove; Abraham Gibbs and Caleb Fisher, both of whom hailed from Camden; and Daniel Coker, an American Indian of the Lenni-Lenape community, who lived near Dover.
There were no training facilities for them here. Most traveled to Camp Penn near Philadelphia, while some went to Massachusetts to train for the infantry or cavalry. Some watermen enlisted in the Navy.
Many of the Delawareans who joined in Maryland became part of the 25th-30th and 34th and 35th Maryland state regiments who fought in the disastrous “The Battle of the Crater,” which took place on July 30, 1864, during the long siege of Petersburg, Va., Newton said.
The problem with determining how many soldiers actually came from Delaware is that not a lot of work has been done tracing the state’s USCT troops, he said.
Many USCT troops, including Delawareans, were at Appomattox Court House when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, ending the war.
“They didn’t do it for money or prestige,” Laing said of the USCT troops. “They did it to preserve the Union and attain freedom for the South.”
Delaware during the Civil War
Think of Delaware during the Civil War as a microcosm of the divided United States, said Bev Laing, manager of historic sites with Delaware’s historical and cultural affairs..
“We had an industrial, anti-slavery north,” she said, referring to New Castle County, “and slavery in the South,” in Sussex County.
Delaware’s ambiguous role in the Civil War may be shown from long before the war began in 1861, said Dr. Steve Newton, professor of history and political science at Delaware State University.
In 1848 the state senate came within one vote of abolishing slavery. In early 1861, Delaware rejected the temptation to secede after a bevy of southern state commissioners representing the infant Confederate States of America traveled to the First State to persuade it to join them.
Delaware is a perfect example of a compromise state, Newton said.
“The state held a peace rally on the Green in 1861 in Dover,” he said. “It’s caught in the middle in terms of its participation in the war.”
While New Castle County was anti-slavery, and Sussex County oriented itself toward eastern shore of Maryland and slavery, Kent County became the home of the state’s ambiguous position.
“It may be apocryphal,” Newton said, “but the famous Underground Railroad, which helped escaped slaves get to the North – and which ran through the Camden-Wyoming area – was said to have been close to a smaller ‘underground railroad’ that sneaked whites to the Confederacy to join its army.”
Delaware sent about 14,000 troops to fight for the North over the course of the war – but 1,100 Delawareans fought for the Confederacy.
Delaware also was part of a pilot federal program begun in 1864 that was supposed to have paid bounties to slave owners if they allowed their slaves – who would be freed – to join the Union Army.
“In Georgetown, you can find the stationery for it,” Newton said. The forms are listed as coming from the Office of Compensated Emancipation.
William Oliver, USCT
When John Oliver was 12 years old, his father, also named John, gave him a gun.
Oliver, who lives in Seaford but who grew up in Frankford, said his dad told him the gun had belonged to his great grandfather, William Oliver, who had joined the fight against the Confederacy in 1863.
It’s an1863 Springfield modified rifle, John said. “It started out as a musket-load, but was converted it so it could take bullets.”
His dad never talked about it.
“I used the gun for a play toy, so I used to chase kids around in the yard with the bayonet.”
Then John put it away.
“When I got married and moved away, I took it with me,” he said. “One day, I just sat down and rubbed the rust off and oiled it and made it decent looking.”
He has a picture of his great grandfather, standing erect and grimly determined, posing in front of a cannon, the rifle held almost delicately against him.
Family history can get pretty fuzzy over a century and a half. But John knows some things and can take some good guesses about other things.
“Most of what I’ve learned by accident as much as anything,” he said
William Oliver was born on June 15, 1835.
“I believe he was born free, but I’m not certain,” John Oliver said. “But I think perhaps some of our roots come from South Carolina, so I don’t know if he or his parents came up to the Clarksville-Frankford area.”
William Oliver was a dirt farmer, John said. “He worked for his father-in-law.”
And here’s the one fun story John was told as a boy.
“He used to wear a ponytail,” John said of his great-grandfather. “The story goes that his father-in-law said, ‘You can marry my daughter but you have to cut your ponytail.’”
Perhaps soon after that, he joined the USCT.
“I’m relatively sure it was 1863 when he joined,” John said. “I got a picture of his discharge papers. When he went in, I’ve heard that they shipped out from Hilton Head, S.C., but I think he trained in Massachusetts.”
As far as he knows, William did not get injured.
The 1870 census shows that William lived in Roxana. “I don’t know what he was doing, but I’m pretty sure he was farming.
Another record shows that someone had applied for a pension for his wife, probably after William Oliver died in September 1912 in Frankford.