Buffalo soldiers in the Civil War
It is a common misconception that there were Buffalo Soldiers during the Civil War. To be sure, around 300,000 black men served as soldiers in the Union army, but they were not known as Buffalo Soldiers. This distinctive name would not be bestowed upon black soldiers until the Indian Wars of the 1870s.
During the Civil War, black Union soldiers were part of what was known as the U.S. Colored Troops, often abbreviated as USCT, or shortened to simply, the Colored Troops. The Bureau of Colored Troops officially came into being on May 22, 1863, created by General Order No. 143 issued from the War Department. A few African American regiments had already been formed by that time, some as early as the fall of 1862. Organization of black regiments en masse, however, as an official Federal policy, did not begin until the Final Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. This explicitly provided for the enlistment of black men into the Union army.
The U.S. Colored Troops was an umbrella term, used in a general sense to refer to all regiments composed of African American men. However, at the individual regimental level, the units were designated by their branch of service. Thus, you could have: 5th U.S. Colored Infantry (USCI); 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry (USCC); 5th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery (USCHA); and the 5th U.S. Colored Light Artillery (USCLA). Despite their similar names, these regiments are all different organizations, and have no direct affiliation with each other, at all.
The story of the organization, engagements, and duties of the USCTs during the Civil War is a long and important one, too much to detail here in a single post. However, it is important to understand – both for historical accuracy, as well as for precision and efficiency in research – that no black soldiers during the Civil War were known as Buffalo Soldiers. To call them such is a misnomer, and perpetuates misinformation.
For more about the origin of the term Buffalo Soldiers, see this detailed passage (p. 47) from the book Voices of the Buffalo Soldier
by Frank Schubert.
An excellent overview of the USCTs during the Civil War is: Noah Andre Trudeau’s Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War 1862-1865
I have enjoyed this site but was saddened to see all of the other sites having a vast array of soldiers and other items for sale relating to the civil war all to the exception of our “Buffalo Soldiers”.
I can only imagine from reading and looking at the products they had for sale and come to the conclusion that they did not know of the Buffalo Soldier or even that he fought in the “CIVIL” war.
That is why I, from my own pockets and at my own expense have chosen to take groups of kids from the Dallas Fort Worth area to the “Big Bend and Fort Davis National Parks” over the years so that they could experience some of what these men had to endure and show them how much of our real history will never be known.
Thank you, Mr. McIntyre, for your comment and for the work you do to educate our young people. The Buffalo Soldiers of the 1870s and 1880s are an important story; many veterans from the Civil War era continued their military service after the war on the Plains. Soldiering was a good opportunity, financially, though indeed it was a hard life.