Continuing one more day with my salute to the United States military on Memorial Day 2017.
The USCT, United States Colored Troops, played an increasing role in the Civil War. These regiments consisting of former slaves and free men.
These troops had to put up with racism from their fellow white soldiers, but also, the anger and possible slaughter if captured by Confederates.
Yet, they overcame.
Wikipedia has a good article on the USCT.
The United States Colored Troops consisted of 175 regiments and numbered 180,000. By April 1865, they comprised about one tenth of Union forces. They were the precursor of the famous Buffalo Soldier units created after the war. (I had the honor of meeting one of the last of the Buffalo Soldiers last June in Goldsboro, N.C., where Black veterans had a reunion.)
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