Some More on the XXV Corps (A Fort Fisher and Wilmington Connection)

This unit was black war correspondent Thomas Morris Chester's beat during the war.

I should mention that it also had a Fort Fisher connection.  It was composed of three divisions.  One was under the command of August Kautz, William Birney and Charles J. Paine.

In January 1865, Paine's Division sailed  with Terry's Expedition to attack Fort Fisher in North Carolina, where it rendered effective service although it did not take part in the initial assault.  The division did not rejoin the XXV Corps after that, but remained in North Carolina and participated in the Wilmington Campaign during February.

The post I had about the USCT statue at the Cameron Art Center in Wilmington, N.C., in my Running the Blockade: Civil War Navy blog last month is dedicated to these men.  They showed their mettle at this final battle before the fall of Wilmington at the Battle of Forks Road.

--Old Secesh

Thomas Morris Chester-- Part 4: After the War

After the war, Chester moved to England where he earned a law degree.  When he returned to the United States, he became an activist in Reconstruction Louisiana politics, where he became the first black in the state to practice law.

While he would accomplish much over his life before is death of a heart attack in 1892 at the age of 58, his legacy endures as the only black Civil War correspondent for a major newspaper who provided a perspective that was reflective of both  the black troop experience and the crucial final year of the war.

Chester effectively captured the frustration  of black veterans who believed their contributions to Union victory went largely  unnoticed," wrote Gary  Gallagher, a history professor at the University of Virginia who has written several books on the war.

Some years after the war, Morris wrote about the Battle of New Market Heights outside of Richmond, where a brigade of lack troops fought bravely against Confederate forces:  "It is a source of complain, and very justly too, that the colored troops and their officers have not received their meed of praise from the chroniclers  of events in the army, for their splendid advance and gallant bearing."

(Meed means a deserved share or reward.  I hadn't heard the word before.)

Ultimately,  14 black soldiers were awarded Medals of Honor for their valor in the battle.

--Old Secesh

America's First Black War Correspondent-- Part 3: An Encounter with a Confederate Officer after Richmond's Fall

A day after entering Richmond, after the fall of that city in 1865, with the Army of the James, Thomas Morris Chester sat down in the Speaker's chair  at the Virginia state building, the seat of Confederate power.  According to Chester's biographer, R.J.M. Blackett, he was "well aware  of the irony and eager to thumb his nose at the Confederacy."  

Datelining his story, "Halls of Congress, Richmond April 4, 1865.  "Seated in the Speaker's chair, so long dedicated to treason, but in the future to be consecrated to loyalty, I hasten to  give a rapid sketch of the incidents which have occurred since my last dispatch."

A paroled Confederate officer saw him  sitting there and yelled at him, "Come out of there, you black cuss!"  Fellow correspondent  Charles C. Coffin  of the Boston Journal reported what happened next.  "Mr. Chester raised his eyes, calmly  surveyed the intruder and went on with his writing.  'Get out of there, or I'll knock your brains out!' the officer bellowed, pouring out a torrent of oaths, and rushing up the steps to execute his threat, found himself tumbling over chairs and benches."

he New York Tribune finished the story, "Chester planted a black fist and left a black eye on the  prostrate  Rebel," and went on to complete his dispatch to the Philadelphia Press--  but not before  the Confederate officer demanded the sword of a Union soldier  to cut "the N_____'s heart out."

--Old Secesh

America's First Black War Correspondent, Thomas Morris Chester-- Part 2

Chester wrote about black troops in the Philadelphia Press saying:  "Every many looks like a soldier, while inflexible determination depicted upon every countenance."

Formed in April 1864, the Army of the James contained two divisions of white soldiers of the XXIV Corps and one division of black troops of the XXV Corps.  The Blacks consisted of two brigades of  seven regiments with 5,000 men.

Chester was embedded with the XXV Corps on the front lines and didn't shy away from describing the carnage they faced.  Once, he wrote about two men who had been on picket duty and had been hit be a shell:  "...quivering pieces of flesh indicated the locality of the frightful scene, while fragments of hearts and intestines were hanging upon the branches of the neighboring trees."

He also was well aware of how bad it would be for a black soldier to be captured by Confederates.  "Between the Negroes  and the enemy, it is  a war to the death," he wrote  on August 22, 1864.  The colored troops  have cheerfully accepted the conditions of the Confederate government, that between them, no quarter is to be shown.  Those here have not the least idea of living  after they fall into the hands of the enemy."

Indeed, black prisoners of war were not even treated as prisoners of war.   Many received harsh treatment from the rebels -- some tortured, some killed and others sold or returned to slavery.  And, of course there was also the massacre at Fort Pillow.

--Old Secesh

The Associated Press Reports the End of the War-- Part 1: Getting the News Out

From the April 4, 2015, Yahoo! News, AP  "A.P. Was There: 150 years ago, Lee surrendered to Grant."

William Down MacGregor of the AP was there in the front yard of the McLean House at Appomattox Court House along with other Union war correspondents.  he got his story out that day.

Sadly, the names of AP correspondents and their original manuscript reports are lost to history.  But Mr. MacGregor's name occasionally appeared printed his dispatches as he is remembered for his "delivering of disciplined and restrained accounts for an era when reporting was often laced with shrill and sectarian opinion."

The Associated Press was a newspaper co-operative formed in 1846, just two years after the first successful telegraph message was sent.  The organization used the ever-expanding network of telegraph lines to get news as fast as possible to the United States.

The Civil War marked the first time that news of battles could be transmitted even the same day or by the day following.

And, this was news to the public.  Obviously Union military used the reports from the correspondents its own people to follow events.  Abraham Lincoln spent much time in the Washington, D.C. telegraph room.

Plus, the Chicago Tribune in the previous posts, used "NEWS BY TELEGRAPH" extensively.

--Old Secesh