Camp William Penn’s Black Soldiers In Blue - November ‘99 America’s Civil War Feature

Major General Benjamin F. Butler was thoroughly impressed with the black troops’ bravery at New Market Heights. “Better men were never better led, better officers never led better men,” Butler said. “A few more such charges and to command colored troops will be the post of honor in the American armies.”

The 6th Regiment was not the only Camp William Penn regiment to fight courageously in bloody campaigns. The 22nd and 8th USCT regiments also lost many men during the New Market Heights fray.

Six months earlier, on February 20, 1864, the 8th had lost a huge share of its men in an engagement at Olustee, Fla. At the time, the regiment had little battlefield experience, being barely a month out of Camp William Penn. At Olustee the 8th, commanded by Colonel Charles W. Fribley, suffered terrible casualties, including 343 killed, wounded or missing in action. A letter written by 1st Lt. Oliver Willcox Norton detailed what happened when troops of his Company K marched near a strategic railroad line. “The skirmishing increased as we marched, but we paid little attention to it,” Norton wrote. “Pretty soon the boom of a gun startled us a little, but not much as we knew our flying artillery was ahead, but they boomed again and again and it began to look like a brush. An aide came dashing through the woods to us and the order was ‘double quick, march!’ We turned into the woods and ran in the direction of the firing for half a mile, when the head of the column reached our batteries.

“Military men say it takes veteran troops to maneuver under fire, but our regiment with knapsacks on and unloaded pieces, after a run of half a mile, formed a line under the most destructive fire I ever knew. We were not more than two hundred yards from the enemy, concealed in pits and behind trees, and what did the regiment do? At first they were stunned, bewildered and knew not what to do. They curled to the ground, and as men fell around them they seemed terribly scared, but gradually they recovered their senses and commenced firing. And here was the great trouble–they could not use their arms to advantage. We have had very little practice in firing, and, though they could stand and be killed, they could not kill a concealed enemy fast enough to satisfy my feelings.

“After seeing his men murdered as long as flesh and blood could endure it, Colonel Fribley ordered the regiment to fall back slowly, firing as they went. As the men fell back they gathered in groups like frightened sheep, and it was almost impossible to keep them from doing so. Into these groups the rebels poured the deadliest fire, almost every bullet hitting some one.”

Colonel Fribley was shot and killed after his order to retreat. “We were without a commander,” wrote Norton, “and every officer was doing his best to do something, he knew not exactly. There was no leader.”

Norton later noticed that he had five holes in his hat, which he claimed were caused by a single bullet. “My hat was cocked up on one side so that it went through in that way and just drew the blood on my scalp,” he wrote. “Of course a quarter of an inch lower would have broken my skull, but it was too high.”

Norton noted that “Company K went into the fight with fifty-five enlisted men and two officers. It came out with twenty-three and one officer. Of these but two men were not marked. That speaks volumes for the bravery of Negroes. Several of these twenty-three were quite badly cut, but they are present with the company. Ten were killed, four reported missing, though there is little doubt they are killed, too.”

Confederate soldiers hated commanders of black regiments such as Wagner and Fribley. If such Union leaders were captured during battle, they were often slaughtered along with their black troops instead of being taken prisoner. When Confederate Brig. Gen. William Gardner decided to send some of Fribley’s personal belongings to his widow, he noted, “That I may not be misunderstood, it is due to myself to state that no sympathy with the fate of any officer commanding negro troops, but compassion for a widow in grief, had induced these efforts to recover for her relics which she must naturally value.”