Finished! Looks like this project is out of data at the moment!
All company descriptive book cards have been transcribed! Go to the talk section and click on "Future of the Project" in the General Discussion section for a full statement
Results
We will upload research to this page as the database comes together. We will be geocoding all the locations recorded in the soldier's military records and will build interactive and animated maps of the Civil War that users will be able to explore.
In the meantime we will use this page to present current statistics about the United States Colored Troops.
Table 1: African American soldiers by state of enlistment
United States Colored Troops | Black men age 15-49 in 1860 | USCT recruits as % of eligible men | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Number | Percent | Number | Percent | |
Alabama | 4,969 | 2.7% | 105,820 | 4.7% |
Arkansas | 5,526 | 3.0% | 28,526 | 19.4% |
Florida | 1,044 | 0.6% | 15,274 | 6.8% |
Georgia | 3,486 | 1.9% | 107,051 | 3.3% |
Louisiana | 24,052 | 12.9% | 96,532 | 24.9% |
Mississippi | 17,869 | 9.6% | 104,768 | 17.1% |
N. Carolina | 5,035 | 2.7% | 79,058 | 6.4% |
S. Carolina | 5,462 | 2.9% | 92,258 | 5.9% |
Tennessee | 20,133 | 10.8% | 62,787 | 32.1% |
Texas | 47 | 0.0% | 44,064 | 0.1% |
Virginia | 5,723 | 3.1% | 127,042 | 4.5% |
All So. states | 93,346 | 50.2% | 863,180 | 10.8% |
Kentucky | 23,703 | 12.7% | 53,712 | 44.1% |
Maryland | 8,718 | 4.7% | 39,887 | 21.9% |
Missouri | 8,344 | 4.5% | 26,968 | 30.9% |
All border states | 40,765 | 21.9% | 120,567 | 33.8% |
All slave states | 134,111 | 72.1% | 983,747 | 13.6% |
D.C. | 3,369 | 1.8% | 2,862 | 114.2% |
Free states | 48,637 | 26.1% | 62,273 | 78.1% |
Total | 186,017 | 100% | 1,048,882 | 17.7% |
Source: Metzer, Jacob. "The Records of the U.S. Colored Troops as a Historical Source: an Exploratory Examination." Historical Methods: a Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 14, no. 3 (July 1981): 123:32.
Note that this table underestimates the number of soldiers because it is based on faulty contemporary army estimates. It also ignores the many sailors who fought in non-segregated Navy units. The African American Civil War Museum has identified over 200,000 soldiers and sailors.
Figure 1: African American soldiers and sailors by date of enlistment
Sources: African American Civil War Soldiers, National Parks Service and National Archives and Records Administration
Figure 2: Original recruitment poster for African American Soldiers
