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[CHAPTER 25]
[Page 1]
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER 1861-1865
The long controversy between the North and the South concerning slavery reached its climax with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and Louisiana and other slaveholding States of the South prepared to secede from the Union. The first was South Carolina on December 20, 1860. Then followed in succession Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. On January, 26, 1861, the Louisiana Ordinance of Secession was passed by a vote of 113 to 17. The war between the North and the South began with the firing upon Fort Sumter of South Carolina by the Confederates on April 12, 1861, and the subsequent declaration of war by President Lincoln on April 14.
In April 1861, about 1,500 free men of color in the downtown section of New Orleans held a meeting at which they “determined to offer their services to Governor Moore, for home defense.” This they did with “one voice and with the greatest enthusiasm.” Governor Thomas O. Moore accepted the offer of their services and Jordan B. Noble was given the task of recruiting them. About the same time a similar company was being organized in Jefferson City, Louisiana.1
The Louisiana State Militia accepted the services of free colored soldiers as early as April 1861, and Governor Moore commissioned men of their own color to serve them as officers on May 2 of the same year. This Negro military organization was known as the “Native Guards” and was attached to the First Division of the State militia.2 This free colored group eventually consisted of more than 1,400 men, and while a part of the State militia their regiments were included in drill calls published in the New Orleans
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