{"id":1436,"date":"2010-12-15T14:57:49","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T19:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2011-03-16T22:51:32","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T03:51:32","slug":"1861-1865-first-arkansas-regiment-of-african-descent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/2010\/12\/15\/1861-1865-first-arkansas-regiment-of-african-descent\/","title":{"rendered":"1863 (Fighting for Liberty) First Arkansas Regiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nBlack soldiers recruited in Arkansas in early 1863 (later 46th USCT) who found themselves surrounded by Confederate forces in June 1863 as part of a counter-offensive aimed at disrupting the Union occupation of eastern Louisiana (during Grant\u2019s Vicksburg campaign). Seized as prisoners of war, more than two dozen still listed as POWs in 1865. There are powerful comments about this engagement from Grant, local diarist Kate Stone, and various officers. Lindley Miller, the first white colonel in charge of the regiment (and son of a US senator from NJ), also appears to have been the author of a well known marching song inspired by \u201cJohn Brown\u2019s Body,\u201d sometimes attributed to Sojourner Truth, and recorded in the twentieth century by activists such as Pete Seeger. Includes fascinating lyrics such as:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will have to pay us wages, the wages of their sin,
\nThey will have to bow their foreheads to their colored kith and kin,
\nThey will have to give us house-room, or the roof shall tumble in!
\nAs we go marching on. \u201c<\/p>\n

Sources Summary<\/strong>
\nSee David Walls’ “Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment: A Contested Attribution<\/a>” (2007). Also\u00a0available\u00a0as a PDF<\/a>. Also see\u00a0John Q. Anderson, ed., Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868<\/em> (orig. 1955; new edition, 1995), , Gregory J. W. Urwin, ed., Black Flag over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War<\/em> (2005), 132-52, and the \u201cFirst Regiment Arkansas Volunteers of African Descent<\/a>\u201d profile online at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Artifacts Summary<\/strong>
\n Henry Ford Museum<\/strong>: muster roll (Apr. 30-June 30, 1865) for the 1st Arkansas REgiment (African Descent), which became Company E of the 46th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry. Commanding officer was Col. Julian E. Bryant (nephew of William Cullen Bryant). A number of the soldiers (26) are still noted as having been taken prisoner of war back in 1863, when they were guarding contraband at the Mounds or what is described here as \u201cMound Plantation\u201d (near Goodrich\u2019s Landing in East Carroll Parish in eastern Louisiana).
\n Historical Society of Pennsylvania<\/strong>: Song sheet from \u201cSong of the First of Arkansas\u201d in the collections of the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments. Important See David Walls article for complete details.
\n New York Public Library<\/strong>: Holds letters from Lindley Miller describing authorship of song lyrics. See Macculloch-Miller Family Papers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black soldiers recruited in Arkansas in early 1863 (later 46th USCT) who found themselves surrounded by Confederate forces in June 1863 as part of a counter-offensive aimed at disrupting the Union occupation of eastern Louisiana (during Grant\u2019s Vicksburg campaign). Seized as prisoners of war, more than two dozen still listed as POWs in 1865. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8651,3974],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fighting-for-liberty","category-terrible-war-1861-1865","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2761,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/2761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/150th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}