{"id":1693,"date":"2010-06-11T13:24:53","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T18:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=1693"},"modified":"2010-07-21T21:25:59","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T02:25:59","slug":"camp-william-penn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/06\/11\/camp-william-penn\/","title":{"rendered":"Camp William Penn"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Camp William Penn in Chelten Hills, Pennsylvania opened as a training ground for African-American troops on June 26, 1863 with about eight men present.\u00a0 Approximately eleven thousand former slaves and free African-Americans received training here under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Wagner.\u00a0 Over the course of the war at least eleven regiments formed at Camp William Penn including the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 22nd, 24th, 25th, 32nd, 41st, 43rd, 45th, and 127th Infantries.\u00a0\u00a0 Led by Colonel Benjamin C. Tilghman, the 3rd Regiment United States Colored Troops<\/a> became the first to depart from camp on August 13, 1863.\u00a0 The soldiers from Camp William Penn went on to fight at Fort Wagner<\/a> , the Battle of Olustee<\/a>, and the Battle of New Market Heights <\/a> (Chaffin\u2019s Farm).\u00a0 The Civil War Preservation Trust\u2019s website offers an article <\/a> regarding the participation of USCT Troops in the Battle of New Market Heights and a detailed map<\/a> of the area.\u00a0 George Washington Williams said<\/a>, \u201cThe regiments that went from this camp were among the best in the army.\u00a0 Their officers had been carefully selected and specially trained in military school under competent teachers, and the troops themselves were noted for intelligence, proficiency, and pluck.\u201d\u00a0 Famous historical figures such as Frederick Douglass<\/a> and Lucretia Mott <\/a>lived near the camp or visited the troops occasionally.\u00a0 Many appeals were made to African- Americans to join the Union Army in newspapers such as The Liberator<\/em><\/a> in Boston:<\/p>\n

\u201cMen of color!\u00a0 We speak to you of your country, of the land where God in his mysterious providence has placed you to work out his inscrutable purposes.\u00a0 Yet you have been strangers in a land of strangers, and it is now for you to decide whether that land shall be to you and your children more in the future than it has been in the past.\u00a0 We can make no promises, but we have an abiding faith that the Almighty has not visited us with tribulation in wrath, but in mercy; that you and we, thus tried in the fiery furnace, if true to ourselves and to Him, shall emerge purified and redeemed from the sins and the wrongs of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another resource that may be of value for teachers is Donald Scott\u2019s article<\/a> titled \u201cCamp William Penn\u2019s Black Soldiers in Blue\u201d that gives a concise overview of the troops stationed at the camp as well as an insight into the interaction between the African-American and white soldiers.\u00a0 Also available in limited view through Google Books is Cheltenham Township<\/em> <\/a> which provides some background information and photographs on the area where the camp formed, and includes mention of Camp William Penn and its basic purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camp William Penn in Chelten Hills, Pennsylvania opened as a training ground for African-American troops on June 26, 1863 with about eight men present.\u00a0 Approximately eleven thousand former slaves and free African-Americans received training here under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Wagner.\u00a0 Over the course of the war at least eleven regiments formed at Camp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,171],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-1693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-historic-periodicals","tag-battles-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1693"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1693\/revisions\/1701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}