ABSTRACT
The Union initially resisted the participation of African American men in the armed forces but were eventually compelled by military necessity to allow black enlistment in the late summer of 1862 with the formation of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry. General Benjamin Butler then formed the Louisiana Native Guards, made up of free African American men, in September 1862. The 1st South Carolina Infantry was organized a month later by General Rufus Saxton. The famous Massachusetts 54th, the first northern regiment was next in January 1863. The 186,000 black soldiers and 30,000 sailors who participated in the Civil War constituted a significant portion of the African American population. More than one-fifth of all African American males under the age of forty-five served in the Union army. They comprised one-tenth of all Union soldiers and one quarter of all Union sailors.' Consequently, many of the women who assisted soldiers through relief organizations had a personal, rather than an abstract, motivation for their benevolence because they were succoring husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and other male relatives and friends.
