9th U. S. Colored Troops Civil War / 1864 Quartermaster Stores Document
Quartermaster's Stores document / US Colored Troops / 1864 / Items transferred to Captain William Royal, 9th U. Colored Troops (USCT) company F, at Hilton Head, South Carolina, 17th May 1864. Hilton Head had become a significant base of operations for Union forces after its capture in 1861.
/ Flannel coats, trousers, stockings, drawers, flannel shirts, caps, bootees, and haversacks are referenced here. / Document is in Very Good condition, with a tear (paper still intact) and crimp of the paper at lower right corner (see photos). Document was folded in thirds, which appears to have been standard for placing in an envelope.
The heavy lines of ink of the signature of the Quartermaster C. Goodyear bled through the paper somewhat, creating the dark areas on reverse. / 8" x 10 and 5/16". Photos for listing are of the exact specific item for sale.
The following is for informational purposes. Colored Troops (USCT) company F was part of the 9th Infantry Regiment, United States Colored Troops.
Company F was composed of black soldiers who agreed to take the place of white Wisconsin residents during the American Civil War. Most of its men were from Illinois or Missouri, and a handful from Wisconsin. While the political climate of America finally relented to the induction of African Americans into the Union Army, the process remained haphazard at best. States formed regiments of different sizes, with varying equipment and barely any leadership. In May 1863, the United States War Department issued General Order 143 to standardize the enlistment and training of African American Soldiers under the control of official War Department policy.
Two years after the first shots of the war were fired, the United States Colored Troops (USCT) were born. William Royal, originally from Canandaigua, New York State, was a captain of Company F, 9th Colored Infantry Regiment, during the Civil War. After the war, he served in Georgia as an agent of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, which was established by Congress to address the needs of four million newly freed slaves. Captain William Royal was a local official in southeast Georgia from the mid-1860s to mid-1880s. He kept a journal and account book in which he detailed his work with the African-American and white communities in the immediate aftermath of the US Civil War.
He writes about attending a meeting for the establishment of a school for African-American children, and attending other meetings of local African-Americans. He also traveled around the region, especially to Blackshear in Pierce County, Georgia, but also to Waresboro, Coffee County, and Savannah, among other locations, to hear complaints regarding illegal bondage of African Americans following the war, and other matters.