1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Colored)

The 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Colored) was a Union Army regiment during the American Civil War, formed by General Rufus Saxton. It was composed of escaped slaves from South Carolina and Florida. The 1st SC Volunteer Infantry black regiment was formed in 1862 and became the 33rd United States Colored Troops Regiment in February of 1864. It has the distinction of being the first black regiment to fight in the Civil War at the Skirmish at Spaulding's on the Sapelo River GA. It was one of the first black regiments in the Union Army.

Most of the slaves in the South Carolina Sea Islands became free after the Battle of Port Royal on November 7, 1861 when many of the white residents and plantation owners fled the area after the arrival of the Union Navy and Army. The 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry (Colored) Regiment was organized on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina in May of 1862 under the Department of the South by General David Hunter. Most of the men in the unit were former Gullah slaves from the South Carolina Sea Islands who spoke Gullah, a Sea Island Creole. The unit was disbanded in August of 1862 under orders from President Abraham Lincoln because Hunter was not authorized by the U. S. War Department to recruit contraband (free Blacks) into the army, and the recruits were involuntarily forced into the regiment "in a manner reminiscent of their days as slaves". Although Hunter disbanded the regiment under orders from the U. S. War Department, Hunter kept 100 soldiers sending the rest home. The company of 100 Gullah soldiers were placed on guard duty at St. Simon's Island. This company of 100 Black soldiers in the 1st South Carolina remained, and the regiment was later reorganized at the Smith plantation near Beaufort under General Rufus Saxton on August 22, 1862 when U. S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton authorized Saxton to "arm, equip, and receive into the service of the United States such volunteers of African descent as you may deem expedient, not exceeding 5,000". In October of 1862 Company A of the First South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment was organized with other companies organized soon after, and by January 31, 1863 the 1st South Carolina was mustered into military service. "Attempts to recruit troops from Hilton Head's African American population were difficult at first due to the memory of the failed 'Hunter Experiment.' These obstacles were overcome and the first company was formed under the command of Captain C. T. Trowbridge", and on November 10, 1862 Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson assumed command. As early as November 3, 1862, sixty two members from Company A of the regiment under the command of Lt. Colonel Oliver T. Beard conducted raids on saltworks in northeast Florida. During their military operations in Florida, the 1st South Carolina liberated enslaved people and recruited them into the Union Army. The 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry regiment did an expedition up the St. Mary's River along the Georgia Florida state line which lasted from January 23 to February 1, 1863. The regiment captured and occupied Jacksonville, Florida on March 10, 1863 and did other skirmishes along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. They were particularly effective at conducting raids along the coast of Florida and Georgia, due to the men’s familiarity with the terrain. On July 9 11, 1863 the 1st South Carolina completed an expedition along the Edisto River where they helped to liberate enslaved people in the area fleeing to Union boats. Gullah soldiers of the 1st South Carolina were trained at Camp Saxton, named after General Rufus Saxton, located in present day Port Royal, South Carolina and occupied the camp from November 1862 to January 1863. The regiment was a step in the evolution of Union thinking towards the escaped slaves who crossed their lines. Initially they were returned to their owners. Next they were considered contraband and employed as laborers. Finally the legal fiction that they were property was abandoned and they were allowed to enlist in the Army, although in segregated units commanded by white officers. As a holdover from the "contraband" days, black privates were paid $10 per month, the rate for laborers, rather than the $13 paid to white privates. The men served as the precedent for the over 170,000 "colored" troops who followed them into the Union Army. Harriet Tubman served with these men as a cook, nurse, spy, and scout. Susie King Taylor was born enslaved near Savanna, Georgia and escaped from slavery in the summer of 1862 during the Civil War and fled to St. Simon's Island, Georgia and encountered Company A of the 1st South Carolina Infantry. Taylor followed the 1st South Carolina back to Camp Saxton in Port Royal in October of 1862. She served as a laundress and nurse for the men and married Edward King who was a sergeant in the 1st South Carolina. During Taylor's time with the regiment she taught men in Company E how to read and write. Susie K. Taylor learned how to read and write when she was enslaved in Georgia in a secret school operated by two free Black women. Taylor remained with the regiment from August 1862 until they mustered out of service on February 9, 1866 at Fort Wagner located on Morris Island, South Carolina. Black military service during the Civil war may have been the catalyst to grant citizenship to African Americans and women under the 14th amendment, as both groups served in the war as soldiers or nurses. Frederick Douglass who was a 19th century civil rights activists believed Black Americans deserved citizenship because of their military service in the Union Army. He said: "Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U. S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship". The National Park Service has a list of soldiers that served in the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry (Colored) Regiment.

The regiment’s first commander was Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a minister, author and abolitionist. He wrote of his men, “We, their officers, did not go there to teach lessons, but to receive them. There were more than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any of my young captains had incurred in all their lives.”

During the war Higginson documented the Gullah dialect spoken by some of the men and made a record of the spirituals that they sang. Higginson later wrote a book about his experiences titled Army Life in a Black Regiment. In 1867, Higginson published the first collection of African American spirituals in the Atlantic Monthly. During the Civil war, Higginson, northern teachers, and Union soldiers in the South Carolina sea islands heard Gullah spirituals for the first time and Higginson brought Gullah spirituals to national attention in his publication. Higginson explained the lyrics were religious and about triumph. Major Seth Rogers was regimental surgeon and wrote extensive wartime letters. His nephew, Captain James Seth Rogers, previously of the 51st Massachusetts, was captain of Company B.

The regiment was re designated the 33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment on February 8, 1864.

Stephen V. Ash, Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments That Changed the Course of the Civil War (W. W. Norton & Company 2008). Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Army Life in a Black Regiment, 1869.