Figure 4

Citation

Unknown Photographer Photographer photographer. “Union soldier.” circa 1863. Greg French Collection. Mirror of Race, 11 Feb. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/127. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Title

Union soldier

Subject

Union soldier

Creator

Unknown Photographer Photographer photographer

Date

circa 1863

Type

Studio Portrait

Identifier

Figure 4

Rights Holder

Greg French Collection

Original Format

Ambrotype

Factual Commentary

This young man is a new recruit in the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Starting in 1863, nearly 200,000 free African Americans, as well as those who escaped from slavery during the war, served in the Union Army and fought in the Civil War. Abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass argued for allowing them into the army: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters US, let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”