Of all the avenues open to American citizenship the commissioned ranks of the army and navy have been the stubbornest to yield to the newly enfranchised.  Colored men have filled almost every kind of public office or trust save the Chief Magistracy.  They have been members of both Houses of Congress, and are employed in all the executive branches of the Government, but no Negro has as yet succeeded in invading the commissioned force of the navy, and his advance in the army has been exceedingly slight.  Since the war, as has been related, but three Negroes have been graduated from the National Military Academy at West Point; of these one was speedily crowded out of the service; another reached the grade of First Lieutenant and died untimely; the third, First Lieutenant Charles Young, late Major of the 9th Ohio Battalion, U.S.  Volunteers, together with four colored Chaplains, constitute the sole colored commissioned force of our Regular Army.

Although Negroes fought in large numbers in both the Revolution and the War of 1812, there is no instance of any Negro attaining or exercising the rank of commissioned officer.  It is a curious bit of history, however, that in the Civil War those who were fighting to keep colored men enslaved were the first to commission colored officers.  In Louisiana but a few days after the outbreak of the war, the free colored population of New Orleans organized a military organization, called the “Native Guard,” which was accepted into the service of the State and its officers were duly commissioned by the Governor.[26]

These Negro soldiers were the first to welcome General Butler when he entered New Orleans, and the fact of the organization of the “Native Guard” by the Confederates was used by General Butler as the basis for the organization of three colored regiments of “Native Guards,” all the line officers of which were colored men.  Governor Pinchback, who was a captain in one of these regiments, tells the fate of these early colored officers.

“There were,” he writes, “in New Orleans some colored soldiers known as ‘Native Guards’ before the arrival of the Federal soldiers, but I do not know much about them.  It was a knowledge of this fact that induced General Butler, then in command of the Department of the Gulf, to organize three regiments of colored soldiers, viz:  The First, Second and Third Regiments of Native Guards.

“The First Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards, Colonel Stafford commanding, with all the field officers white, and a full complement of line officers (30) colored, was mustered into service at New Orleans September 27, 1862, for three years.  Soon after General Banks took command of the department and changed the designation of the regiment to First Infantry, Corps d’Afrique.  April 4th, 1864, it was changed again to Seventy-third United States Colored Infantry.

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