Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth United States Colored Troops

The Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth U.S. Colored Troops were formed from “men who, though…of a lower grade of physique that that which is acceptable in the regular army” and were tasked with guarding contraband camps and protecting them from guerrilla raids.

The original Ninth Regiment Louisiana Volunteers of African Descent was organized at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on May 1, 1863, and served in Louisiana and Mississippi until it was redesignated as the First Mississippi Heavy Artillery of African Descent on September 26, 1863.

In October 1863, General Ulysses S. Grant asked John Eaton Jr., who was serving as the General Superintendent of Freedmen for the Department of the Tennessee, including Arkansas, to organize “a sort of Home Guard,—a colored military force, within the regular army, which should perform the duties required of troops in protecting the plantations, the wood-cutting operations, and the various enterprises undertaken beneath our superintendence.” Eaton was appointed as colonel of the reorganized Ninth Regiment Louisiana Volunteers of African Descent on October 2.

On November 5, 1863, Eaton was authorized to raise a second regiment, the Seventh Regiment Louisiana Volunteers of African Descent, which was organized at Memphis, Tennessee; Holly Springs, Mississippi; and Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River on December 1, 1863. On March 11, 1864, these units received new designations, with the Ninth Louisiana becoming the Sixty-third and the Seventh Louisiana becoming the Sixty-fourth U.S. Colored Infantry, which historian Louis S. Gerteis wrote were “consisting of [B]lack men unfit for active service but not wholly disabled, providing the means for maintaining the entire contraband population under martial law.” (The Union army had authorized an Invalid Corps in April 1863 to allow soldiers who were not fit for active duty to handle lighter duties so that able-bodied troops could fight the enemy.)

Several companies of each regiment saw service in Arkansas. Company B of the Sixty-third USCT was at the Johnston Farm (apparently a contraband camp) near Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) from May to June of 1865, “doing guard and fatigue duty.” Company D left Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River on April 13, 1864, and arrived at Helena (Phillips County) five days later. They served at Helena and the contraband camp at Fort Pinney until June 1865. Company G was at Helena from December 1863 to February 1864, then at nearby Freedmen’s Fort in March and April 1864, then back in Helena in May and June before returning to Freedmen’s Fort from July 1864 to April 1865, moving to Island No. 60 the following month. Company K served primarily near Memphis, Tennessee, before leaving on May 30, 1865, “for Pine Bluff, Arkansas, near which post we have been performing picket and outpost duty,” an officer wrote. “The efficiency of the company is much improved since it moved from President’s Island” near Memphis. They were stationed at Washington’s Farm near Pine Bluff.

Company A of the Sixty-fourth USCT was stationed at Pine Bluff from March to December 1864. Company B was at Freedmen’s Fort near Helena from February 1 to October 31, 1864, later serving in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The Sixty-third USCT mustered out on January 9, 1866, with the Sixty-fourth mustering out on March 13, 1866.

For additional information:
Dyer, Frederick. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Des Moines, IA: Dyer Publishing Co., 1908, pp. 1214, 1733.

Eaton, John. Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen: Reminiscences of the Civil War with Special Reference to the Work for the Contraband and Freedmen of the Mississippi Valley. Edited by Micheal J. Larson and John David Smith. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2022.

Gerteis, Louis L. From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southwestern Blacks, 1861–1865. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973.

Hewett, Janet B., et al., eds. Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. 78. Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1998, pp. 433–436, 438, 441.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas