The United States Colored Troops (USCT) were regiments of the United States Army during the American Civil War that were composed of African American ("colored") soldiers. First recruited in 1863, by the end of the Civil War, the men of the 175 regiments of the USCT constituted approximately one-tenth of the Union Army.
African Americans in the United States Army in decades after the war became known as the Buffalo Soldiers; they fought in the Indian Wars later in the nineteenth century and received their nickname in the American West.
Read more about United States Colored Troops: History, Notable Actions, Awards, Postbellum, Legacy, Legacy and Honors, Numbers of United States Colored Troops By State, North and South
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, colored and/or troops:
“You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1816–1902)
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadership in industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about colored women, and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So I’m for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again.”
—Sojourner Truth (1797–1883)
“A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)