they should be used to preserve the Government,” Stringham asked permission to recruit these fugitive slaves. Arguing that “if Negroes are to be used in this contest. Glisson wrote to Commodore Stringham asking for advice, and Stringham wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles with an idea. Glisson, had fifteen refugees on his ship, none of whom he intended to return to their owners. The commander of one vessel, Commander O.S. It faced two major problems: a shortage of manpower and an abundance of fugitive slaves flocking to the Union fleet. Stringham, sought to blockade the entire Eastern Seaboard of the Confederacy. When the Civil War began, the United States Navy’s Atlantic Squadron, commanded by Commodore Silas H. Courtesy of Special Collections and College Archives, Gettysburg College. The entire Union military totaled 2,000,000 one in ten Union soldiers was a black man. Approximately 19,000 black men served in the Navy, a much smaller number than the 180,000 who served in on land. The resulting exhibit catalog is available at Special Collections, where the exhibit will run through December 18, 2017. During the spring of 2017, we asked the CWI Fellows to select a item on exhibit and discuss its history and context. This post comes from the exhibit catalog for “Right to Serve, Right to Lead: Lives and Legacies of the USCT,” an exhibition in Special Collections and College Archives at Musselman Library, Gettysburg College.
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