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1st South Carolina Volunteers (Union)
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{{Infobox military unit |unit_name= 1st Regiment South Carolina Volunteer Infantry (African Descent) |image=[[File:Flag of South Carolina.svg|100px]] |caption=South Carolina state flag |dates= January 31, 1863 to February 8, 1864 |country= [[United States]] |allegiance= [[United States|United States of America]]<br/>[[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] |branch= [[Infantry]] |equipment= [[Rifled musket]]s |battles= }} The '''First South Carolina Volunteers''' was a [[Union Army]] [[regiment]] during the [[American Civil War]]. It was composed of escaped [[slavery|slaves]] from [[South Carolina]] and [[Florida]]. There had been previous attempts to form black units in [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] and [[Kansas]], but they were not officially recognized. The [[54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry]], whose exploits are memorialized in the movie [[Glory (film)|''Glory'']], was formed afterwards and drew from free [[Northern United States|Northern]] blacks. Department of the South staff officer [[James D. Fessenden]] was heavily involved in efforts to recruit volunteers for the 1st South Carolina. Although it saw some combat, the regiment was not involved in any of the war's major battles. Its first commander was [[Thomas Wentworth Higginson]] who was—as were all the other officers—white. A proclamation by [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] [[President of the Confederate States of America|President]] [[Jefferson Davis]] had indicated that members of the regiment would not be treated as [[prisoners of war]] if taken in battle{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}. The enlisted men would be auctioned off as slaves and the white officers were to be hanged. The threat was not carried out officially. The regiment was a step in the evolution of Union thinking towards the escaped slaves who crossed their lines. Initially they were returned to their owners. Next they were considered [[Contraband (American Civil War)|contrabands]] and used as laborers. Finally the legal fiction that they were property was abandoned and they were allowed to enlist in the Army, although in segregated units commanded by white officers. As a hangover from the "contraband" days, black [[private (rank)|privates]] were paid $10 per month, the rate for laborers, rather than the $13 paid to white privates. Besides serving as the precedent for the over 170,000 [[United States Colored Troops|"colored" troops]] that served in the Union Army the men have significance in cultural history. Their first commander, Col. Thomas W. Higginson, a significant literary figure, was able to document the [[Gullah]] dialect spoken by the men and make a record of the [[spirituals]] that they sang, material that might otherwise not have been as well preserved. The regiment was re-designated the [[33rd Infantry Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops]] on February 8, 1864. ==See also== [[List of Union South Carolina Civil War Units]] {{Portal box|United States Army|American Civil War}} ==References== * Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, [http://mac110.assumption.edu/aas/Manuscripts/higginson.html ''Army Life in a Black Regiment''], 1869. [[Category:South Carolina Union Army regiments|Infantry, 001]] [[Category:African American units of the American Civil War|South Carolina Infantry, 001]] [[fr:First South Carolina Volunteers]]
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