Researchers find over 2,000 U.S. Colored Troops who were prisoners of war

Actual photograph (one of just a few) of a known black prisoner of war. Pictured is Hubbard Pryor, of the 44th USCT, who was captured at Dalton, GA on October 13, 1864. Pryor, age 22, of Polk County, GA survived the war. Soldiers from the 110th USCT and 111th USCT were among approximately 900 black soldiers captured at Athens, AL by General Nathan Bedford Forest in September 1864. Forest, most famous for his atrocities in killing black soldiers at Fort Pillow, took them to Cahaba Prison where they were either returned to their slave owners or made to work on the nearby railroad.  File of USCT POW showing name, regiment, company, date of capture, etc. These are the file researchers are taking their data from. Each prisoner in a Confederate facility had one of these cards filled out. Many show multiple prisons as they were often moved from one site to another.View the list »
US Colored Troops

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Researchers from WV, MD and GA continue to uncover the names of many more black POWs from Confederate prisons than previously were known.

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Historians traditionally thought the number of U.S. Colored Troops who actually made it into Confederate prisons was a number around 776 soldiers. It had originally been thought that most black's captured by the Confederates never made it into a prison camp. That has alos been proven untrue by this new study.

Within just two USCT regiments alone, the 110th USCT and the 111th USCT, captured in and around Athens, AL on September 24 and 25, 1864, 744 were prisoners of war. They were among 863 black prisoners who are known to have been held in Cahaba Prison near Selma, AL.

Salisbury Prison in Salisbury, NC had about 500 black prisoners. Andersonville Prison in Georgia had another 105, though new names have emerged in recent weeks pushing that number to neared 200 black prisoners.

The total of black prisoners to date including searching through the first 114 U.S.C.T. regiments include 1908 soldiers and 104 sailors, a total of 2,012, who were incarcerated. An additional 86,000 records still need to be examined before a final total can be calculated.

Most of the men that are listed on the National USCT POW database which will eventually be available for search on-line and in published form, were captured at Athens, AL; Olustee, FL; Fort Pillow, TN; Fort Wagner, SC; Dalton, GA; and at the Crater, in Petersburg, VA.

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  • File of USCT POW showing name, regiment, company, date of capture, etc. These are the file researchers are taking their data from. Each prisoner in a Confederate facility had one of these cards filled out. Many show multiple prisons as they were often moved from one site to another.
  • Soldiers from the 110th USCT and 111th USCT were among approximately 900 black soldiers captured at Athens, AL by General Nathan Bedford Forest in September 1864. Forest, most famous for his atrocities in killing black soldiers at Fort Pillow, took them to Cahaba Prison where they were either returned to their slave owners or made to work on the nearby railroad.  
  • Actual photograph (one of just a few) of a known black prisoner of war. Pictured is Hubbard Pryor, of the 44th USCT, who was captured at Dalton, GA on October 13, 1864. Pryor, age 22, of Polk County, GA survived the war. 
  • Jerhvon T. Pearman, reenacting Corporal James Gooding, 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and his incarceration at Andersonville Prison. Gooding, captured on February 20, 1864 at Olustee, FL died in the prison on July 19, 1864. 
  • Volunteers depict a portion of the 45,000 prisoners held at Andersonville Prison during 1864. Among their numbers were 105 US Colored Troops. Almost 13,000 died in the prison including 34 of the 105 black prisoners. Event in the photograph is an annual living history program at the National Historic Site.
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, Civil War Examiner

Bob O'Connor is the author of six Civil War books. His areas of expertise include the U.S. Colored Troops, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln's personal bodyguard, and brothers fighting against brothers. He presents a very authentic first person living history portrayal of Ward Hill Lamon, Abraham...

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