Kansas 1st Colored Infantry Regimental Flag
1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regimental Flag
It is amazing the things you discover when working on the family genealogy. Here is one of the latest finds.
CPL Robert Bland (2nd great grandfather) – 1st Regiment, Kansas Colored Infantry then renamed 79th USC Infantry Companies A & B. – 1862 to 1865 African American Civil War Memorial plaque number C-86. Enlisted on 05 August 1862 at Leavenworth, KS by Capt. Ward for a period of 3 years. Was promoted to Corporal on 13 Jan 1863. Promoted to Sgt on 31 Oct 1864. Has him at Pine Bluff, Ark Oct 1, 1865, where he was due $100.00 and drew $39.23. Wounded in action on 18 April 1864 at the Battle of Poison Spring, Arkansas.
The battle of Poison Spring is infamous for the Confederates' slaughter and mutilation of African American Union soldiers of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry. Poison Springs Battleground State Park, which is part of the Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark, preserves a portion of the site of the battle. The African American soldiers of the 1st Kansas (Colored) were "showed [..] no quarter". Many of the members of the Kansas regiment who fell into Confederate hands were killed and mutilated; some observers reported that Walker's Choctaws took scalps from dead Union soldiers. The 1st Kansas (Colored) lost 182 men out of 438 men who had participated in the battle. 117 of the 182 losses in the Kansas regiment were killed, which was an unusually high killed-to-wounded ratio. The site of the battlefield is preserved within Poison Springs Battleground State Park, which is part of the Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark. The state park is located 12 miles (19 km) from Camden, Arkansas and includes 84 acres of the battlefield. The Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark, which includes the Poison Spring battleground as well as other sites related to Steele's campaign, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
From History.com “The determined soldiers of the 1st Kansas stopped the first two Rebel attacks, but they were running low on ammunition. A third assault overwhelmed the Kansans, and the rout was on. Williams gathered the remnants of his force and retreated from the abandoned wagons. More than 300 Yankee troops were killed, wounded, or captured, while the Confederates lost just 13 killed and 81 wounded. Most shocking was the Rebel treatment of the black troops. No black troops were captured, and those left wounded on the battlefield were brutally killed, scalped, and stripped. The Washington Telegraph, the major Confederate newspaper in Arkansas, justified the atrocity by declaring "We cannot treat Negroes taken in arms as prisoners of war without a destruction of social system for which we contend."
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