Marching Song of The First Arkansas - History

History

Although Congress had passed a confiscation act and a militia act in July 1862, permitting freed slaves to serve in the Union Army, President Abraham Lincoln was reluctant to enlist blacks as soldiers. After Union Army setbacks in battles during 1862, Lincoln announced in September that effective January 1, 1863, all slaves in Confederate territory would be free. Beginning in 1863, recruitment of black soldiers proceeded with Lincoln's approval.

The First Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment (African Descent) began recruiting among former slaves in Helena, Arkansas following Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, and was officially established on May 1. In June the regiment saw action at Mound Plantation, Mississippi, and at Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana, where the unit remained through January 1864. The unit then moved to Haines Bluff near Vicksburg, Mississippi until May 1864. The Union Army standardized the varied names of colored regiments as “United States Colored Troops” (U.S.C.T.), and the First Arkansas became the “46th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry” on May 11, 1864.

Lindley Miller was the son of Jacob W. Miller, who served as a U.S. Senator of the Whig Party from New Jersey between 1841 and 1853. His mother was the former Mary Louisa Macculloch, daughter of wealthy Morristown, New Jersey engineer and businessman George P. Macculloch, who designed and built the Morris Canal.

Lindley Miller was admitted to the bar in 1855, and established a successful law practice in New York City. Even as a young man, he was a noted orator and poet. After President Lincoln's proclamation of war in April 1861, he enlisted as a private in the 7th Regiment, New York State Militia, known as the “Silk Stocking Regiment” for its elite membership. He married Anne Huntington Tracy of Manhattan in May 1862. In August 1863, Anne Miller died after childbirth, at age 24, and their infant child died a week later. Heartbroken, Lindley Miller sought to become an officer with a colored regiment. He received a commission as captain in the First Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment (African Descent) in November 1863.

Captain Miller first mentions the “Marching Song” in a letter from Vicksburg to his mother in Morristown, dated January 20, 1864. “I wrote a song for them to the tune of ‘John Brown’ the other day, which the whole Regiment sings. I sent a copy of it to Anthony” (Lindley's brother-in-law, Anthony Quinton Keasbey, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey from 1861 to 1868, married to Lindley's older sister, Edwina). Keasbey sent the song to the National Anti-Slavery Standard, where it appeared in the February 27, 1864 issue. Recognized for his excellent service, Miller was promoted to Major and assigned to a Missouri regiment, but never took up his new commission. On sick leave at his home, Miller died on June 30, 1864, at age 30, from a fever he had acquired during his service with the First Arkansas.

The “Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment” is known today through the song sheet issued by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia. The “Song of the First of Arkansas,” written in dialect, was one of several broadsides issued by the Committee for recruitment purposes. The broadside had this brief introduction: “The following song was written by Captain Lindley Miller, of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment. Captain Miller says the ‘boys’ sing the song on dress parade with an effect which can hardly be described, and he adds that ‘while it is not very conservative, it will do to fight with.’ Captain Miller is a son of the late ex-Senator Miller, of New Jersey.” The song was also included in a collection of Union Army songs published in New York in 1864.

Irwin Silber, editor of Sing Out! from 1951 to 1967, introduced the song to a mid-20th-century audience in his Songs of the Civil War, published in 1960 in conjunction with the Civil War Centennial observance from 1961 to 1965. Silber thought it likely that the song represented a collaboration between Miller and his troops. Silber edited the song to standard English and titled it “Marching Song of the First Arkansas (Negro) Regiment.”