Military Service and Civil War
The Civil War began the following year, and Stewart decided to fight on the side of the Union. In 1862 he furtively made his way into New Orleans, which had just been captured by the Union Army. He raised several companies for the Union's all-black 1st Louisiana Native Guards Regiment, which was garrisoned in the city. A minority of men were Louisiana Creoles of color, part of the educated class; most were runaway slaves. Commissioned a captain, he was one of the Union Army's few commissioned officers of African-American ancestry. He became Company Commander of Company A, 2nd Louisiana Regiment Native Guard Infantry (later reformed as the 74th US Colored Infantry Regiment). Passed over twice for promotion and tired of the prejudice he encountered from white officers, Stewart resigned his commission in 1863.
At the war's end, he and his wife moved to Alabama, to test their freedom as full citizens. Racial tensions during Reconstruction resulted in shocking levels of violence. Stewart returned with his family to New Orleans.
Read more about this topic: P. B. S. Pinchback
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, military, service, civil and/or war:
“I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious. For that we care for them; from that have issued endless consequences.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“[I]t is a civil Cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military Fear to be slow in attacking when it is your Duty.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only twenty seconds of war to destroy him.”
—Baudouin I (b. 1930)