Into a Trap

Into a Trap. A brave, and futile, attack. At about 10 A.M. on December 15, 1864, the first day of the Battle of Nashville, cheers and gunfire filled the air here as U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) in the 14th, 44th, and 17th regiments of Col. Thomas Morgan's First Colored Brigade rushed from behind you across the ground in your front to attack entrenched Confederate troops approximately 600 yards away., Suddenly, the Black soldiers encountered the 20-foot-deep cut of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, which had been undetected during a pre-attack reconnaissance. Union commanders also underestimated the strength of the Confederate line and failed to notice a four-gun artillery battery., Confederate infantry and artillery fire hammered the USCT trapped in the railroad cut. Then Confederate infantry swung into a position across the mouth of the cut to complete the trap. The brave USCT units were defeated in less than 10 minutes. The 17th USCT alone lost 110 enlisted men and seven officers., Most of the Union troops in this area retreated to Murfreesboro Pike behind you. The next day, USCT regiments also fought valiantly at Peach Orchard Hill, five miles south of here., "Colored soldiers had fought side by side with white troops. They had assisted each other from the field when wounded, and they lay side by side in death..." , Col. Thomas Morgan , From, Reminiscences of Service With Colored Troops in the Army of the Cumberland, 1863-65, (captions) , More than 178,000 African American men, like this soldier wearing his winter overcoat, served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Courtesy Library of Congress, Col. Thomas Morgan, USCT Brigade Commander. Courtesy Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park, Col. Morgan had not been able to properly scout the Confederate lines before his attack. He thought his men only faced a line of weak earthworks, but his brave troops encountered a stout lunette, a canyon-like railroad cut and devastating fire from four cannons. All proved too much for the assaulting USCT infantrymen, who suffered heavily.