Camp Stanton

Camp Stanton. Training Ground for Equality. , Imagine the now-quiet fields south of Rt. 231 full of activity that signified a revolutionary shift in American society. Shouted commands and gunfire filled the air as Black men, some formerly enslaved, learned to march and fire their weapons as new recruits in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) at Camp Stanton, a recruiting and training post named for Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The camp operated at this location between August 1863 and March 1864., Although Black soldiers had served in the nation's armed forces since the Revolutionary war, they were barred from the U.S. Army during the Civil War until President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The 7th, 9th, 19th, and 30th USCT regiments were organized and/or trained at Camp Stanton. All the units saw intense fighting around Petersburg and Richmond, Va., during the last campaigns of the war., The Lincoln administration chose this location as a USCT training camp to recruit from the large African American population in southern Maryland and to suppress pro-Confederate sentiment in the region. The white commander of the 9th USCT, Col. Samuel Armstrong, described nearby Benedict as a "horrible hole, a rendezvous for blockade runners, deserters, and such trash; good for nothing but oysters....", Camp Stanton's waterside location proved unhealthy, and dozens of recruits died of disease, prompting the camp's March 1864 closure. The camp was burned to the ground, and the dead buried at Camp Stanton's cemetery were later reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery., (captions) , Dr. Alexander Augusta of the 7th USCT served as the first African American surgeon in U.S. Army history. He also served for a time as camp Stanton's chief surgeon. After the war Augusta taught at Howard University as America's first African American medical professor. Courtesy Oblate Sisters of Providence Archives, Baltimore, Md., Minié balls excavated by archaeologists at Camp Stanton reflect a massive social change. Black men who could not legally own guns before the war became armed federal employees when they joined the USCT., Sgt. Jacob Johns trained with the 19th USCT at Camp Stanton. The 19th fought around Petersburg and Richmond, Va., and was present when Gen. Robert E. Lee's army surrendered at Appomattox Court House. - Courtesy NMAAHC