COLORED TROOPS AT THE BATTLE OF WESTPORT, MISSOURI IN 1864

Thursday, May 26, 2011 By Rev. Dr. Larry D. Coleman 2nd Vice President, Civil War Roundtable of Kansas City ‘COLORED’ TROOPS AT THE “BATTLE OF WESTPORT” IN 1864 I had long wondered whether black troops had fought in the “Battle of Westport?” Said long-ranging battle, involving a combined 40,000 troops, was the most prominent battle to be fought in or near Kansas City during the Civil War, 1861-1865. No one gave me a straight answer. I intuited, however, that black troops must have done so, given the “Kansas dynamic,” that tendency of bold and resolute Kansans to launch black troops into battle, whether officially sanctioned or not by Washington. Well, I can now categorically state my intuition was accurate! Black--"Colored"-- troops definitely fought in the “Battle of Westport,” in October 1864, and did so under the command of colored officers, William D. Matthews, Lieutenant, and Patrick H. Minor, Lieutenant. The evidence is linked below. They were known as "The Independent Kansas Colored Battery." As things turned out, they were indeed truly “independent” in the sense that they were not officially mustered into the Union army, until December 1864 at Ft. Scott, Kansas. Their status was similar to that of the “First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry,” the first black unit to fight in the Civil War in October 1862, winning the “Skirmish at Island Mound.” They defeated a much larger force of Confederate “irregulars” in Bates County, eight miles southwest of Butler, Missouri, near the Osage River. Both Kansas “colored” units were mustered into the Union army, long after they had already rendered signal service. The “Independent Kansas Colored Battery’s” formation, however, was officially sanctioned by order of U.S. Secretary of War E.M. Stanton. Not so, for “The First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry”. It was not only “not authorized” by Washington, but was independently formed, organized, and out-fitted by Kansas U. S. Senator James Lane (“The Grim Senator”) at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas before Abraham Lincoln issued the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation . In fact, General Lane directly disregarded Lincoln’s countermanding directive not to go forth. The First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry was mustered in January 13, 1863. http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/first-kansas-colored-infantry/12052 The “Independent Kansas Colored Battery,” long before it was officially mustered into the Union Army, had already fought with the Kansas militia as part of the Third Federal Brigade, under the command of Major General Samuel R. Curtis, the same commander of Ft. Leavenworth, who had requested and received permission for its formation, as a “colored battery” under “colored officers.” In the Battle of Westport, the Union forces defeated and diverted Confederate General Sterling Price’s last desperate offensive foray into Missouri, and sent him retreating “back to Arkansas.” The unit was mustered in under the command of Hezekiah Ford Douglass. All of its officers were black, which was an exceedingly rare occurrence during the Civil War, or any American war! http://www.kansasguardmuseum.org/dispunit.php?id=2 PHOTO: LT. WILLIAM D. MATTHEWS, INDEPENDENT KANSAS COLORED BATTERY