Cemeteries holding the remains of veterans of the segregated Civil War regiments and their successor units.
The United States Colored Troops
The United States Colored Troops (USCT) was the federal designation for the regiments of African American soldiers who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Roughly 180,000 Black men served in USCT regiments between 1863 and 1865, comprising approximately ten percent of total Union enlistments. Of those, an estimated 40,000 died in service, the great majority from disease rather than combat. The veterans of the USCT, and their immediate descendants, formed a substantial portion of the African American community of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the burial grounds in which they were interred carry a particular weight.
National Cemeteries and the USCT
Many USCT soldiers who died during the war were interred in the network of national cemeteries established by the federal government during and after the conflict. These cemeteries — including Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina, Chalmette National Cemetery in Louisiana, and dozens of others — contain the remains of USCT soldiers in segregated sections, marked with the standard government-issued white marble headstones bearing the unit and date of death. The Department of Veterans Affairs continues to maintain these graves and offers an online locator that can identify the burial site of any USCT soldier whose remains were recovered.
Civilian Cemeteries and Postwar Burials
USCT veterans who survived the war and lived into the late nineteenth or early twentieth century were typically buried not in national cemeteries but in the local Black church and society cemeteries of their hometowns. Many such burials are marked with a standard government-issued military headstone obtained through the United States War Department's program for furnishing markers for the graves of veterans, a program that has continued in various forms to the present day. These markers, distinct in form from civilian monuments, are an immediate visual indicator of a USCT burial in a historic Black cemetery.
Buffalo Soldiers and Successor Units
After the dissolution of the USCT in 1865, the U.S. Army established four segregated regular regiments — the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry — that became collectively known as the Buffalo Soldiers. These regiments served on the western frontier through the late nineteenth century and in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, and World War I. The successor segregated units of the twentieth century — the 369th Infantry Regiment (Harlem Hellfighters), the Tuskegee Airmen, the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, and others — produced veterans who, in death, were similarly interred in segregated sections of national cemeteries or in Black community cemeteries with military markers.
Identifying USCT and Successor-Unit Burials
Researchers seeking to identify USCT and successor-unit burials in a historic Black cemetery should look for government-issued military headstones (typically white marble, slightly arched at the top, bearing the soldier's name, unit, and dates), for the distinctive Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) star markers placed by the postwar veterans' organization, and for unit affiliations recorded in church burial registers. The records of the GAR, the United Spanish War Veterans, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and various unit-specific veterans' associations are valuable supplementary sources, as are the archives of historically Black colleges with substantial veteran enrollments under the GI Bill.
Honoring USCT Burials Today
USCT and successor-unit burials in historic Black cemeteries are honored each year in Memorial Day and Veterans Day observances organized by descendant communities, veterans' organizations, and increasingly by professional historians. The replacement of weathered or missing military markers, available at no cost through the Department of Veterans Affairs for any veteran of the United States armed forces, is one of the most concrete ways in which descendant communities can ensure that the service of these soldiers is recognized in perpetuity.