Black Union Soldiers: 180,000 Serve, Face Unequal Pay and Confederate Murder

The Bureau of Colored Troops was established May 22, 1863; by war's end approximately 180,000 Black men served in 175 regiments of the United States Colored Troops. Black soldiers received $10 per month versus $13 for white soldiers (with $3 deducted for clothing) — a wage disparity that Black soldiers and abolitionists protested for two years until Congress equalized pay in June 1864. The Confederate government declared it would execute Black Union soldiers as insurrectionists rather than treat them as prisoners of war. The Fort Pillow Massacre (April 12, 1864) saw Confederate forces under Nathan Bedford Forrest kill approximately 300 Black Union soldiers who had surrendered, the most notorious of multiple documented massacres.