[cowboyway]

"An estimated 1,500 African-American volunteers from the Philadelphia area had traveled north to enlist in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first famous black regiment, because of racist opposition in the so-called City of Brotherly Love. Sometimes black soldiers from Camp Penn were beaten unmercifully by white mobs if they were caught in the wrong part of town." (emphasis added)

African-American Soldiers Trained at Camp William Penn

[stand watie]

i'm NOT surprised. on the whole "the lot" of the "person of colour" was HARD anywhere in that period, but especially so in the "oh, so wunnerful, wunnerful" DAMNyankeeland.( fwiw, my college roomie tells me that the OBVBIOUS & PERVASIVE racism in the NORTH was why he quit the Celtics & went home to Arkansas to be the Superintendent of Schools in his hometown, about 10 years ago.)

free dixie,sw

[Non-Sequitur]

The 54th Massachusetts went on to compile an enviable combat record, as did many other black regiments in the Union army. While the confederacy, apparently, spent 4 years coming up with their all-black training camps for when they eventually got around to allowing black combat troops to be conscripted.