Poetry

i. Figures One through Two

by  Aaron Coleman

Twenty-Fifth United States Colored Regiment This regiment was recruited for the most part in Pennsylvania, and was organized at Camp William Penn, in February, 1864, with the following field officers: Gustavus A. Scroggs, Colonel; Frederick L. Hitchcock, Lieu- tenant Colonel; James W. H. Reisinger, Major. Colonel Scroggs was ordered by the President to proceed with his regiment to Indianola, Texas, and there re- cruit three other regiments from among the freedmen, which should with his own, constitute a brigade, of which he was to be appointed Brigadier General. Accordingly, the Colonel sailed with the right wing of the regiment on the 15th of March, for New Orleans, on the steamer Suwanee, with orders to report to General Banks. In a storm off Hatteras, the steamer sprung a leak. The water rose to within a foot of the fires, although the ship’s pumps were in active ope- ration. The men were put to work with buckets, and after thirty-six hours of the most strenuous and incessant exertions to keep her afloat, she was brought into the harbor of Beaufort, North Carolina, where she was abandoned. This threw the battalion under the command of General Wessels, at a time when the enemy was closely pressing the siege of Little Washington, and it was im- mediately ordered into the defenses. Here it was kept upon the front until the emergency had passed, when it was sent forward to its destination, arriv- ing about the 1st of May. In the meantime, the left wing, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Hitchcock, had proceeded without detention, and on its arrival at New Orleans, had encamped at Carrolton, a few miles above the city. The regiment arrived in New Orleans, during the progress of the Red River campaign, which having ended in disaster, so modified the situation of affairs, that General Banks, who was in command of the department, refused to allow the regiment to go forward to Indianola. Colonel Scroggs, thereupon resigned, and Lieutenant Colonel HitchcockSee alt text from first image

 

Author’s note: This erasured handmade map was crafted through and over Samuel Penniman Bates’s chapter on the 25th United States Colored Regiment in his History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861–65 (first published in 1869). My great, great, great-grandfather served in the 25th US Colored Regiment during the Civil War. Forthcoming in Red Wilderness (2025).


Photo by Marcus Jackson

Aaron Coleman is the author of Red Wilderness (Four Way Books, 2025), among other titles, and the translator of Nicolás Guillén’s The Great Zoo (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Coleman is an assistant professor of English and comparative literature in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan.

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