An Historically Important Newspaper - Reports the First Combat of Negro Troops

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/22/2011

Newspaper, The Evening Post, Semi Weekly, New York, October 14, 1862, 4pp., 23" x 30," disbound, loose at spine else VG. From an interior page, "General Lane's Negro Troops Repulsed." The report is dated October 8th, "Last night a dispatch of General Lane's Negro brigade attempted to cross the river from Wyandotte Kansas, to attack the rebels of Clay county, Missouri, when they were met on the Missouri bank by a company of Missouri State Militia and driven back. Several shots were fired, but little damage was done to either party."In August 1862, notorious Jayhawker, Jim Lane, began recruiting black soldiers, mostly former slaves from Missouri, into the army. Within a month, Lane formed seven companies of the First Kansas Colored Regiment. The skirmish at Island Mound occurred on Oct. 29, 1862, in Bates County, Mo. was a minor encounter, but it has been recognized as the first combat action by African-American soldiers during the Civil War. This report of the same troops predates that skirmish by fully three weeks!

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