Birney, William

Life Span
to
    Full name
    William Birney
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Siblings
    2
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    9
    Family
    James Gillespie Birney (father), Agatha McDowell (mother), Catherine Hoffman (wife, 1845)
    Education
    Yale
    Occupation
    Military
    Attorney or Judge
    Educator
    Journalist
    Writer or Artist
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)
    Government
    Grant Administration (1869-77)
    Military
    Union Army

    William Birney (American National Bibliography)

    Scholarship
    Long in favor of enlisting African Americans, Birney supervised the recruiting of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCTs) early in 1863. With characteristic energy, he personally raised seven regiments composed of black residents of Maryland, including the inmates of slave prisons he liberated. On 22 May Birney was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers. In this capacity he was able to fulfill an oft-stated desire "to give the colored troops a fair chance of distinction in the field." He was assigned a brigade of USCTs in the Department of the South, which he commanded at Beaufort, South Carolina, and later at Jacksonville, Florida. In both locales he protected government property and Unionist citizens while conducting limited offensives with white soldiers as well as Colored Troops. His preference for the latter, however, was never in doubt; on at least one occasion he offered to trade white units for an equal numbered of USCTs.
    Edward G. Longacre, "Pemberton, John Clifford," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00068.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Birney, William," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5107.