Ambrotype of unnamed soldier from the 29th Regiment – Stamford Historical Society. Used through Public Domain.
Last Updated: January 7, 2025
On March 8, 1864, the state’s first African American regiment, the Connecticut Twenty-Ninth (Colored) Regiment, C.V. Infantry, mustered into service to fight for the Union’s cause in the Civil War. The United States government allowed African American soldiers to enlist starting in July 1862, but only in separate Black regiments. The official call “for recruiting colored volunteers” came the following November under Connecticut Adjutant General’s General Orders No. 17. Most of the men joined the regiment in the last three months of the year when the volunteers were encamped in the Fair Haven section of New Haven. By January 1864, more than 1,200 men had enlisted and the regiment had met the quota for the number of recruits necessary to form a regiment.
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