In late January, 1863, Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts received permission to raise a regiment of African American soldiers. This was the first black regimented to be organized in the north. The pace of organizing additional regiments, however, was very slow. In an effort to speed the process, in March, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton dispatched Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant General of the Army, to the lower Mississippi Valley to recruit African Americans.

With sweeping authority and huge responsibilities, Thomas was to explain the administration’s policy regarding these new African American recruits, as well as find volunteers to raise and command the new troops. On May 10, 1863, in the yard of the Verandah House, General Thomas gave a speech to the Corinth’s white garrison, seeking to build support for his mission. This event was captured in a picture later featured in Volume II of The Photographic History of the Civil War.

General Thomas also toured the Corinth Contraband Camp with its superintendent, James Alexander, riding its streets, visiting its school and hospital, and examining its produce gardens and cotton fields. Impressed by what he saw, Thomas promised the inhabitants he would report their progress with the camp and cooperative farming practices to President Lincoln.

General Thomas’s endeavor was very successful: On May 21, 1863, volunteers from the Corinth Contraband Camp formed the 1^st Alabama Infantry Regiment of African Descent, and one day later, the United States War Department issued Order No. 143, establishing the Bureau of Colored Troops.