(CIVIL WAR AFRICAN AMERICANS) General Order on court martia

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(CIVIL WAR--AFRICAN-AMERICANS.) General Order on court martial of an African-American soldier in the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. 2 pages, 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches, signed in type by Assistant Adjutant General E.D. Townsend by order of the Secretary of War [Edwin Stanton]; two punch holes in left margin, unevenly trimmed to text. Washington, 18 February 1864

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General Orders No. 60 of the War Department, reporting on the trial of Private Jonas Aikins, accused of mutinous conduct--he had refused an order and muttered "I would like to shoot every white officer." Aikins was judged guilty and sentenced to be shot to death, but the sentence was here commuted by order of President Lincoln to 12 months of hard labor. The 1st South Carolina Volunteers was the first African-American regiment in the Union army, and was composed of escaped slaves. The regiment was later known as the 33rd United States Colored Troops.