The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was organized by Senator
James Henry Lane at
Fort Scott,
Kansas and mustered in as a battalion of six companies on January 13, 1863 for three years. Four additional companies were recruited and mustered in between January 13 and May 2, 1863. It mustered in under the command of Colonel
James Monroe Williams. , Colonel of 1st Kansas Colored Infantry The regiment was recruited without federal authorization and against the wishes of Secretary of War
Edwin M. Stanton.
James H. Lane, recruiting commissioner for Kansan territory north of the
Kansas River, on August 4, 1862, authorized raising the regiment. Recruiting officials enlisted black men across eastern Kansas, most of whom were formerly enslaved in Missouri. Some were emancipated, and many had escaped to freedom. It was the first African-American regiment to see combat during the Civil War, in the
skirmish at Island Mound, in
Bates County, Missouri, in October 1862. The regiment's Company D had three black officers,
William D. Matthews and his two lieutenants, Henry Copeland and Patrick Minor, who were not allowed commissions as officers when the regiment was formally mustered into the Union army. The regiment was attached to
Department of Kansas to June 1863. Maj. Gen.
James G. Blunt, commander of the Union forces at the
Battle of Honey Springs, was particularly impressed by the performance of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry at that engagement. They repulsed a Confederate charge, inflicting many casualties, and, after Colonel Williams was badly wounded, continued to fight and made an orderly withdrawal. Afterwards, he wrote: "I never saw such fighting as was done by the Negro regiment....The question that negroes will fight is settled; besides they make better soldiers in every respect than any troops I have ever had under my command." The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry ceased to exist on December 13, 1864, when it became a U.S. Army unit. Its designation was changed to the
79th Regiment Infantry U.S. Colored Troops. Also attached to the regiment at some point was Armstrong's Battery Light Artillery, a unit for which few details are known. ==In popular culture==