Civil War Recruitment Broadside. Image: Library of Congress

The District of Columbia's Black Civil War Regiment

November 18, 2003

On November 18, 2003, Capitol Hill historian C.R. Gibbs delivered an Overbeck lecture on the First Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops, the African American Civil War regiment that was recruited and trained in Washington, D.C.

In the spring of 1863, Israel Bethel AME Church, which stood approximately where the Rayburn House Office Building stands today, became the main recruiting station for this regiment of fugitive slaves and freedmen from throughout the region who volunteered to fight for the Union cause.

Mr. Gibbs is the author of five books on African American history, including the recently published Black, Copper & Bright: The District of Columbia 's Black Civil War Regiment . He has also written for dozens of newspapers and magazines, lectured at schools and universities throughout the Washington region and beyond, and mounted a variety of historical exhibits for museums and other organizations. His expert guidance has been sought in connection with a variety of video and television productions, and his anecdotal history tours for the Smithsonian Associates and other groups are among the best in the city.

Copies of Black, Copper & Bright and other books by Mr. Gibbs were available for purchase and signing at the end of the lecture.

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Past Lectures

October 7, 2024

The District of Columbia's Black Civil War Regiment

Past Lectures

Boathouse Row: DC’s History Seen from the Anacostia

Thomas Smallwood, the Underground Railroad, and Capitol Hill

United States Botanic Garden: 200 Years of Contributions

Capitol Hill’s Inhabited Alleys

Row Houses of Capitol Hill

Washington Navy Yard: Celebrating 224 Years in the Neighborhood

William Costin: A Tribute to Worth by His Friends.

"Hog Catcher Hog Catcher" Farm Animals on Capitol Hill

The Intersections of History: Five Parks that Changed Washington

Bridge Across History

Following the Trail of John Burroughs

Places of Protest: The Struggle for Women’s Suffrage in the Nation’s Capital

Exposing Washington's History with Archaeology's New Tools

A Monument to Literature in a City of Politics

The Green Legacy of 19th Century Washingtonians

The Razzle-Dazzle: Mary Shiner Almarolia (1833-1904)

The Washington Riots of 1968: The View from Capitol Hill

Anacostia Park - And a River Runs By It

Native Americans Who Never Left Capitol Hill

A Closer Look at Capitol Hill's Historic Alleys

Looking at the L'Enfant Plan in a New Light

Union Terminal Market, Then and Now

Capitol Hill Leisure During Segregation

Buzzard Point – From Indians to Soccer

Alexander Shepherd and the Making of Modern Washington

A Virtual Tour of Capitol Hill's Rainbow History

Frederick Douglass's Years in Washington

Capitol Hill and the Capital

Emily Edson Briggs of The Maples

Duke Ellington's Washington

The Washington Arsenal Explosion

Alice Dunnigan: A Reporter "Alone Atop the Hill"

Why Washington, D.C., Has No Vote in Congress

The President's Own: A History of the U.S. Marine Band

How the Folgers Brought the Bard to Capitol Hill

Michael Shiner's Diary, 1813-1869: A Black Man Looks at 19th Century Washington

"This is the City and I Am One of the Citizens": Walt Whitman in Washington

A City Transformed: Washington in the Civil War

Simeon Booker: Eyewitness to the Civil Rights Revolution

Washington in the Movies: How Hollywood Views the Nation's Capital

A Preservation Success Story: Compatibility and Economic Growth in Washington's Historic Districts

Snow Storm in August: The Washington Race Riot of 1835

301 East Capitol: Tales from the Heart of the Hill

Congressional Cemetery: Its Past, Present, and Future

The Captain Who Burned His Ships: Captain Thomas Tingey, USN, 1750-1829

How Dry We Weren't: Prohibition in Washington, D.C.

The Life, Decline, and Rebirth of the Old Naval Hospital

Washington at Home: Neighborhoods Tell the D.C. Story

The Engineer and the Artist: Montgomery Meigs, Constantino Brumidi and the Capitol Frescos

The Streetcars in Washington, D.C.

The Old Naval Lodge and Freemasonry in Washington, D.C.

The Capitol Hill Restoration Society: Past, Present and Future

301 East Capitol: Growing Up on the Hill in the 1920s

William Prout's Grave: The Beginning of a Grand Adventure

Abraham Lincoln and the End of Slavery in the District of Columbia

The Road to Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln's Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance

Envisioning Early Washington

L'Enfant's Grand Avenues

Historic Capitol Hill Row House Designs: Not Colonial Williamsburg

African American Housing in 19th Century D.C.

Capitol Hill's John Philip Sousa

The Anacostia: Our Neighborhood's River, and the Nation's

Hollywood on the Potomac: D.C. on Film - Getting it Wrong and Getting It Right??

Past and Future of the National Mall

Growing Up on the Hill in the 1920s and '30s

The Improbable History of Eastern Market

The Washington Navy Yard

The Breweries of Capitol Hill

The Instrument Makers of Capitol Hill

Adolf Cluss: The Navy Yard Communist Who Designed Eastern Market

Remembering the Bonus Army

Washington's Railways and the Rise of Union Station

Alexander R. Shepherd: D.C.'s Unappreciated Visionary

Washington's Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball

Capitol Hill in the Jazz Age and the Great Depression

Contested Ground: Aboriginal America and the Potomac Frontier, A.D. 700 to 1676

The District of Columbia's Black Civil War Regiment

The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814