Thirty-fifth United States Colored Troops
(First North Carolina Colored Volunteers)

Drawing from the Olustee Post Card Set.

At Olustee, however, the 35th U.S.C.T. was commanded by its lieutenant colonel, William Reed, as Colonel Beecher was on leave in the north when the campaign began. Its second-in-command at Olustee was Major Archibald Bogle, formerly of the Seventeeth Massachusetts and in civilian life a druggist from Melrose, Massachusetts. Bogle's father was "known to fame as the proprietor of 'Bogle's Magic Hair Dye'," and a contemporary wrote that Bogle "always used the stuff on his moustache and hair, and kept them in shape if his person was otherwise seedy." The 35th U.S.C.T., like the 8th U.S.C.T. and several of Seymour's other regiments, had not participated in a major battle, and represented a question mark for the Federal commander. For the campaign to be successful, these green units would have to perform well in combat. At Olustee the 35th U.S.C.T. lost 230 men while guarding the Federal line of retreat along with the 54th Massachusetts. During the rest of 1864–1865 the unit garrisoned positions in South Carolina and Florida and fought in several smaller engagements, including those at Black Creek and St. John's River.

"Although it is difficult to establish the relative time of events, these dispositions having been made, the Thirty-fifth United States Colored Troops, Col. James C. Beecher, charged up the road. It went up the road with a cheer, but receiving a terrible fire, after severe loss, was forced to retire and form in support of the artillery. At one time that day Colonel Beecher, Thirty-fifth United States colored troops, who was wounded, came along in the rear of our line in a dazed sort of way. Fearing he would be killed, Lt. Col. Hooper sent two men to assist him to the rear." (Brave Black Regiment, p. 250)

"My mornings were spent in teaching the men of our regiment to read and write, and it became my pleasing duty and habit, wherever our moving tents were pitched, there to set up our school. Sometimes the chaplain assisted, and sometimes the officers; and the result was that when the men came to be mustered out each one of them could proudly sign his name to the pay-roll in a good legible hand. When enlisted, all but two or three of them were obliged to put a mark to their names as written by the paymaster, thus:

his
John X Jones
mark

"While their eagerness to learn and the difficulty that many found in learning were touching. One bright mulatto man particularly worked at his letters for two years, and then could only write his own name; while others learned at once. Whenever they had a spare moment, out would come a spelling-book or a primer or Testament, and you would often see a group of heads around one book." (from The Negro's Civil War by James McPherson)