Some of them Black Abolitionists [ought] to be made to fight their share of the Battles. 

Autograph letter signed by Dexter Buell, Co. B, 27th New York Infantry. Camp near Fredericksburg, Virginia, 17 January 1863. 3 pages, 8vo. 

Dexter Buell enlisted as a private in Company B of the 27th New York Infantry at Lyons, New York, on 5 July 1861. The 27th saw heavy action immediately, fighting at the First Battle of Bull Run, where they suffered heavy casualties. In 1862, they joined the Peninsula Campaign and later the Maryland Campaign, where they were bloodied again at the Battle of South Mountain. Held in reserve at Antietam, they closed out the year fighting at Fredericksburg.

Buell writes at the beginning of the miserable Mud March in early 1863, expressing the fatigue and low morale: "We are under Marching Orders, we expect to go across the river and try them once more. But there is hundreds that will never cross the River. I have heard more [than] one half both Boys in our company that they would never go in a another Battle they say it is too bad to go through what we have and then slinck out. But they say they will do it."

He goes on to express his personal racial animosity: "This fighting for Ni----s is Played out. Some of them Black Abolitionists [ought] to be made to fight their share of the Battles."

Though Buell likely did not think or intend his demand for Black soldiers to become a reality, the first Black regiments would begin just a month after this letter was penned.

Buell mustered out with his regiment at Elmira after his initial 3-year term of service was complete. 

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