The Unseen Color Line: A Soldier’s Rejection at Fort Townsend
A Black enlistee, accepted into the service and stationed in Washington Territory, finds himself turned away by a commanding officer who refused to honor his commission based on race.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A colored man named Green, who was the cause of a small rift between ex-Secretary Lincoln and General Bissell about a year ago, has turned up again. At that time, he desired to enlist in the Signal Corps, on the ground that regiments of cavalry and infantry had been set apart for colored soldiers, but not the Signal Corps. Secretary Lincoln, however, ordered his enlistment in that corps, provided that he could pass the medical examination. Green passed the examination, and was sent to Fort Townsend to undergo a course of study. There he performed the duties assigned him with other members of the signal corps and became eligible for station duty. The post at Fort Townsend asked for an assistant, and was told one would be sent. He passed for the board and rooms in his own board [and] made other arrangements to receive him. Green was the man selected as an assistant, and was sent to Fort Townsend. On his arrival, the local post officer refused to receive him because of his color. The officer had been commissioned to the Signal Office that he was assigned to Pensacola without any regard to his color, and that the man who selected him did not know he was colored.
“On his arrival, the local post officer refused to receive him because of his color.”
This 1885 account of racial gatekeeping at Fort Townsend, near modern-day Port Townsend, underscores how deeply systemic exclusion was embedded in even the most technical branches of the military. Today, the site of the former Fort Townsend is a State Park, a space reclaimed for the public, reflecting a long, slow reckoning with the institutional racism that defined our frontier military history.
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