During the Civil War Camp Casey on Arlington Heights saw the organization of the Second and Twenty-Third United States Colored Troops – the only regiments raised in Arlington County during the conflict. Although the camp and the regiments went unmentioned in the history of Arlington published during the US bicentennial, they played an important role in the USCT’s decisive contribution to the nation’s victory over the rebel states.
This presentation will survey the full history of Camp Casey, from the enlistment of the two regiments, through the Camp’s role as a “Recruiting Rendezvous” for replacements to USCT units on the Richmond-Petersburg front, to the service of its garrison battalion in the campaign that ended at Appomattox. By the time the shooting stopped Camp Casey had, in little less than two years, put some 6,000 soldiers into the ranks of the US Army, an accomplishment long overlooked but not to be forgotten. (Photo: Sgt. Nimrod Burk, 23rd USCT)
Our speaker, Michael Schaffner is reenactor in Company B, 54th Massachusetts (the “Glory” regiment). He was the keynote
speaker at the rededication of Arlington’s Fort Ethan Allen in 2014, has given presentations to Civil War Round Tables, the Museum of Civil War Medicine, and the Arlington Sesquicentennial Committee commemorating the Civil War and he has conducted battlefield tours for military personnel from the Embassy of Canada. In 2020, he participated in a panel discussion at an AHS event with fellow reenactors in the 54th Massachusetts, Edward W. Gannt and Ben Hawley. He has also spoken to an AHS audience about the rigors of Civil War red tape and the Civil War Convalescent Camp in what is now Arlington. He is currently researching a book on the USCT and Camp Casey.
Attend via Zoom or In-Person
PREREGISTER FOR ZOOM ACCESS. You can attend this event on Zoom or in-person on the Marymount University Main Campus. If you want to attend this event virtually, please click HERE to register. You can cut and paste this link into your browser: https://forms.gle/1yGqqHcsgBBXe3PM7 . Please register by Wednesday, October 9: Zoom access information will be sent to you on the morning of the event on Thursday, October 10.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS and FREE PARKING: Attendees planning to attend the event in-person should enter the Marymount University campus at the library gate on N. 26th Street. From Glebe Road going north, take a right onto 26th Street. Pass the intersection with Yorktown Road and then enter the campus through the next gate on your left. The library is to your left as you enter the campus. Free garage parking is just past the library at the bottom of the small incline. (Handicapped parking is immediately to your right as you enter the campus.)
- If the university has lowered the garage gates, push the button and let them know you’re here for an Arlington Historical Society event in the library. To leave, push the button and they’ll raise the gate.
This event is one of the monthly series of free public programs sponsored by the Arlington Historical Society. This event is hosted courtesy of the Marymount University politics program’s American Heritage Initiative. For more information, please email: info@arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org
