Marching Song of the First Arkansas

"Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment" is one of the few Civil War-era songs inspired by the lyrical structure of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the tune of "John Brown's Body" that is still performed and recorded today. The "Marching Song" has been described as "a powerful early statement of black pride, militancy, and desire for full equality, revealing the aspirations of black soldiers for Reconstruction as well as anticipating the spirit of the civil rights movement of the 1960s." The song's lyrics are attributed to the regiment's white officer, Captain Lindley Miller. An almost identical song, "The Valiant Soldiers," is attributed to Sojourner Truth in post-Civil War editions of her Narrative. Recent scholarship supports Miller as the original author, or at least compiler, of the “Marching Song.”

Although Congress had passed a confiscation act and a militia act in July 1862, permitting freed slaves to serve in the Union Army, President Abraham Lincoln was reluctant to enlist blacks as soldiers. After Union Army setbacks in battles during 1862, Lincoln announced in September that effective January 1, 1863, all slaves in Confederate territory would be free. Beginning in 1863, recruitment of black soldiers proceeded with Lincoln's approval.

The First Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment (African Descent) began recruiting among former slaves in Helena, Arkansas following Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, and was officially established on May 1. In June the regiment saw action at Mound Plantation, Mississippi, and at Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana, where the unit remained through January 1864. The unit then moved to Haines Bluff near Vicksburg, Mississippi until May 1864. The Union Army standardized the varied names of colored regiments as “United States Colored Troops” (U.S.C.T.), and the First Arkansas became the “46th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry” on May 11, 1864.

...
Wikipedia