James Monroe Trotter

James Monroe Trotter was born in 1842, in Grand Gulf, Mississippi, to a slave named Letitia and her owner Richard S. Trotter. Around 1854, Richard Trotter sent Letitia and her children to the free city of Cincinnati, Ohio, where after attending several schools in the area, the young James Trotter worked as a hotel and a river-boat cabin bell-boy as well as a teacher. In 1863, after being recruited by John Mercer Langston (great-uncle of poet, Langston Hughes), Trotter moved to Massachusetts where he enlisted on June 11, 1863, and within less than two weeks was mustered into Company K of the 55th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry as a 1st Sergeant.

On November 19, 1863, he was promoted to Sergeant Major and, on April 10, 1864, he was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, which was quite unusual for African Americans serving in the Union army. In the above carte-de-visite, Trotter wears the uni-form and officer’s shoulder straps of a 2nd Lieutenant, which makes the rarity of this image even greater.

With the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, African American men could actively as well as legally be recruited into the Union army. Nonetheless, there remained a reluctance by the army to commission any of its enlisted black soldiers and a great deal of trepidation amongst its white officers when qualified black enlisted soldiers were considered for promotion to officer. Trotter experienced this fear first hand. Even though he had been promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant on April 10, 1864, because of on-going contract disagreements between commissioned black soldiers and the U.S. government, which had largely been brought about by white back-lash over the appointment of black officers, he was not mustered to this rank until a little over a year later, on July 1, 1865, less than two months before the 55th regiment was itself mustered out on August 29, 1865. For black Union soldiers this bureaucratic delay only further attested to on-going racial discrimination that existed within the Union army, which while advancing claims to inclusion and equality, nonetheless continued to provide inequality in pay and an unfair share of noncombat labor duty to its enlisted black soldiers.

James Trotter, the first man to protest African American soldiers receiving less pay than promised. The federal government reneged on its promise to pay soldiers $13 a month, and instead paid only $10. Sgt. Maj. James Trotter, of the 55th Massachusetts Infantry, stepped up and said, "We are soldiers, we will accept nothing less than the soldier's pay..."We will not degrade the name of an American soldier."

After ten months without compensation, the soldiers won. Trotter said later, "in their struggle for equal pay and recognition the Massachusetts colored troops finally won for themselves, for all other colored troops, and relatively for their race and its friends, a complete, a glorious victory."

After the war, Trotter returned to Ohio, married Virginia Isaacs, and moved to Boston where he obtained a good position in the U.S. Postal Service. After eighteen years of service with the USPS, James Trotter found that he was not being promoted as were white co-workers of equal seniority. In an act of protest, he resigned rather than continue in an inferior position.

In 1878 Trotter published a groundbreaking survey of African American music. His distinguished war record and support of the Democratic Party led to appointment as District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds in 1887, the highest government office open to blacks. Trotter’s passionate commitment to equality inspired his famous son, William Monroe Trotter.

Marsha Dubrow, Examiner; Mirror of Race Collection, By Erina Duganne; African American Families of Monticello; Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising, William J. Simmons, and Henry McNeal Turner; Civil War Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library