File:Guide to Tracing Your African Ameripean Civil War Ancestor.jpg

English: The first regiment of U.S. Colored Troops was not mustered into Federal Service until June 1863. Black troops were organized to fight the Confederate forces prior to President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. Gen. David Hunter organized the 1st Regiment South Carolina Colored Volunteers in the spring and summer 1862, authorized President Lincoln to receive Blacks into the military service as soldiers, but on August 6, 1862, the President announced that he was still unready to enroll Blacks as soldiers in the Union Army.

  Following the August 6th announcement, the 1st Regiment of South Carolina Colored Volunteers was disbanded by General Hunter only to be reorganized under Gen. Rufus Saxton with War Regiment of Kansas Colored Volunteers was organized in August 1862 y Gen. James H. Lane without War Department approval 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Regiments of Louisiana Native Guards (later the Corps d'Afrique) were mustered into Federal Service between September and November 1862.
  The recruiting of Black soldiers by the War Department after the Emancipation Proclamation was slow until Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton sent Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas into the Mississippi Valley in March 1863 with the authority to recruit and organize free and contraband Blacks for service in the U.S. Volunteer Service.  The recruiting effort was successful and on May 22, 1863, the War Department issued General Order 143, establishing the Colored Troops Bureau.  This bureau was directly under the Adjutant General's Office, and Maj. Charles W. Foster was appointed chief with the title of Assistant Adjutant General. The bureau was made responsible for recruiting colored troops, commissioning officers to command them, organizing regiments, and maintaining the records of the various colored troops organizations. The first regiment of U. S. Colored Troops was mustered into the Federal service on June 30, 1863, at Washington, D.C. 

The Corps d'Afrique and other State organizations were redesignated when they became part of the U.S. Colored Troops, with the exception of a few units raised in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Louisiana. Approximately, 166 regiments and 200,000 officers and men were recruited, commissioned, and organized into the U.S. Colored Troops from the federalizing of the first regiment on June 30, 1863, to December 31, 1867, when the last regiment was mustered out.