First USCT Recruits at Camp Nelson
Danville, Boyle County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
First USCT Recruits at Camp Nelson. May 23, 1864, nearly 250 black men, most of them slaves, left Boyle Co. to march to Camp Nelson in Jessamine Co. to enlist in the Union army. On the way, some Danville citizens threw stones and shot pistols at the recruits. When they reached camp, Union Col. Andrew Clark initially refused to accept them because no policy allowed for the recruitment of slaves. (Reverse) Although a few local slave owners tried to reclaim some of the men, the recruits were accepted into the army, causing a Union policy change that allowed able-bodied African American men, including slaves, to enlist. Over 5,000 U.S. Colored Troops were eventually recruited at Camp Nelson, with some of the first coming From Boyle County.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
On May 23, 1864, nearly 250 Black men—most of them enslaved—left Boyle County to march to Camp Nelson and enlist in the Union army, enduring stones and gunfire from hostile onlookers along the way. When they arrived, a Union colonel at first refused them because no policy yet permitted the enlistment of enslaved men. Their acceptance helped force a change in policy, opening the army to able-bodied African American men and setting the stage for more than 5,000 troops to be recruited at Camp Nelson.
Why it matters
This march helped transform Camp Nelson into one of the nation's largest recruiting and emancipation centers, where enlistment became a path to freedom for thousands of Kentucky's enslaved people.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the spring of 1864, the Civil War had been grinding on for three years, and the question of whether Black men could fight for the Union had moved from unthinkable to urgent. The Emancipation Proclamation had opened the door to Black enlistment the year before, and the United States Colored Troops were forming across the country. But Kentucky was a place apart.
Kentucky had never left the Union, and because it stayed loyal it was exempt from the Proclamation that freed enslaved people in the seceded states. That put the state in a wrenching contradiction: it was fighting for the Union while slavery remained legal within its borders. Enslaved men here were not yet free, and the army's own rules had not caught up with the reality that many of them wanted to serve.
Into that gap stepped the men of Boyle County. When nearly 250 of them set out on May 23, 1864, they were walking straight into the most sensitive political question in their state — whether an enslaved Kentuckian could put on a Union uniform at all.
People & events
The march itself tells you almost everything about the courage it took. Nearly 250 Black men, most of them still legally enslaved, left Boyle County on foot and headed north toward Camp Nelson in Jessamine County. This was not a quiet departure. Along the way, some Danville residents threw stones at them and fired pistols — a hostile send-off from neighbors who understood exactly what these men were trying to do.
When they reached Camp Nelson, the welcome was hardly warmer. The Union officer in charge, Col. Andrew Clark, at first turned them away. He was not necessarily hostile to their purpose; he simply had no policy that allowed him to enlist enslaved men, and an officer without orders is a cautious creature. The recruits had marched through gunfire only to find the army's own rulebook standing in the doorway.
What happened next is why the marker exists. A few local slaveholders came to reclaim some of the men, but the recruits were accepted into the army anyway — and their acceptance helped force a change in policy that opened enlistment to able-bodied African American men across Kentucky, including those still held in slavery. One determined march had bent the rules that had tried to stop it.
Its place in the American story
The story of these Boyle County men is a keyhole through which you can see one of the great transformations of the Civil War: the moment enslaved Americans stopped waiting for freedom to be granted and began seizing it by enlisting. For a Kentucky slave, walking to a recruiting camp was itself an act of self-emancipation, because military service became a path out of bondage.
Camp Nelson grew into one of the largest recruiting centers for U.S. Colored Troops in the country, and the marker notes that more than 5,000 were eventually enlisted there — with some of the very first arriving from Boyle County. Those numbers represent thousands of individual decisions like the one made on that May morning, each one a person betting his life on a country that had not yet decided to treat him as free.
That is the larger American story hiding in this local one: the United States Colored Troops did not simply fill out the Union ranks. Their service made emancipation a fact on the ground and helped push the nation toward abolishing slavery everywhere, including in the loyal border states the Proclamation had left untouched.
If you visit
Stand near this memorial in Danville and let the distance sink in. Camp Nelson lay in Jessamine County, a march of many miles to the north, and these men covered it on foot, under threat, before the army had even agreed to take them. The quiet of the present-day setting is worth pausing on, because the road they walked was anything but quiet.
Read the reverse of the marker as carefully as the front. The first side gives you the drama of the march and the closed door; the second gives you the outcome — the policy change and the thousands who followed. Together they turn a single day into a hinge of history.
If you're building a road trip around Kentucky's Civil War story, this makes a natural first stop before continuing toward the Camp Nelson area, where the recruitment and emancipation work these men helped begin unfolded on a much larger scale. Come here to remember that big historical turning points often start with a small group of people willing to take the first hard step.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · American Civil War
- · Camp Nelson recruitment
Themes & tags
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