According to the National Park Service’s Soldiers and Sailors System, there were twenty enlisted men named George Washington in the 5th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery. These all would have been black men, the vast majority, former slaves.

The 5th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery (USCHA) was the final name of the 9th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent, which fought at Milliken’s Bend.

Why did so many of these men bear this name? There’s no firm answer, but here’s what I suspect.

1) I seriously doubt that they had this name while enslaved. “George” perhaps, or even “Washington” – but it does not seem likely that a slaveholder would have given them this name.

2) To me, this name rings out as a “Freedom Name.” Given the time period and the circumstances, and the universal praise and near-idolatry of George Washington in school textbooks of the time, and in other sources, such as newspapers or diaries noting Washington’s Birthday – Washington was held to be the epitome of manhood, destiny, wisdom, patriotism, honesty, generalship, and leadership, and indeed, the personification of what it meant to be an American. Despite the bloodshed and vitriol of the Civil War, Washington was viewed as a hero in both North and South. Both sides claimed him as the Father of their country.

3) I don’t believe the former slaves (or for that matter, even the white soldiers) consciously thought of General Washington as we do today, with “slaveholder” ranking right up there with the titles of general, president, and Father of our nation. He held too much glory and prestige at the time to be tarnished with the label “slaveholder.”

4) I wonder if the former slaves who were enlisting into the Union army deliberately chose this name, or if a white Yankee recruiter simply “assigned” this name to men as they came into the Union lines. I suspect, because there are so many in the same regiment, that they must have deliberately chosen it themselves. Surely no officer or recruiter would willingly make his own job more difficult by giving the same name to so many men, especially when there were occasionally more than one George Washington in a single company!

What became of all of these men? Did they continue to go by the name of George Washington after the war, or did they choose a different name? (Many freedmen changed names several times between 1860 and 1880). I do not have the answers.

But it is clear to me that at least in this instance, these men who took this name must have had great pride in their new-found freedom, and in their role as soldiers. They, too, were becoming the Fathers of Freedom in their own families and communities.