1st Regiment Heavy Artillery U.S. Colored Troops

[4] In an 1893 reminiscence, John Encill MacGowan wrote that circa April 1864 at Knoxville he was the "senior officer in charge of organizing the First United States Colored Heavy Artillery.

"[5] The unit was stationed at Knoxville until January, 1865,[3] and then were based in Greeneville, District of East Tennessee, until March, 1866.

[3] The newly organized unit was supervised by "General Davis Tillson, Chief of Artillery, Department of Ohio, commanding defenses of Knoxville, Loudon and Kingston.

[7] According to a 2003 article in the journal Army History, "More than 25,000 black artillerymen, recruited primarily from freed slaves in Confederate or border states, served in the Union Army during the Civil War...Federal military authorities armed and equipped the soldiers in these twelve-company heavy artillery regiments as infantrymen and ordinarily used them to man the larger caliber guns defending coastal and field fortifications located near cities and smaller population centers in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina.

The USCT also expanded the existing fortifications, greatly strengthening many of the positions of engineer Captain Orlando Poe's original plan.