George H. Hanks

In mid-1862, the 12th Connecticut moved to the area around New Orleans, and Hanks was stationed in the garrison of Camp Parapet, about 10 miles north of the city.

In late September 1862, Hanks was detailed as aide-de-camp of Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman for the superintendence of contrabands, slaves who had escaped and joined Union lines.

In this role, Hanks supervised labor on numerous plantations, as Union leadership wanted to produce cotton for sale and use.

[6] With the support of Major General Nathaniel Banks, in November[2] and December 1863, Hanks embarked on a publicity campaign to eastern Union States with the goal to raise money for the education of former slaves in Louisiana.

At the time, Hanks was also colonel of the 18th Infantry Regiment, Corps d'Afrique, a unit raised in Louisiana that consisted mostly of free persons of color who had formerly been in the state militia.

[9] Hanks worried that Southern planters felt no loyalty to the United States and had no interest to the freedom of black people, saying that after the war, "to be left without national guarantees for the maintenance of their civil rights as freemen would be worse than slavery.