Stephen Atkins Swails, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Stephen Atkins Swails

Union Army officer

Date of Birth: 23-Feb-1832

Place of Birth: Columbia, Pennsylvania, United States

Date of Death: 17-May-1900

Profession: politician

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Stephen Atkins Swails (23 February 1832 – 17 May 1900) was a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Although originally enlisting as a private, he was the first African-American soldier promoted to commissioned rank, as a line officer, in that conflict, as evidenced by the U.S.
War Department's initial refusal of that promotion due to his "African descent."Swails was a free black who was so light in coloring that he was often mistaken as white.
He was single and employed mostly as a waiter in Cooperstown, New York at the start of the Civil War, and although he fathered several children by Sarah Thompson, they never married.
His enlistment papers state he was employed as a boatman in Elmira, New York when he joined the army.
In 1863, he answered Frederick Douglass' call to arms and joined the 54th Massachusetts when it began forming, and served in that regiment, eventually being commissioned as an officer, until the end of the war.
After the war, he settled in South Carolina and later Washington, D.C., becoming a lawyer and politician.