Stephen A. Swails | |
|---|---|
 1st LT. Stephen Swails, 1864 | |
| Born | February 23, 1832 Columbia, Pennsylvania |
| Died | May 17, 1900 (aged 68) Kingstree, South Carolina |
| Place of burial | |
| Allegiance |  United States of America |
| Years of service | 1863–1865 |
| Rank |  First Lieutenant, United States Volunteers |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
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."[1]
Swails was a free black who was so light in coloring that he was often mistaken as white.[1] 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.[2] His enlistment papers state he was employed as a boatman in Elmira, New York when he joined the army.[3] 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.