Topeka ? Shouts of “Huzzah,” speeches by history enthusiasts and a mournful rendition of taps honored the first unit of black troops to see battle during the Civil War.

The unit was the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers, its members recruited for the Union Army from the ranks of former slaves and free blacks in 1862. A Statehouse ceremony Monday marked the 140th anniversary of its first fight.

About two dozen people attended the ceremony, including Mary Brooks, a Topeka teacher whose great-grandfather, James “Whitfield” Ross, was a corporal in the unit and later farmed near Mound City, where the 1st Kansas had once camped.

Herschel Stroud, a Topeka dentist who portrays the 1st Kansas Colored’s surgeon in re-enactments, led Quinton Heights Elementary School students in cheers of “Huzzah!”

He also urged them to roar like tigers, noting that one Confederate officer said the 1st Kansas fought like them.

The first task of the unit in 1862 was clearing bushwhackers in western Missouri and northeastern Oklahoma. On Oct. 28-29, it engaged Confederates at Island Mound, near Butler, Mo.

Since 1998, the state has had plans to honor the unit with a Statehouse mural. The mural is now part of a $135 million, eight-year restoration of the building.