The facts already noted became apparent to the nation very soon, and then came a change of procedure, and the war began to be prosecuted upon quite a different policy. Gen. McClellan, whose loyalty to the new policy was doubted, was removed from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and slave catching ceased. The XXXVII Congress convened in Dec. 1861, in its second session, and passed the following additional article of war:

"All officers are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due. Any officer who shall be found guilty by court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service."

This was the initatory measure of the new policy, which progressed to its fulfillment rapidly. And then what Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War, had recommended in December, 1861, and to which the President objected, very soon developed, through a series of enactments, in the arming of the negro; in which the loyal people of the whole country acquiesced, save the border states people, who fiercely opposed it as is shown in the conduct of Mr. Wickliffe, of Kentucky; Salisbury, of Delaware, and others in Congress.



Public opinion was now changed, Congress had prohibited the surrender of negroes to the rebels, the President issued his Emancipation Proclamation, and more than 150,000 negroes were fighting for the Union. The Republican party met in convention at Chicago, and nominated Mr. Lincoln for the second term as President of the United States; the course of his first administration was now to be approved or rejected by the people. In the resolutions adopted, the fifth one of them related to Emancipation and the negro soldiers. It was endorsed by a very large majority of the voters. A writer in one of the magazines, prior to the election, thus reviews the resolutions:

"The fifth resolution commits us to the approval of two measures that have aroused the most various and strenuous opposition, the Proclamation of Emancipation and the use of negro troops. In reference to the first, it is to be remembered that it is a war measure. The express language of it is: 'By virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion.' Considered thus, the Proclamation is not merely defensible, but it is more; it is a proper and efficient means of weakening the rebellion which every person desiring its speedy overthrow must zealously and perforce uphold. Whether it is of any legal effect beyond the actual limits of our military lines, is a question that need not agitate us. In due time the supreme tribunal of the nation will be called to determine that, and to its decision the country will yield with all respect and loyalty. But in the mean time let the Proclamation go wherever the army goes, let it go wherever the navy secures a foothold on the outer border of the rebel territory, and let it summon to our aid the negroes who are truer to the Union than their disloyal masters; and when they have come to us and put their lives in our keeping, let us protect and defend them with the whole power of the nation. Is there anything unconstitutional in that? Thank God, there is not. And he who is willing to give back to slavery a single person who has heard the summons and come within our lines to obtain his freedom, he who would give up a single man, woman, or child, once thus actually freed, is not worthy the name of American. He may call himself Confederate, if he will.

"Let it be remembered, also that the Proclamation has had a very important bearing upon our foreign relations. It evoked in behalf of our country that sympathy on the part of the people in Europe, whose is the only sympathy we can ever expect in our struggle to perpetuate free institutions. Possessing that sympathy, moreover, we have had an element in our favor which has kept the rulers of Europe in wholesome dread of interference. The Proclamation relieved us from the false position before attributed to us of fighting simply for national power. It placed us right in the eyes of the world, and transferred men's sympathies from a confederacy fighting for independence as a means of establishing slavery, to a nation whose institutions mean constitutional liberty, and, when fairly wrought out, must end in universal freedom."

The change of policy and of public opinion was so strongly endorsed that it affected the rebels, who shortly passed a Congressional measure for arming 200,000 negroes themselves. What a reversal of things; what a change of sentiment, in less than twenty-four months![14] Mr. Lincoln, in justifying the change, is reported to have said to Judge Mills, of Wisconsin:

"The slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed with Democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the white men of the North to do it. There are now in the service of the United States near two hundred thousand able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring Union territory. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery. The black men who now assist Union prisoners to escape, they are to be converted into our enemies in the vain hope of gaining the good will of their masters. We shall have to fight two nations instead of one. You cannot conciliate the South if you guarantee to them ultimate success; and the experience of the present war proves their success is inevitable if you fling the compulsory labor of millions of black men into their side of the scale. Will you give our enemies such military advantages as insure success, and then depend on coaxing, flattery, and concession to get them back into the Union? Abandon all the posts now garrisoned by black men; take two hundred thousand men from our side and put them in the battle-field or cornfield against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks. We have to hold territory in inclement and sickly places; where are the Democrats to do this? It was a free fight, and the field was open to the war Democrats to put down this rebellion by fighting against both master and slave, long before the present policy was inaugurated. There have been men base enough to propose to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do so, I should deserve to be dammed in time and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe. My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am President, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this rebellion without the use of the emancipation policy, and every other policy calculated to weaken the moral and physical forces of the rebellion. Freedom has given us two hundred thousand men raised on southern soil. It will give us more yet. Just so much it has subtracted from the enemy; and instead of alienating the South, there are now evidences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our men and the rank and file of the rebel soldiers. Let my enemies prove to the country that the destruction of slavery is not necessary to the restoration of the Union. I will abide the issue."

But the change of policy did not change the opinion of the Southerners, who, notwithstanding the use which the Confederate Government was making of the negro, still regarded him, in the United States uniform, as a vicious brute, to be shot at sight. I prefer, in closing this chapter, to give the Southern opinion of the negro, in the words of a distinguished native of that section. Mr. George W. Cable, in his "Silent South," thus gives it:

"He was brought to our shores a naked, brutish, unclean, captive, pagan savage, to be and remain a kind of connecting link between man and the beasts of burden. The great changes to result from his contact with a superb race of masters were not taken into account. As a social factor he was intended to be as purely zero as the brute at the other end of his plow line. The occasional mingling of his blood with that of the white man worked no change in the sentiment; one, two, four, eight, multiplied upon or divided in to zero, still gave zero for the result. Generations of American nativity made no difference; his children and children's children were born in sight of our door, yet the old notion held fast. He increased to vast numbers, but it never wavered. He accepted our dress, language, religion, all the fundamentals of our civilization, and became forever expatriated from his own land; still he remained, to us, an alien. Our sentiment went blind. It did not see that gradually, here by force and there by choice, he was fulfilling a host of conditions that earned at least a solemn moral right to that naturalization which no one at first had dreamed of giving him. Frequently he even bought back the freedom of which he had been robbed, became a tax-payer, and at times an educator of his children at his own expense; but the old idea of alienism passed laws to banish him, his wife, and children by thousands from the State, and threw him into loathsome jails as a common felon for returning to his native land. It will be wise to remember that these were the acts of an enlightened, God fearing people."



FOOTNOTES:

[11] I arrived in New York in August, 1862, from Valparaiso, Chili, on the steamship "Bio-Bio," of Boston, and in company with two Spaniards, neither of whom could speak English, enlisted in a New York regiment. We were sent to the rendezvous on one of the islands in the harbor. The third day after we arrived at the barracks, I was sent with one of my companions to carry water to the cook, an aged negro, who immediately recognized me, and in such a way as to attract the attention of the corporal, who reported the matter to the commanding officer, and before I could give the cook the hint, he was examined by the officer of the day. At noon I was accompanied by a guard of honor to the launch, which landed me in New York. I was a negro, that was all; how it was accounted for on the rolls I cannot say. I was honorably discharged, however, without receiving a certificate to that effect.

[12] The Indians referred to are many of those civilized and living as citizens in the several States of the Union.

[13] See Appendix, "A."

[14] "Those who have declaimed loudest against the employment of negro troops have shown a lamentable amount of ignorance, and an equally lamentable lack of common sense. They know as little of the military history and martial qualities of the African race as they do of their own duties as commanders.

"All distinguished generals of modern times who have had opportunity to use negro soldiers, have uniformly applauded their subordination, bravery, and powers of endurance. Washington solicited the military services of negroes in the revolution, and rewarded them. Jackson did the same in the war of 1812. Under both those great captains, the negro troops fought so well that they received unstinted praise."—Charles Sumner.



CHAPTER II.

RECRUITING AND ORGANIZING.

The recruiting officer, in the first year of the enlistment of negroes, did not have a pleasant service to perform. At New Orleans there was no trouble in recruiting the regiments organized under Butler's command, for, beside the free negroes, the slave population for miles around were eager to enlist, believing that with the United States army uniform on, they would be safe in their escape from "ole master and the rebs." And then the action of the confederate authorities in arming the free negroes lent a stimulant and gave an ambition to the whole slave population to be soldiers. Could arms have been obtained, a half a dozen regiments could have been organized in sixty days just as rapidly as were three. Quite early in 1862, while the negroes in New Orleans were being enrolled in the Confederate service, under Gov. Moore's proclamation, in separate and distinct organizations from the whites, the Indians and negroes were enlisting in the Union service, on the frontier, in the same company and regiments, with white officers to command them. In the "Kansas Home Guard," comprising two regiments of Indians, were over 400 negroes, and these troops were under Custer, Blunt and Herron. They held Fort Gibson twenty months against the assaults of the enemy. Two thousand five hundred negroes served in the Federal army from the Indian Nations, and these, in all probability, are a part of 5,896 "not accounted for" on the Adjutant General's rolls.

Quite a different state of things existed in South Carolina; rumors were early afloat, when recruiting began, that the government officers were gathering up the negroes to ship away to Cuba, Africa and the West Indies. These reports for a long time hindered the enlistment very much. Then there was no large city for contrabands to congregate in; besides they had no way of traveling from island to island except on government vessels. Before the Proclamation of freedom was issued, the city of Washington, with Virginia and Maryland as additional territory to recruit from, afforded an officer a better field to operate in than any other point except New Orleans. The conduct of the Government in revoking Gen. Fremont's Proclamation, and of McClellan's with the Army of the Potomac, in catching and returning escaped slaves, also had a tendency for some time to keep back even the free negroes of Virginia and Maryland. But this class of people never enlisted to any great numbers, either before or after 1863, and there finally came to be a general want of spirit with them, while with the slave class there was a ready enthusiasm to enlist. Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, was Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs, and reported from that committee on the 8th of July 1862, a bill authorizing the arming of negroes as a part of the army. The bill finally passed both houses and received the approval of the President on the 17th of July, 1862. The battle for its success is as worthy of record as any fought by the Phalanx. The debate was characterized by eloquence and deep feeling on both sides. Says an account of the proceedings in Henry Wilson's "Anti-slavery Measures of Congress":



"Mr. Sherman (Rep.) of Ohio said, "The question arises, whether the people of the United States, struggling for national existence, should not employ these blacks for the maintenance of the Government. The policy heretofore pursued by the officers of the United States has been to repel this class of people from our lines, to refuse their services. They would have made the best spies; and yet they have been driven from our lines."—"I tell the President," said Mr. Fessenden (Rep.) of Maine, "from my place here as a senator, I tell the generals of our army, they must reverse their practices and their course of proceeding on this subject. * * * I advise it here from my place,—treat your enemies as enemies, as the worst of enemies, and avail yourselves like men of every power which God has placed in your hands to accomplish your purpose within the rules of civilized warfare." Mr. Rice, (war Dem.) of Minnesota, declared that "not many days can pass before the people of the United States North must decide upon one of two questions: we have either to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy as a free and independent nation, and that speedily; or we have as speedily to resolve to use all the means given us by the Almighty to prosecute this war to a successful termination. The necessity for action has arisen. To hesitate is worse than criminal. Mr. Wilson said, "The senator from Delaware, as he is accustomed to do, speaks boldly and decidedly against the proposition. He asks if American soldiers will fight if we organize colored men for military purposes. Did not American soldiers fight at Bunker Hill with negroes in the ranks, one of whom shot down Major Pitcairn as he mounted the works? Did not American soldiers fight at Red Bank with a black regiment from your own State, sir? (Mr. Anthony in the chair.) Did they not fight on the battle-field of Rhode Island with that black regiment, one of the best and bravest that ever trod the soil of this continent? Did not American soldiers fight at Fort Griswold with black men? Did they not fight with black men in almost every battle-field of the Revolution? Did not the men of Kentucky and Tennessee, standing on the lines of New Orleans, under the eye of Andrew Jackson, fight with colored battalions whom he had summoned to the field, and whom he thanked publicly for their gallantry in hurling back a British foe? It is all talk, idle talk, to say that the volunteers who are fighting the battles of this country are governed by any such narrow prejudice or bigotry. These prejudices are the results of the teachings of demagogues and politicians, who have for years undertaken to delude and deceive the American people, and to demean and degrade them."

Mr. Grimes had expressed his views a few weeks before, and desired a vote separately on each of these sections. Mr. Davis declared that he was utterly opposed, and should ever be opposed, to placing arms in the hands of negroes, and putting them into the army. Mr. Rice wished "to know if Gen. Washington did not put arms into the hands of negroes, and if Gen. Jackson did not, and if the senator has ever condemned either of those patriots for doing so." "I deny," replied Mr. Davis, "that, in the Revolutionary War, there ever was any considerable organization of negroes. I deny, that, in the war of 1812, there was ever any organization of negro slaves. * * * In my own State, I have no doubt that there are from eighty to a hundred thousand slaves that belong to disloyal men. You propose to place arms in the hands of the men and boys, or such of them as are able to handle arms, and to manumit the whole mass, men, women, and children, and leave them among us. Do you expect us to give our sanction and our approval to these things? No, no! We would regard their authors as our worst enemies; and there is no foreign despotism that could come to our rescue, that we would not joyously embrace, before we would submit to any such condition of things as that. But, before we had invoked this foreign despotism, we would arm every man and boy that we have in the land, and we would meet you in a death-struggle, to overthrow together such an oppression and our oppressors." Mr. Rice remarked in reply to Mr. Davis, "The rebels hesitate at nothing. There are no means that God or the Devil has given them that they do not use. The honorable senator said that the negroes might be useful in loading and swabbing and firing cannon. If that be the case, may not some of them be useful in loading, swabbing, and firing the musket?"

On the 10th of February, 1864, Mr. Stevens (Republican) of Pennsylvania, in the House of Representatives, moved an amendment to the Enrollment Act. Says the same authority before quoted:

The Enrollment Bill was referred to a Conference Committee, consisting of Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, Mr. Nesmet of Oregon, and Mr. Grimes of Iowa, on the part of the Senate; and Mr. Schenck of Ohio, Mr. Deming of Connecticut, and Mr. Kernan of New York, on the part of the House. In the Conference Committee, Mr. Wilson stated that he never could assent to the amendment, unless the drafted slaves were made free on being mustered into the service of the United States. Mr. Grimes sustained that position; and the House committee assented to it. The House amendment was then modified so as to read, "That all able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, whether citizens or not, resident in the United States, shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this act, and of the act to which this is an amendment, and form part of the national forces; and, when a slave of a loyal master shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the United States, his master shall have a certificate thereof; and thereupon such slave shall be free; and the bounty of a hundred dollars, now payable by law for each drafted man, shall be paid to the person to whom such drafted person was owing service or labor at the time of his muster into the service of the United States. The Secretary of War shall appoint a commission in each of the slave States represented in Congress, charged to award, to each loyal person to whom a colored volunteer may owe service, a just compensation, not exceeding three hundred dollars, for each such colored volunteer, payable out of the fund derived from commutation; and every such colored volunteer, on being mustered into the service, shall be free."

"The report of the Conference Committee was agreed to; and it was enacted that every slave, whether a drafted man or a volunteer, shall be free on being mustered into the military service of the United States, not by the act of the master, but by the authority of the Federal Government."



When Gen. Banks took command of the Gulf Department, Dec. 1862, he very soon after found the negro troops an indispensable quantity to the success of his expeditions; consequently he laid aside his prejudice, and endeavored to out-Herod Gen. Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant General of the Army,—who in March had been dispatched on a military inspection tour through the armies of the West and the Mississippi Valley, and also to organize a number of negro regiments[15]—by issuing in May the following order:

GENERAL ORDERS} No. 40.}

Corps d'Afrique. HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF. 19TH ARMY CORPS,

Opelousas, May 1, 1863.

The Major General commanding the Department proposes the organization of a corps d'armee of colored troops, to be designated as the "Corps d'Afrique." It will consist ultimately of eighteen regiments, representing all arms—Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry, organized in three Divisions of three Brigades each, with appropriate corps of Engineers and flying Hospitals for each Division. Appropriate uniforms, and the graduation of pay to correspond with value of services, will be hereafter awarded.

In the field, the efficiency of every corps depends upon the influence of its officers upon the troops engaged, and the practicable limits of one direct command is generally estimated at one thousand men. The most eminent military historians and commanders, among others Thiers and Chambray, express the opinion, upon a full review of the elements of military power, that the valor of the soldier is rather acquired than natural. Nations whose individual heroism in undisputed, have failed as soldiers in the field. The European and American continents exhibit instances of this character, and the military prowess of every nation may be estimated by the centuries it has devoted to military contest, or the traditional passion of its people for military glory. With a race unaccustomed to military service, much more depends on the immediate influence of officers upon individual members, than with those that have acquired more or less of warlike habits and spirit by centuries of contest. It is deemed best, therefore, in the organization of the Corps d'Afrique, to limit the regiments to the smallest number of men consistent with efficient service in the field, in order to secure the most thorough instruction and discipline, and the largest influence of the officers over the troops. At first they will be limited to five hundred men. The average of American regiments is less than that number.

The Commanding General desires to detail for temporary or permanent duty the best officers of the army, for the organization, instruction and discipline of this corps. With their aid, he is confident that the corps will render important service to the Government. It is not established upon any dogma of equality or other theory, but as a practical and sensible matter of business. The Government makes use of mules, horses, uneducated and educated white men, in the defense of its institutions. Why should not the negro contribute whatever is in his power for the cause in which he is as deeply interested as other men? We may properly demand from him whatever service he can render. The chief defect in organizations of this character has arisen from incorrect ideas of the officers in command. Their discipline has been lax, and in some cases the conduct of the regiments unsatisfactory and discreditable. Controversies unnecessary and injurious to the service have arisen between them and other troops. The organization proposed will reconcile and avoid many of these troubles.

Officers and soldiers will consider the exigencies of the service in this Department, and the absolute necessity of appropriating every element of power to the support of the Government. The prejudices or opinions of men are in nowise involved. The co-operation and active support of all officers and men, and the nomination of fit men from the ranks, and from the lists of non-commissioned and commissioned officers, are respectfully solicited from the Generals commanding the respective Divisions.

BY COMMAND OF MAJOR GENERAL BANKS:

RICHARD B. IRWIN, Assistant Adjutant General.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, March 25th, 1803.

His plan of organization is here given, but it was never fully consummated:

GENERAL ORDERS} No. 47}

Corps d'Afrique. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF. 19TH ARMY CORPS,

Before Port Hudson, June 6th, 1863.

I.—The regiments of infantry of the Corps d'Afrique, authorized by General Orders No. 44, current series, will consist of ten companies each, having the following minimum organization:

1 Captain, 1 First Lieutenant, 1 Second Lieutenant, 1 First Sergeant, 4 Sergeants, 4 Corporals, 2 Buglers, 40 Privates.

To the above may be added hereafter, at the discretion of the Commanding General, four corporals and forty-two privates; thus increasing the strength to the maximum fixed by law for a company of infantry.

The regimental organization will be that fixed by law for a regiment of infantry.

II.—The Commissary and Assistant Commissaries of Musters will muster the Second Lieutenant into service as soon as he is commissioned; the First Lieutenant when thirty men are enlisted; and the Captain when the minimum organization is completed.

III.—The First, Second, Third and Fourth Regiments of Louisiana Native Guards will hereafter be known as the First, Second, Third and Fourth Regiments of Infantry of the Corps d'Afrique.

IV.—The regiment of colored troops in process of organization in the district of Pensacola will be known as the Fifth Regiment of Infantry of the Corps d'Afrique.

V.—The regiments now being raised under the direction of Brigadier General Daniel Ullman, and at present known as the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Regiments of Ullman's Brigade, will be respectively designated as the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Regiments of Infantry of the Corps d'Afrique.

VI.—The First Regiment of Louisiana Engineers, Colonel Justin Hodge, will hereafter be known as the First Regiment of Engineers of the Corps d'Afrique.

BY COMMAND OF MAJOR GENERAL BANKS:

RICHARD B. IRWIN, Assistant Adjutant General.

OFFICIAL: NATHANIEL BURBANK, Acting Assistant Adjutant General.

General Banks' treatment of the negroes was so very different from that which they had received from Gen. Butler,—displacing the negro officers of the first three regiments organized,—that it rather checkmated recruiting, so much so that he found it necessary to resort to the provost guard to fill up regiments, as the following order indicates:



Commission of Enrollment. GENERAL ORDERS HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, No. 64. New Orleans, August 29, 1863.

I. Colonel JOHN S. CLARK, Major B. RUSH PLUMLY and Colonel GEORGE H. HANKS, are hereby appointed a Commission to regulate the Enrollment, Recruiting and Employment and Education of persons of color. All questions concerning the enlistment of troops for the Corps d'Afrique, the regulation of labor, or the government and education of negroes, will be referred to the decision of this commission, subject to the approval of the Commanding General of the Department.

II. No enlistments for the Corps d'Afrique will be authorized or permitted, except under regulations approved by this Commission.

III. The Provost Marshal General will cause to be enrolled all able-bodied men of color in accordance with the Law of Conscription, and such number as may be required for the military defence of the Department, equally apportioned to the different parishes, will be enlisted for the military service under such regulations as the Commission may adopt. Certificates of exemption will be furnished to those not enlisted, protecting them from arrest or other interference, except for crime.

IV. Soldiers of the Corps d'Afrique will not be allowed to leave their camps, or to wander through the parishes, except upon written permission, or in the company of their officers.

V. Unemployed persons of color, vagrants and camp loafers, will be arrested and employed upon the public works, by the Provost Marshal's Department, without other pay than their rations and clothing.

VI. Arrests of persons, and seizures of property, will not be made by colored soldiers, nor will they be charged with the custody of persons or property, except when under the command, and accompanied by duly authorized officers.

VII. Any injury or wrong done to the family of any soldier, on account of his being engaged in military service, will be summarily punished.

VIII. As far as practicable, the labor of persons not adapted to military service will be provided in substitution for that of enlisted men.

IX. All regulations hitherto established for the government of negroes, not inconsistent herewith, will be enforced by the Provost Marshals of the different parishes, under the direction of the Provost Marshal General.

BY COMMAND OF MAJOR GENERAL BANKS:

RICHARD B. IRWIN, Assistant Adjutant General.

In the department the actual number of negroes enlisted was never known, from the fact that a practice prevailed of putting a live negro in a dead one's place. For instance, if a company on picket or scouting lost ten men, the officer would immediately put ten new men in their places and have them answer to the dead men's names. I learn from very reliable sources that this was done in Virginia, also in Missouri and Tennessee. If the exact number of men could be ascertained, instead of 180,000 it would doubtless be in the neighborhood of 220,000 who entered the ranks of the army. An order was issued which aimed to correct the habit and to prevent the drawing, by collusion, of the dead men's pay.

The date of the first organization of colored troops is a question of dispute, but it seems as if the question might be settled, either by the records of the War Department or the personal knowledge of those interested. Of course the muster of a regiment or company is the record of the War Department, but the muster by no means dates the organization of the troops.[16] For example, a colonel may have been commissioned July, 1862, and yet the muster of his regiment may be September 1862, and even later, by two months, as is the case in more than one instance. It is just as fair to take the date of a soldier's enlistment as the date of the organization of a regiment, as that of the date of the order detailing an officer to recruit as the date of the colonel's commission. The writer's discharge from the Second Reg't. Louisiana Native Guards credits him as enlisting on the 1st day of September, 1862; at this date the 1st Reg't. La. N. G. was in the field, in November the Second Regiment took the field, so that the date of the organization of the first regiment of colored troops was in September, 1862. Col. Higginson, says in his volume:

"Except the Louisiana soldiers mentioned,—of whom no detailed reports have, I think, been published,—my regiment was unquestionably the first mustered into the service of the United States; the first company mustered bearing date, November 7, 1862, and the others following in quick succession."

Save the regiments recruited in Kansas, South Carolina and New Orleans during the year 1862, nothing was done towards increasing the negro army, but in January 1863, when the policy of the Government was changed and the Emancipation Proclamation foreshadowed the employment of negroes in the armed service, an activity such as had not been witnessed since the beginning of the war became apparent. Many officers without commands, and some with, but who sought promotion, were eager to be allowed to organize a regiment, a battalion or a brigade of negro troops. Mr. Lincoln found it necessary in less than six months after issuing his Proclamation of Freedom, to put the whole matter of negro soldiers into the hands of a board.[17] Ambition, as ambition will, smothered many a white man's prejudice and caused more than one West Pointer to forget his political education. This order was issued:

ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., January 13th, 1863.

BRIGADIER GENERAL D. ULLMAN, Washington, D. C.

SIR:—By direction of the Secretary of War you are hereby authorized to raise a Brigade of (four regiments) of Louisiana Volunteer Infantry, to be recruited in that State to serve for three years or during the War.

Each regiment of said Brigade will be organized as prescribed in General orders No. 126, series of 1862, from this office.

The recruitment will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the service, and the orders of the War Department, and by the said department all appointments of officers will be made.

All musters will be made in strict conformity to Paragraph 86 Revised Mustering Regulations of 1862.

I am, Very Respectfully Your Obedient Servant, THOMAS M. VINCENT, Asst. Adjt. Gen'l.

ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., March 24, 1863.

BRIG. GENERAL ULLMAN, Washington, D. C.

GENERAL:—By direction of the Secretary of War, you are hereby authorized to raise a Battalion (six companies) of Louisiana Volunteer Infantry to be used for scouting purposes, to be recruited in that State, and to serve for three years or during the war.

The said force will be organized as prescribed in Paragraph 83, Mustering Regulations.

The recruitment will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the service, and the orders of the War Department, and by the said Department all appointments of officers will be made.

All musters will be made in accordance with the orders given in reference to the troops authorized by the instructions from this office of January 13, 1863.

I am, General Very Respectfully Your Obedient Servant,

THOMAS M. VINCENT, Asst. Adjt. General.

In furtherance of the order General Ullman proceeded to New Orleans and assumed command of seven thousand troops already organized. It was said that he had arranged to place 500 white officers in command of the troops in Louisiana.

In October thereafter General Banks issued the following order, which fully explains itself:

Recruiting for the Corps d'Afrique.

GENERAL ORDERS HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF. No. 77. New Orleans, October 27, 1863.

I. All persons of Color coming within the lines of the army, or following the army when in the field, other than those employed in the Staff Department of the army, or as servants of officers entitled by the Regulations to have servants, or cooks, will be placed in charge of and provided for by the several Provost Marshals of the Parishes, or if the army be on the march, or in the field, by the Provost Marshal of the Army.

II. The several Provost Marshals of the Parishes and of the Army will promptly forward to the nearest recruiting depot all able bodied males for service in the Corps d'Afrique.

III. Recruits will be received for the Corps d'Afrique of all able bodied men from sections of the country not occupied by our forces, and beyond our lines, without regard to the enrollment provided for in General Orders No. 64 and 70, from these Headquarters.

IV. Instructions will be given by the President of the Commission of Enrollment to the Superintendent of Recruiting, to govern in all matters of detail relating to recruiting, and officers will be held to a strict accountability for the faithful observance of existing orders and such instructions; but no officer will be authorized to recruit beyond the lines without first having his order approved by the officer commanding the nearest post, or the officer commanding the Army in the Field, who will render such assistance as may be necessary to make the recruiting service effective.

BY COMMAND OF MAJOR GENERAL BANKS:

G. NORMAN LIEBER, Act. Asst. Adjt. Gen'l.

At the North where negroes had been refused admission to the army, the President's Proclamation was hailed with delight. Gov. Andrew, of Massachusetts, at once began the organization of the 54th Regiment of his State, composed entirely of negroes, and on the 28th of May the regiment being ready to take the field, embarked for South Carolina. Other Northern States followed. Pennsylvania established Camp Wm. Penn, from which several regiments took their departure, while Connecticut and Rhode Island both sent a regiment.



The taste with which the negro soldiers arranged their quarters often prompted officers of white regiments to borrow a detail to clean and beautify the quarters of their commands. An occurrence of this kind came very near causing trouble on Morris Island, S.C. The matter was brought to the commanding General's attention and he immediately issued this order:

DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, HEADQUARTERS IN THE FIELD.

GENERAL ORDERS, Morris Island, S.C., Sept. 17th, 1863. No. 77.

1. It has come to the knowledge of the Brig. Gen. Commanding that detachments of colored troops, detailed for fatigue duty, have been employed in one instance at least, to prepare camps and perform menial duty for white troops. Such use of these details is unauthorized and improper, and is hereafter expressly prohibited. Commanding Officers of colored regiments are directed to report promptly, to the Headquarters, any violations of this order which may come to their knowledge.

BY ORDER OF GEN. Q. A. GILLMORE,

OFFICIAL: ED. W. SMITH, Asst. Adjt. Gen'l.

ISRAEL Z. SEALEY, Capt. 47th N.Y. Vols., Act. Asst. Adjt. General.

The Southern troops generally made no objection to cleaning the quarters of their white allies, but when a detail from the 54th Mass. Reg't., on its way to the front, was re-detailed for that purpose, they refused to obey. The detail was placed under arrest. When this information reached the regiment it was only by releasing the prisoners that a turbulent spirit was quieted. There were about ten thousand negro troops in and about Morris Island at that time, and they quickly sneezed at the 54th's snuff. The negro barbers in this department had been refusing to shave and to cut the hair of negro soldiers in common with the whites. Corporal Kelley of the 54th Mass. Regiment, who had been refused a shave at a shop located near one of the brigade Headquarters, went there one evening accompanied by a number of the members of Company C. The men gathered around the barber's place of business, which rested upon posts a little up from the ground; the negro barbers were seated in their chairs resting from their labors and listening to the concert, which it was customary for a band to give each evening. As the last strains of music were being delivered, one side of the barber shop was lifted high and then suddenly dropped; it came down with a crash making a wreck of the building and its contents, except the barbers, who escaped unhurt, but who never made their appearance again. The episode resulted in the issuing of an order forbidding discrimination on account of color.

The Washington authorities established recruiting stations throughout the South. Of the difficulties under which recruiting officers labored some idea may be formed by reading the following, written by the historian of the 7th Regiment:

"The position of recruiting officer for colored troops was by no means a sinecure; on the contrary, it was attended with hardships, annoyances and difficulties without number. Moving about from place to place; often on scant rations, and always without transportation, save what could be pressed into service; sleeping in barns, out-houses, public buildings,—wherever shelter could be found, and meeting from the people everywhere opposition and dislike. To have been an officer of colored troops was of itself sufficient to ostracize, and when, in addition, one had to take from them their slaves, dislike became absolute hatred. There were, of course, exceptions, and doubtless every officer engaged on this disagreeable duty can bear testimony to receiving at times a hospitality as generous as it was unexpected, even from people whom duty compelled them to despoil. But this was always from "union men," for it must be confessed that a large proportion of the property-holders on both the eastern and western shores of the Chesapeake were as deeply in sympathy with the rebellion as their brethren over the Virginia border.

"Perhaps the most disagreeable feature of this recruiting duty was that Gen. Birney (Supt. of recruiting of negro troops in Maryland) seldom saw fit to give his subordinates anything but verbal instructions. Officers were ordered to open recruiting stations; to raid through the country, carrying off slaves from under the eyes of their masters; to press horses for their own use and that of their men, and teams and vehicles for purposes of transportation; to take forage when needed; to occupy buildings and appropriate fuel; in short, to do a hundred things they had really no legal right to do, and had they been called upon, as was likely to happen at any time, for the authority under which they were acting, they would have had nothing to show but their commissions; and if, in carrying out these verbal instructions from their chief, they had become involved in serious difficulty, they had little reason to suppose that they would be sustained by him.

"When it is remembered that slavery was at that time still a recognized institution, and that the duty of a recruiting officer often required him to literally strip a plantation of its field hands, and that, too, at a time of the year when the crops were being gathered, it is perhaps to be wondered that the bitter feelings of the slave-owners did not often find vent in open resistence and actual violence. That this delicate and disagreeable duty was performed in a manner to avoid serious difficulty certainly speaks well for the prudence and good judgment of the officers and men engaged in it.

"The usual method of proceeding was, upon reaching a designated point, to occupy the most desirable public building, dwelling-house, warehouse, or barn found vacant, and with this as a rendezvous, small parties were sent into the surrounding country, visiting each plantation within a radius of twenty or thirty miles. The parties, sometimes under charge of an officer, usually consisted of a non-commissioned officer and ten or twelve men.

"In these journeys through the country the recruiting officer often met with strange experiences. Recruits were taken wherever found, and as their earthly possessions usually consisted of but what they wore upon their backs, they required no time to settle their affairs. The laborer in the field would throw down his hoe or quit his plow and march away with the guard, leaving his late owner looking after him in speechless amazement. On one occasion the writer met a planter on the road, followed by two of his slaves, each driving a loaded wagon. The usual questions were asked and the whilom slaves joined the recruiting party, leaving their teams and late master standing in the highway. At another time a negro was met with a horse and wagon. Having expressed his desire to "'list," he turned his horse's head toward home, and marched away in the opposite direction.

"On one occasion the writer visited a large plantation near Capeville, Va., and calling upon the proprietor asked him to call in his slaves. He complied without a word, and when they came and were asked if they wished to enlist, replied that they did, and fell into the ranks with the guard. As they started away the old man turned to me, and with tears in his eyes, said, "Will you take them all? Here I am, an old man; I cannot work; my crops are ungathered; my negroes have all enlisted or run away, and what am I to do?" A hard question, truly. Another officer was called upon by a gentleman with this question, "You have taken all my able-bodied men for soldiers, the others have run away, and only the women and children are left;—what do you propose to do with them?" Another hard question.

"At another time, when the Balloon was lying at the mouth of the Pocomoke, accompanied by Lieut. Brown and with a boat's crew, we pulled up the river to the plantation of a Mrs. D., a noted rebel sympathizer. We were met, as we expected, with the most violent abuse from the fair proprietoress, which was redoubled when three of her best slaves, each of whom had probably been worth a couple of thousand dollars in ante-bellum days, took their bundles and marched off to the boat. We bade the lady farewell, and pushed off amid the shouts and screams of a score of negro women and children, and the tears and execrations of the widow.

"To illustrate the unreasonable orders Gen. Birney was sometimes in the habit of giving to officers engaged under him on recruiting service, the writer well remembers being placed by him, at Pungoteague, Va., in charge of some 200 recruits he had forcibly taken from an officer recruiting under Col. Nelson's orders, and receiving from him (Gen. Birney) the most positive orders under no circumstances to allow Col. Nelson to get possession of them,—Col. Nelson's steamer was hourly expected—and that I should be held personally responsible that they were put on board his own steamer, and this when I had neither men nor muskets to enforce the order. Fortunately (for myself) Gen. Birney's steamer arrived first and the men were safely put on board. Some days later, Lieut. Brown, who was then in charge of the same station, had a squad of recruits taken from him by Col. Nelson, in retaliation.

"Many a hap-hazard journey was undertaken in search of recruits and recruiting stations. On one occasion an officer was ordered by Gen. Birney to take station at a town(?) not many miles from Port Tobacco, on the Potomac. After two days' careful search he discovered that the town he was in search of had been a post-office twenty years before, but then consisted of one house, uninhabited and uninhabitable, with not another within the circuit of five miles."

When the Government decided to arm the negroes and ordered the organization of a hundred regiments, it was with great difficulty the equipment department met the requisitions. It necessitated a departure from the accustomed uniform material for volunteers, and helped to arouse the animosity of the white troops. Instead of the coarse material issued at first, the Phalanx was clothed in a fine blue-black dress coat for the infantry, and a superb dark blue jacket for the artillery and cavalry, all neatly trimmed with brass buttons and white, red and yellow cord, representing the arm of service; heavy sky blue pantaloons, and a flannel cap, or high crown black felt hat or chapeau with a black feather looped upon the right side and fastened with a brass eagle. For the infantry and for the cavalry two swords crossed; for the artillery two cannons on the front of the chapeau crossed, with the letters of the company, and number of the regiment to which the soldier belonged. On the caps these insignias were worn on the top of the crown. The uniform of the Phalanx put the threadbare clothes of the white veterans in sad contrast, and was the cause of many a black soldier being badly treated by his white comrades.[18]

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, the pay of soldiers (volunteers) was the same as soldiers of the regular army, by law, $13 per month. The soldiers of the Phalanx enlisted under the same law and regulations as did the white volunteers, as to pay and term of service, but the Secretary of War, after a few regiments were in the field, decided, and so ordered, that negro troops should be paid ten dollars per month. The instructions given to General Saxton on the 25th day of August, 1862, had stated that the pay would be the same as that of the other troops:

"In view of the small force under your command, and the inability of the Government at the present time to increase it, in order to guard the plantations and settlements occupied by the United States, from invasion, and to protect the inhabitants thereof from captivity and murder by the enemy, you are also authorized to arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the service of the United States, such number of volunteers of African descent as you may deem expedient, not exceeding five thousand, and may detail officers to instruct them in military drill, discipline and duty, and to command them. The persons so received into service, and their officers, to be entitled to, and receive, the same pay and rations as are allowed, by law, to volunteers in the service."

As to the white officers they were paid in full, but the privates and non-commissioned officers were allowed but $10 per month, three of which were deducted on account of clothing. In several instances the paymaster not having received special instructions to that effect, disregarded the general orders, and paid the negro soldiers in full, like other volunteers; but the order was generally recognized, though many of the regiments refused to receive the $7 per month, which was particularly the case of regiments from the Northern States. The order at one time in the Department of the Gulf, came very near causing a mutiny among the troops, because white troops, and conscripts at that, and those who had done provost duty about the cities, were paid $16 per month,—Congress having raised the pay,—while the Phalanx regiments in the field and fortifications were offered $7. The dissatisfaction was so strongly manifested as to cause twelve members of the Phalanx to lose their lives, which were not the only ones lost by the bad faith on the part of the Government. However, in no instance did the Phalanx refuse to do its duty when called upon, and at the sound of the long roll, though the black flag was raised against them, and many of their families were suffering at home, their patriotic ardor never abated in the least. At the North, provisions were made by the States to relieve the families of the brave men. Massachusetts sent paymasters to make good the promises of the Government, but the deficiency was rejected. Her regiments, although a year without pay, refused to accept, and demanded full pay from the Government. The loyal people of the country, at public meetings and the press,[19] severely criticised the Government, while the patriotic black men continued to pour out their blood and to give their lives for liberty and the Union.



The matter being one for Congress to adjust, Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, on the 8th of Jan. 1864, introduced in the Senate of the United States, a bill to promote enlistments in the army, and in this measure justice to the black soldiers was proposed. After months of debate, it was finally passed; not only placing the Phalanx soldiers on a footing with all other troops, but made free, the mothers, wives and children of the noble black troops.

The fight of the Phalanx for equal pay and allowance with the white troops, was a long one. The friends of the black soldiers in Congress fought it, however, to the successful issue. Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, took the lead in the matter in the Senate, as he did in the amending of the enrolling acts, and the act calling out the militia, whereby negroes were enrolled.

In the winter of '64 Gen. Butler began the organization of the Army of the James and the enlistment of negro troops. A camp was established near Fortress Monroe, where a great many men enlisted. The Secretary of War gave permission to the several Northern States to send agents South, and to enlist negroes to fill up their quotas of troops needed. Large bounties were then being paid and many a negro received as much as $500 to enlist; while many who went as substitutes received even more than that. The recruiting officers or rather agents from the different States established their headquarters largely within Gen. Butlers departments, where negro volunteers were frequently secured at a much less price than the regular bounty offered, the agent putting into his own pocket the difference, which often amounted to $200 or even $400 on a single recruit. To correct this wrong, Gen. Butler issued the following order:

HEADQUARTERS DEP'T. VIRGINIA & NORTH CAROLINA,

GENERAL ORDERS, IN THE FIELD, Va., August 4th, 1864. No. 90.

With all the guards which the utmost vigilance and care have thrown around the recruitment of white soldiers, it is a fact, as lamentable as true, that a large portion of the recruits have been swindled of part, if not all, of their bounties. Can it be hoped that the colored man will be better able to protect himself from the infinite ingenuity of fraud than the white?

Therefore, to provide for the families of the colored recruits enlisted in this Department—to relieve the United States, as far as may be, from the burden of supporting the families,—and to insure that at least a portion of the bounty paid to the negro shall be received for his use and that of his family;

It is ordered: I—That upon the enlistment of any negro recruit into the service of the United States for three (3) years, by any State agent or other person not enlisting recruits under the direct authority of the War Department, a sum of one hundred (100) dollars, or one-third (1/3) of the sum agreed to be paid as bounty, shall be paid if the amount exceeds three times that sum, into the hands of the Superintendent of Recruiting, or an officer to be designated by him, and in the same proportion for any less time; and no Mustering Officer will give any certificate or voucher for any negro recruit mustered into the service of the United States, so that he may be credited to the quota of any State, or as a substitute, until a certificate is filed with him that the amount called for by this order has been paid, to the satisfaction of the Superintendent of Recruiting of the district wherein the recruit was enlisted; but the mustering officer will, in default of such payment, certify upon the roll that the recruit is not to be credited to the quota of any State, or as a substitute.

II—The amount as paid to the Superintendent of Recruiting shall be turned over, on the last day of each month, to the Superintendent of Negro Affairs, to be expended in aid of the families of negro soldiers in this Department. The certificates filed with Commissary of Musters will be returned to said Superintendent of Negro Affairs, on the first day of every month, so that the Superintendent may vouch for the accounts of the Superintendent of Recruiting, for the amounts received by him.

And the Superintendent of Negro Affairs will account monthly to the Financial Agent of this Department for the amounts received and expended by him.

III—As there are unfilled colored Regiments in this Department sufficient to receive all the negro recruits therein, no negro male person above the age of sixteen (16) years, shall be taken out or attempted to be taken out of this Department, either as a recruit, as officer's servant, or otherwise, in any manner whatever, without a pass from these Head Quarters. Any officer, Master of Transportation, Provost Marshal, or person, who shall aid, assist or permit any male negro of the age of sixteen (16) years or upwards, to go out of this Department, in contravention of this order, will be punished, on conviction thereof before the Provost Court, by not less than six (6) months imprisonment at hard labor, under the Superintendent of Prison Labor, at Norfolk, and if this offence is committed by or with the connivance of any Master of Steamboat, Schooner, or other vessel, the steamboat or other vessel shall be seized and sold, and the proceeds be paid to the Superintendent of Negro Affairs, for the use of the destitute negroes supported by the Government.

By command of Major General B. F. BUTLER:

R. S. DAVIS, Major and Asst. Adjt. General.

OFFICIAL: H. T. SCHROEDER, Lt. & A. A. A. Gen'l. OFFICIAL: WM. M. PRATT, Lt. & Aide-de-Camp.



The chief result of Butler's order was the establishment of the Freedmens' Savings Bank. At the close of the war, there were in the hands of the Superintendent of Negro Affairs, eight thousand dollars unclaimed bounties, belonging, the most of it without doubt, to dead men; it was placed in a bank at Norfolk, Va. This sum served as a nucleus for the Freedmens' Bank, which, after gathering large sums of the Freedmens' money, collapsed suddenly.

At Camp Hamilton several regiments were organized, including two of cavalry. The general enlistment ordered by the War Department was pushed most actively and with great results, till more than one hundred and seventy-eight thousand, by the records, were enlisted into the army.

The opposition to negro soldiers did not cease with many of the Union generals even after the Government at Washington issued its mandate for their enlistment and impressment, and notwithstanding that the many thousands in the service, with their display of gallantry, dash and courage, as exhibited at Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Wagner, and in a hundred other battles, had astonished and aroused the civilized world. In view of all this, and, even more strangely, in the face of the Fort Pillow butchery, General Sherman wrote to the Washington authorities, in September, 1864, protesting against negro troops being organized in his department. If Whitelaw Reid's "Ohio in the War," is to be relied upon, Sherman's treatment of the negroes in his march to the sea was a counterpart of the Fort Pillow massacre. His opposition was in keeping with that of the authorities of his state,[20] notwithstanding it has credited to its quota of troops during the war 5,092 negroes, but one regiment was raised in the State, out of a negro population of 36,673 by the canvas of 1860.

According to the statistics on file in the Adjutant General's office, the States are accredited with the following number of negroes who served in the army during the Rebellion:

ALABAMA, 2,969 LOUISIANA, 24,052 NEW HAMPSHIRE, 125 MASSACHUSETTS, 3,966 CONNECTICUT, 1,764 NEW JERSEY, 1,185 DELAWARE, 954 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 3,269 NORTH CAROLINA, 5,035 SOUTH CAROLINA, 5,462 FLORIDA, 1,044 TENNESSEE, 20,133 MICHIGAN, 1,387 INDIANA, 1,537 MISSOURI, 8,344 IOWA, 440 KANSAS, 2,080 COLORADO TERRITORY, 95 MISSISSIPPI, 17,869 MAINE, 104 VERMONT, 120 RHODE ISLAND, 1,837 NEW YORK, 4,125 PENNSYLVANIA, 8,612 MARYLAND, 8,718 VIRGINIA, 5,723 WEST VIRGINIA, 196 GEORGIA, 3,486 ARKANSAS, 5,526 KENTUCKY, 23,703 OHIO, 5,092 ILLINOIS, 1,811 MINNESOTA, 104 WISCONSIN, 165 TEXAS, 47 NOT ACCOUNTED FOR, 5,896

TOTAL, 178,975.

The losses these troops sustained from sickness, wounds, killed in battle and other casualties incident to war, was 68,178.

The aggregate negro population in the U. S. in 1860 was 4,449,201, of which 3,950,531 were slaves.



FOOTNOTES:

[15] General:—The exigencies of the service require that an inspection should be made of the Armies, military posts and military operations in the West; you will therefore make arrangements immediately to perform that service. Without entering into any minute details, I beg to direct your attention to the following subjects of investigation:

First. On arriving at Cairo, you will make a careful examination of the military condition of that post, in the various branches of service, and report to this Department, the result of your investigation, suggesting whatever in your opinion, the service may require. You will observe particularly the condition of that class of population known as contrabands; the manner in which they are received, provided for and treated by the military authorities, and give such directions to the Commissary and Quartermaster Departments, and to the officers commanding, as shall, in your judgement, be necessary to secure to them humane and proper treatment, in respect to food, clothing, compensation for their service, and whatever is necessary to enable them to support themselves, and to furnish useful service in any capacity to the Government.

Second. You will make similar observation at Columbus, Memphis and other posts in your progress to the Headquarters of General Grant's Army.

Third. The President desires that you should confer freely with Major General Grant, and the officers with whom you may have communication, and explain to them the importance attached by the Government to the use of the colored population emancipated by the President's Proclamation, and particularly for the organization of their labor and military strength. You will cause it to be understood that no officer in the United States service is regarded as in the discharge of his duties under the Acts of Congress, the President's Proclamation, and orders of this Department, who fails to employ to the utmost extent, the aid and co-operation of the loyal colored population in performing the labor incident to military operations, and also in performing the duties of soldiers under proper organization, and that any obstacle thrown in the way of these ends, is regarded by the President as a violation of the Acts of Congress, and the declared purposes of the Government in using every means to bring the war to an end.

Fourth. You will ascertain what military officers are willing to take command of colored troops; ascertain their qualifications for that purpose, and if troops can be raised and organized, you will, so far as can be done without prejudice to the service, relieve officers and privates from the service in which they are engaged, to receive commissions such as they may be qualified to exercise in the organization of brigades, regiments and companies of colored troops. You are authorized in this connection, to issue in the name of this department, letters of appointment for field and company officers, and to organize such troops for military service to the utmost extent to which they can be obtained in accordance with the rules and regulations of the service. You will see, more over, and expressly enjoin upon the various staff departments of the service, that such troops are to be provided with supplies upon the requisition of the proper officers, and in the same manner as other troops in the service.

* * * * *

Very Respectfully Your Obedient Servant, EDWARD M. STANTON, Sec. of War.

BRIG. GEN. L. THOMAS, Adjt. Gen'l. U.S. Army.

[16] Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson in an appendix to his "Army Life in a Black Regiment," gives some account of the organization of negro troops, from which is condensed the following:

"It is well known that the first systematic attempt to organize colored troops during the war of the rebellion was the so-called "Hunter Regiment." The officer originally detailed to recruit for this purpose was Sergeant C. T. Trowbridge, of the New York Volunteer Engineers (Col. Serrell.) His detail was dated May 7, 1862, S. O. 84, Dept. South.

"The second regiment in order of muster was the First Kansas Colored, dating from January 13, 1863. The first enlistment in the Kansas regiment goes back to August 6, 1862; while the earliest technical date of enlistment in my regiment was October 19, 1862, although, as was stated above, one company really dated its organization back to May, 1862. My muster as Colonel dates back to November 10, 1862, several months earlier than any other of which I am aware, among colored regiments, except that of Col. Stafford, (First Louisiana Native Guards,) Sept. 27, 1862. Colonel Williams, of the First Kansas Colored, was mustered as Lt. Colonel on Jan. 13, 1863; as Col., March 8, 1863. These dates I have (with the other facts relating to the regiment) from Col. R. J. Hinton, the first officer detailed to recruit it.

"The first detachment of the Second South Carolina Volunteers (Col. Montgomery) went into camp at Port Royal Island, February 23, 1863, numbering one hundred and twenty men. I do not know the date of his muster; it was somewhat delayed, but was probably dated back to about that time.

"Recruiting for the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts (colored) began on February 9, 1863, and the first squad went into camp at Readville, Massachusetts, on February 21, 1863, numbering twenty-five men. Col. Shaw's commission—and probably his muster—was dated April 17, 1863. (Report of Adjutant General of Massachusetts for 1863, pp. 896-899.) These were the earliest colored regiments, so far as I know."

[17]

GENERAL ORDERS} WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE, No. 143. } Washington, May 22, 1863.

I.—A Bureau is established in the Adjutant General's Office for the record of all matters relating to the organization of Colored Troops. An officer will be assigned to the charge of the Bureau, with such number of clerks as may be designated by the Adjutant General.

II.—Three or more field officers will be detailed as Inspectors to supervise the organization of colored troops at such points as may be indicated by the War Department in the Northern and Western States.

III.—Boards will be convened at such posts as may be decided upon by the War Department to examine applicants for commissions to command colored troops, who, on application to the Adjutant General, may receive authority to present themselves to the board for examination.

IV—No persons shall be allowed to recruit for colored troops except specially authorized by the War Department; and no such authority will be given to persons who have not been examined and passed by a board; nor will such authority be given any one person to raise more than one regiment.

V.—The reports of Boards will specify the grade of commission for which each candidate is fit, and authority to recruit will be given in accordance. Commissions will be issued from the Adjutant General's Office when the prescribed number of men is ready for muster into service.

VI.—Colored troops may be accepted by companies, to be afterwards consolidated in battalions and regiments by the Adjutant General. The regiments will be numbered seriatim, in the order in which they are raised, the numbers to be determined by the Adjutant General. They will be designated: "—— Regiment of U. S. Colored Troops."

VII.—Recruiting stations and depots will be established by the Adjutant General as circumstances shall require, and officers will be detailed to muster and inspect the troops.

VIII.—The non-commissioned officers of colored troops may be selected and appointed from the best men of their number in the usual mode of appointing non-commissioned officers. Meritorious commissioned officers will be entitled to promotion to higher rank if they prove themselves equal to it.

IX.—All personal applications for appointments in colored regiments, or for information concerning them, must be made to the Chief of the Bureau; all written communications should be addressed to the Chief of the Bureau, to the care of the Adjutant General.

BY ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR: E. D. TOWNSEND. Asst. Adjt. General.

[18] I attempted to pass Jackson Square in New Orleans one day in my uniform, when I was met by two white soldiers of the 24th Conn. They halted me and then ordered me to undress. I refused, when they seized me and began to tear my coat off. I resisted, but to no good purpose; a half a dozen others came up and began to assist. I recognized a sergeant in the crowd, an old shipmate on board of a New Bedford, Mass., Whaler; he came to my rescue, my clothing was restored and I was let go. It was nothing strange to see a black soldier a la Adam come into the barracks out of the streets. This conduct led to the killing of a portion of a boat's crew of the U. S. Gunboat Jackson, at Ship Island, Miss., by members of a Phalanx regiment stationed there.

[19] The injustice done the Phalanx, in discriminating between the Northern and Southern negro, may be clearly seen by the following letters:

"NEW VICTORIES AND OLD WRONGS.—To the Editors of the Evening Post: On the 2d of July, at James Island, S. C., a battery was taken by three regiments, under the following circumstances:

"The regiments were the One Hundred and Third New York (white), the Thirty-Third United States (formerly First South Carolina Volunteers), and the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts, the two last being colored. They marched at one A. M., by the flank, in the above order, hoping to surprise the battery. As usual the rebels were prepared for them, and opened upon them as they were deep in one of those almost impassable Southern marshes. The One Hundred and Third New York, which had previously been in twenty battles, was thrown into confusion; the Thirty-Third United States did better, being behind; the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts being in the rear, did better still. All three formed in line, when Colonel Hartwell, commanding the brigade, gave the order to retreat. The officer commanding the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts, either misunderstanding the order, or hearing it countermanded, ordered his regiment to charge. This order was at once repeated by Major Trowbridge, commanding the Thirty-Third United States, and by the commander of the One Hundred and Third New York, so that the three regiments reached the fort in reversed order. The color-bearers of the Thirty-Third United States and of the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts had a race to be first in, the latter winning. The One Hundred and Third New York entered the battery immediately after.

"These colored regiments are two of the five which were enlisted in South Carolina and Massachusetts, under the written pledge of the War Department that they should have the same pay and allowances as white soldiers. That pledge has been deliberately broken by the War Department, or by Congress, or by both, except as to the short period, since last New Year's Day. Every one of those killed in this action from these two colored regiments—under a fire before which the veterans of twenty battles recoiled—died defrauded by the Government of nearly one-half of his petty pay.

"Mr. Fessenden, who defeated in the Senate the bill for the fulfillment of the contract with these soldiers, is now Secretary of the Treasury. Was the economy of saving six dollars per man worth to the Treasury the ignominy of the repudiation?

"Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, on his triumphal return to his constituents, used to them this language: 'He had no doubt whatever as to the final result of the present contest between liberty and slavery. The only doubt he had was whether the nation had yet been satisfactorily chastised for their cruel oppression of a harmless and long-suffering race.' Inasmuch as it was Mr. Stevens himself who induced the House of Representatives, most unexpectedly to all, to defeat the Senate bill for the fulfilment of the national contract with these soldiers, I should think he had excellent reasons for the doubt.

Very respectfully, T. W. HIGGINSON, July 10, 1864. Col. 1st S. C. Vols. (now 33d U. S.)

* * * * *

"To the Editor of the New York Tribune: No one can possibly be so weary of reading of the wrongs done by Government toward the colored soldiers as I am of writing about them. This is my only excuse for intruding on your columns again.

"By an order of the War Department, dated Aug 1, 1864, it is at length ruled that colored soldiers shall be paid the full pay of soldiers from date of enlistment, provided they were free on April 19, 1861,—not otherwise; and this distinction is to be noted on the pay-rolls. In other words, if one half of a company escaped from slavery on April 18, 1861, they are to be paid thirteen dollars per month and allowed three dollars and a half per month for clothing. If the other half were delayed two days, they receive seven dollars per month and are allowed three dollars per month for precisely the same articles of clothing. If one of the former class is made first sergeant, his pay is put up to twenty-one dollars per month; but if he escaped two days later, his pay is still estimated at seven dollars.

"It had not occurred to me that anything could make the pay-rolls of these regiments more complicated than at present, or the men more rationally discontented. I had not the ingenuity to imagine such an order. Yet it is no doubt in accordance with the spirit, if not with the letter, of the final bill which was adopted by Congress under the lead of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens.

"The ground taken by Mr. Stevens apparently was that the country might honorably save a few dollars by docking the promised pay of those colored soldiers whom the war had made free. But the Government should have thought of this before it made the contract with these men and received their services. When the War Department instructed Brigadier-General Saxton, August 25, 1862, to raise five regiments of negroes in South Carolina, it was known very well that the men so enlisted had only recently gained their freedom. But the instructions said: 'The persons so received into service, and their officers, to be entitled to and receive the same pay and rations as are allowed by law to volunteers in the service.' Of this passage Mr. Solicitor Whiting wrote to me: 'I have no hesitation in saying that the faith of the Government was thereby pledged to every officer and soldier enlisted under that call.' Where is that faith of the Government now?

"The men who enlisted under the pledge were volunteers, every one; they did not get their freedom by enlisting; they had it already. They enlisted to serve the Government, trusting in its honor. Now the nation turns upon them and says: Your part of the contract is fulfilled; we have had your services. If you can show that you had previously been free for a certain length of time, we will fulfil the other side of the contract. If not, we repudiate it. Help yourselves, if you can.

"In other words, a freedman (since April 19, 1861) has no rights which a white man is bound to respect. He is incapable of making a contract. No man is bound by a contract made with him. Any employer, following the example of the United States Government, may make with him a written agreement, receive his services, and then withhold the wages. He has no motive to honest industry, or to honesty of any kind. He is virtually a slave, and nothing else, to the end of time.

"Under this order, the greater part of the Massachusetts colored regiments will get their pay at last, and be able to take their wives and children out of the almshouses, to which, as Governor Andrew informs us, the gracious charity of the nation has consigned so many. For so much I am grateful. But toward my regiment, which had been in service and under fire, months before a Northern colored soldier was recruited, the policy of repudiation has at last been officially adopted. There is no alternative for the officers of South Carolina regiments but to wait for another session of Congress, and meanwhile, if necessary, act as executioners for these soldiers who, like Sergeant Walker, refuse to fulfil their share of a contract where the Government has openly repudiated the other share. If a year's discussion, however, has at length secured the arrears of pay for the Northern colored regiments, possibly two years may secure it for the Southern.

"T. W. HIGGINSON,

"August 12, 1864. Col. 1st S. C. Vols., (now 33d U. S.)"

[20] "It has been said that one negro regiment was raised in 1863. More ought to have been secured; let it never be said that it was the fault of the colored men themselves that they were not.

"At the first call for troops in 1861, Governor Dennison was asked if he would accept negro volunteers. In deference to a sentiment then almost universal, not less than to the explicit regulations of the Government, he replied that he could not. When the Emancipation Proclamation changed the status of negroes so completely, and the Government began to accept their services, they resumed their applications to the State authorities. Governor Tod still discouraged them. He had previously committed himself, in repelling the opportunities of their leaders, to the theory that it would be contrary to our laws, and without warrant either in their spirit or letter, to accept them, even under calls for militia. He now did all he could to transfer such as wished to enlist, to the Massachusetts regiments.

"The Adjutant-General, in his report for 1863, professed his inability to say why Massachusetts should be permitted to make Ohio a recruiting-ground for filling her quotas. If he had looked into the correspondence which the Governor gave to the public in connection with his message, he would have found out. As early as May 11th the Governor said, in a letter to Hon. Wm. Porter, of Millon, Ohio: 'I do not propose to raise any colored troops. Those now being recruited in this State are recruited by authority from Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts.'

"A few days later he wrote to Hon. John M. Langston: 'As it was uncertain what number of colored men could be promptly raised in Ohio. I have advised and still do advise, that those disposed to enter the service promptly join the Massachusetts regiments. * * * Having requested the Governor of Massachusetts to organize the colored men from Ohio into separate companies, so far as practicable, and also to keep me fully advised of the names, age, and place of residence of each, Ohio will have the full benefit of all enlistments from the State, and the recruits themselves the benefit of the State Associations to the same extent nearly as if organized into a State regiment.' And to persons proposing to recruit said companies he wrote that all commissions would be issued by the Governor of Massachusetts. In this course he had the sanction if not the original suggestion of the Secretary of War. Afterward his applications for authority to raise an Ohio regiment were for sometime refused, but finally he secured it, and the One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh was the quick result. Unfortunately it was numbered the Fifth United States Colored. The result of all this was that Ohio received credit for little over a third of her colored citizens who volunteered for the war."—Reid's Ohio in the War, Vol. I, p. 176.



CHAPTER III.

RECRUITING AND ORGANIZING IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

"Private Miles O'Reilly" was the nom de plume of a talented literary gentleman of the city of New York, who wrote much in humorous prose and verse. His real name was Charles G. Halpine. After an honorable service in the war, rising to high rank, he was elected Register of New York, and died suddenly while in office, in 1868. The following sketches from his pen, published during the war, give an account of matters connected with the recruiting and organizing of negro troops in South Carolina, and are quoted here as interesting historical facts connected with the subject:

"Black troops are now an established success, and hereafter—while the race can furnish enough able-bodied males—the probability would seem that one-half the permanent naval and military forces of the United States will be drawn from this material, under the guidance and control of the white officers. To-day there is much competition among the field and staff officers of our white volunteers—more especially in those regiments about being disbanded—to obtain commission of like or even lower grades in the colored regiments of Uncle Sam. General Casey's board of examination cannot keep in session long enough, nor dismiss incompetent aspirants quick enough, to keep down the vast throngs of veterans, with and without shoulder-straps, who are now seeking various grades of command in the colored brigades of the Union. Over this result all intelligent men will rejoice,—the privilege of being either killed or wounded in battle, or stricken down by the disease, toil and privations incident to the life of a marching soldier, not belonging to that class of prerogative for the exclusive enjoyment of which men of sense, and with higher careers open to them, will long contend. Looking back, however, but a few years, to the organization of the first regiment of black troops in the departments of the South, what a change in public opinion are we compelled to recognize! In sober verity, war is not only the sternest, but the quickest, of all teachers; and contrasting the Then and Now of our negro regiments, as we propose to do in this sketch, the contrast will forcibly recall Galileo's obdurate assertion that 'the world still moves.'

"Be it known, then, that the first regiment of black troops raised in our recent war, was raised in the Spring of 1862 by the commanding general of the department of the South, of his own motion, and without any direct authority of law, order, or even sanction from the President, the Secretary of War, or our House of Congress. It was done by General Hunter as 'a military necessity' under very peculiar circumstances, to be detailed hereafter; and although repudiated at first by the Government as were so many other measures originated in the same quarter, it was finally adopted as the settled policy of the country and of our military system; as have likewise since been adopted, all the other original measures for which these officers, at the time of their first announcement, was made to suffer both official rebuke and the violently vituperative denunciation of more than one-half the Northern press.

"In the Spring of 1862, General Hunter, finding himself with less than eleven thousand men under his command, and charged with the duty of holding the whole tortuous and broken seacoast of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, had applied often, and in vain, to the authorities at Washington for reinforcements. All the troops that could be gathered in the North were less than sufficient for the continuous drain of General McClellan's great operations against the enemy's capital; and the reiterated answer of the War Department was: 'You must get along as best you can. Not a man from the North can be spared.'

"On the mainland of three States nominally forming the Department of the South, the flag of the Union had no permanent foothold, save at Fernandina, St. Augustine, and some few unimportant points along the Florida coast. It was on the Sea-islands of Georgia and South Carolina that our troops were stationed, and continually engaged in fortifying,—the enemy being everywhere visible, and in force, across the narrow creeks dividing us from the mainland; and in various raids they came across to our islands, and we drove them back to the mainland, and up their creeks, with a few gunboats to help us—being the order of the day; yea, and yet oftener, of the night.