BUILDING ROADS
"To this demand, with its alternative of threats, President Lincoln was in no mood to make any definitive reply. In fact no reply at all was sent, for, as yet, the most far-seeing political augurs could not determine whether the bird seen in the sky of the Southern Department would prove an eagle or a buzzard. Public opinion was not formed upon the subject, though rapidly forming. There were millions who agreed with Hunter in believing that 'that the black man should be made to fight for the freedom which could not but be the issue of our war;' and then they were outraged at the prospect of allowing black men to be killed or maimed in company with our nobler whites."Failing to obtain any reply therefor, from the authorities at Washington, the Richmond people determined to pour out all their vengeance on the immediate perpetrators of this last Yankee atrocity; and forthwith there was issued from the rebel War Department a General Order number 60, we believe, of the series of 1862—reciting that 'as the government of the U. S. had refused to answer whether it authorized the raising of a black regiment by Gen. Hunter or not' said General, his staff, and all officers under his command who had directly or indirectly participated in the unclean thing, should hereafter be outlaws not covered by the laws of war; but to be executed as felons for the crimes of 'inciting negro insurrections wherever caught.'"This order reached the ears of the parties mainly interested just as Gen. Hunter was called to Washington, ostensibly for consultation on public business; but really on the motion of certain prominent speculators in marine transportation, with those 'big things,' in Port Royal harbor,—and they were enormous—with which the General had seen fit to interfere. These frauds, however, will form a very fruitful and pregnant theme for some future chapters. At present our business is with the slow but certain growth in the public mind of this idea of allowing some black men to be killed in the late war, and not continuing to arrogate death and mutilation by projectiles and bayonets as an exclusive privilege for our own beloved white race."No sooner had Hunter been relieved from this special duty at Washington, than he was ordered back to the South, our Government still taking no notice of the order of outlawry against him issued by the rebel Secretary of War. He and his officers were thus sent back to engage, with extremely insufficient forces, in an enterprise of no common difficulty, and with an agreeable sentence ofsus. per col., if captured, hanging over their devoted heads!"Why not suggest to Mr. Stanton, General, that he should either demand the special revocation of that order, or announce to the rebel War Department that our Government has adopted your negro-regiment policy as its own—which would be the same thing."It was partly on this hint that Hunter wrote the following letter to Jefferson Davis,—a letter subsequently suppressed and never sent, owing to influences which the writer of this article does not feel himself as yet at liberty to reveal,—further than to say that Mr. Stanton knew nothing of the matter. Davis and Hunter, we may add, had been very old and intimate friends, until divided, some years previous to our late war, by differences on the slavery question. Davis had for many years been adjutant of the 1st U. S. Dragoons, of which Hunter had been Captain Commanding; and a relationship of very close friendship had existed between their respective families. It was this thorough knowledge of his man, perhaps, which gave peculiar bitterness to Hunter's pen; and the letter is otherwise remarkable as a prophecy, or preordainment of that precise policy which Pres't. Johnson has so frequently announced, and reiterated since Mr. Lincoln's death. It ran—with some few omissions, no longer pertinent or of public interest—as follows:"TO JEFFERSON DAVIS, TITULAR PRESIDENT OF THE SO-CALLED CONFEDERATE STATES."Sir:—While recently in command of the Department of the South, in accordance with the laws of the war and the dictates of common sense, I organized and caused to be drilled, armed and equipped, a regiment of enfranchised bondsmen, known as the 1st South Carolina Volunteers."For this action, as I have ascertained, the pretended government of which you are the chief officer, has issued against me and all of my officers who were engaged in organizing the regiment in question, a General Order of Outlawry, which announces that, if captured, we shall not even be allowed the usual miserable treatment extended to such captives as fall into your hands; but that we are to be regarded as felons, and to receive the death by hanging due to such, irrespective of the laws of war."Mr. Davis, we have been acquainted intimately in the past. We have campaigned together, and our social relations have been such as to make each understand the other thoroughly. That you mean, if it be ever in your power, to execute the full rigor of your threats, I am well assured; and you will believe my assertion, that I thank you for having raised in connection with me and my acts, this sharp and decisive issue. I shall proudly accept, if such be the chance of war, the martyrdom you menace; and hereby give you notice that unless your General Order against me and my officers be formally revoked, within thirty days from the date of the transmission of this letter, sent under a flag of truce, I shall take your action in the matter as finale; and will reciprocate it by hanging every rebel officer who now is, or may hereafter be taken, prisoner by the troops of the command to which I am about returning."Believe me that I rejoice at the aspect now being given to the war by the course you have adopted. In my judgment, if the undoubted felony of treason had been treated from the outset as it deserves to be—as the sum of all felonies and crimes—this rebellion would never have attained its present menacing proportions. The war you and your fellow conspirators have been waging against the United States must be regarded either as a war of justifiable defence, carried on for the integrity of the boundaries of a sovereign Confederation of States against foreign aggression, or as the most wicked, enormous, and deliberately planned conspiracy against human liberty and for the triumph of treason and slavery, of which the records of the world's history contain any note."If our Government should adopt the first view of the case, you and your fellowrebels may justly claim to be considered a most unjustly treated body of disinterested patriots,—although, perhaps, a little mistaken in your connivance with the thefts by which your agent, John B. Floyd, succeeded in arming the South and partially disarming the North as a preparative to the commencement of the struggle."But if on the other hand—as is the theory of our Government—the war you have levied against the U. S. be a rebellion the most causeless, crafty and bloody ever known,—a conspiracy having the rule-or-ruin policy for its basis; the plunder of the black race and the reopening of the African slave trade for its object, the continued and further degradation of ninety per cent. of the white population of the South in favor of a slave driving ten per cent. aristocracy, and the exclusion of all foreign-born immigrants from participation in the generous and equal hospitality foreshadowed to them in the Declaration of Independence,—if this, as I believe, be a fair statement of the origin and motives of the rebellion of which you are the titular head, then it would have been better had our Government adhered to the constitutional view of treason from the start, and hung every man taken in arms against the U. S. from the first butchery in the streets of Baltimore, down to the last resultless battle fought in the vicinity of Sharpsburg. If treason, in other words, be any crime, it is the essence of all crimes; a vast machinery of guilt, multiplying assassinations into wholesale slaughter, and organizing plunder as the basis for supporting a system of National Brigandage. Your action, and that of those with whom you are in league, has its best comment in the sympathy extended to your cause by the despots and aristocracies of Europe. You have succeeded in throwing back civilization for many years; and have made of the country that was the freest, happiest, proudest, richest, and most progressive but two short years ago, a vast temple of mourning, doubt, anxiety and privation; our manufactories of all but war material nearly paralyzed; the inventive spirit which was forever developing new resources destroyed, and our flag, that carried respect everywhere, now mocked by enemies who think its glory tarnished, and that its power is soon to become a mere tradition of the past."For all these results, Mr. Davis, and for the three hundred thousand lives already sacrificed on both sides in the war—some pouring out their blood on the battle-field, and others fever stricken and wasting away to death in overcrowded hospitals—you and the fellow miscreants who have been your associates in this conspiracy are responsible. Of you and them it may, with truth be said, that if all the innocent blood which you have spilled could be collected in one pool, the whole government of your Confederacy might swim in it."I am aware that this is not the language in which the prevailing etiquette of our army is in the habit of considering your conspiracy. It has come to pass—through what instrumentalities you are best able to decide—that the greatest and worst crime ever attempted against the human family, has been treated in certain quarters as though it were a mere error of judgment on the part of some gifted friend; a thing to be regretted, of course, as causing more or less disturbance to the relation of amity and esteem heretofore existing between those charged with the repression of such eccentricities and the eccentric actors; in fact, as a slight political miscalculation or peccadillo, rather than as an outrage involving the desolation of a continent, and demanding the promptest and severest retribution within power of human law."For myself, I have never been able to take this view of the matter. During a lifetime of active service, I have seen the seeds of this conspiracy planted in the rank soil of slavery, and the upas-growth watered by just such tricklings of a courtesy alike false to justice, expediency, and our eternal future. Had we at an earlier day commenced to call things by their right names, and to look at the hideous features of slavery with our ordinary eyesight and common sense, instead of through the rose-colored glasses of supposed political expediency, there would be three hundred thousand more men alive to-day on American soil; and our country would never for a moment have forfeited her proud position as the highest exampler of the blessings—morals, intellectual and material—to be derived from a free form of government."Whether your intention of hanging me and those of my staff and other officers who were engaged in organizing the 1st S. C. Volunteers, in case we are taken prisoners in battle, will be likely to benefit your cause or not, is a matter mainly for yourown consideration. For us, our profession makes the sacrifice of life a contingency ever present and always to be accepted; and although such a form of death as your order proposes, is not that to the contemplating of which soldiers have trained themselves, I feel well assured, both for myself and those included in my sentence, that we could die in no manner more damaging to your abominable rebellion and the abominable institution which is its origin."The South has already tried one hanging experiment, but not with a success—one would think—to encourage its repetition. John Brown, who was well known to me in Kansas, and who will be known in appreciative history through centuries which will only recall your name to load it with curses, once entered Virginia with seventeen men and an idea. The terror caused by the presence of his idea, and the dauntless courage which prompted the assertion of his faith, against all odds, I need not now recall. The history is too familiar and too painful. 'Old Ossawatomie' was caught and hung; his seventeen men were killed, captured or dispersed, and several of them shared his fate. Portions of his skin were tanned, I am told, and circulated as relics dear to the barbarity of the slave-holding heart. But more than a million of armed white men, Mr. Davis, are to-day marching South, in practical acknowledgement that they regard the hanging of three years ago as the murder of a martyr; and as they march to a battle which has the emancipation of all slaves as one of its most glorious results, his name is on their lips; to the music of his memory their marching feet keep time; and as they sling knapsacks each one becomes aware that he is an armed apostle of the faith preached by him,"'Who has gone to be a soldierIn the army of the Lord!'"I am content, if such be the will of Providence to ascend the scaffold made sacred by the blood of this martyr; and I rejoice at every prospect of making our struggle more earnest and inexorable on both sides; for the sharper the conflict the sooner ended; the more vigorous and remorseless the strife, the less blood must be shed in it eventually."In conclusion, let me assure you, that I rejoice with my whole heart that your order in my case, and that of my officers, if unrevoked, will untie our hands for the future; and that we shall be able to treat rebellion as it deserves, and give to the felony of treason a felon's death."Very obediently yours,DAVID HUNTER,Maj.-Gen.""Not long after General Hunter's return to the Department of the South, the first step towards organizing and recognizing negro troops was taken by our Government, in a letter of instructions directing Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton—then Military Governor of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, within the limits of Gen. Hunter's command—to forthwith raise and organize fifty thousand able-bodied blacks, for service as laborers in the quartermaster's department; of whom five thousand—only five thousand, mark you—might be armed and drilled as soldiers for the purpose of 'protecting the women and children of their fellow-laborers who might be absent from home in the public service.'"Here was authority given to Gen. Saxton, over Hunter's head, to pursue some steps farther the experiment which Hunter—soon followed by General Phelps, also included in the rebel order of 'outlawry'—had been the first to initiate. The rebel order still remained in full force, and with no protest against it on the part of our Government; nor to our knowledge, was any demand from Washington ever made for its revocation during the existence of the Confederacy. If Hunter, therefore, or any of his officers, had been captured in any of the campaigns of the past two and a half years, they had the pleasant knowledge for their comfort that any rebel officers into whose hands they might fall, was strictly enjoined to—not 'shoot them on the spot,' as was the order of General Dix, but to hang them on the first tree; and hang them quickly.
"To this demand, with its alternative of threats, President Lincoln was in no mood to make any definitive reply. In fact no reply at all was sent, for, as yet, the most far-seeing political augurs could not determine whether the bird seen in the sky of the Southern Department would prove an eagle or a buzzard. Public opinion was not formed upon the subject, though rapidly forming. There were millions who agreed with Hunter in believing that 'that the black man should be made to fight for the freedom which could not but be the issue of our war;' and then they were outraged at the prospect of allowing black men to be killed or maimed in company with our nobler whites.
"Failing to obtain any reply therefor, from the authorities at Washington, the Richmond people determined to pour out all their vengeance on the immediate perpetrators of this last Yankee atrocity; and forthwith there was issued from the rebel War Department a General Order number 60, we believe, of the series of 1862—reciting that 'as the government of the U. S. had refused to answer whether it authorized the raising of a black regiment by Gen. Hunter or not' said General, his staff, and all officers under his command who had directly or indirectly participated in the unclean thing, should hereafter be outlaws not covered by the laws of war; but to be executed as felons for the crimes of 'inciting negro insurrections wherever caught.'
"This order reached the ears of the parties mainly interested just as Gen. Hunter was called to Washington, ostensibly for consultation on public business; but really on the motion of certain prominent speculators in marine transportation, with those 'big things,' in Port Royal harbor,—and they were enormous—with which the General had seen fit to interfere. These frauds, however, will form a very fruitful and pregnant theme for some future chapters. At present our business is with the slow but certain growth in the public mind of this idea of allowing some black men to be killed in the late war, and not continuing to arrogate death and mutilation by projectiles and bayonets as an exclusive privilege for our own beloved white race.
"No sooner had Hunter been relieved from this special duty at Washington, than he was ordered back to the South, our Government still taking no notice of the order of outlawry against him issued by the rebel Secretary of War. He and his officers were thus sent back to engage, with extremely insufficient forces, in an enterprise of no common difficulty, and with an agreeable sentence ofsus. per col., if captured, hanging over their devoted heads!
"Why not suggest to Mr. Stanton, General, that he should either demand the special revocation of that order, or announce to the rebel War Department that our Government has adopted your negro-regiment policy as its own—which would be the same thing.
"It was partly on this hint that Hunter wrote the following letter to Jefferson Davis,—a letter subsequently suppressed and never sent, owing to influences which the writer of this article does not feel himself as yet at liberty to reveal,—further than to say that Mr. Stanton knew nothing of the matter. Davis and Hunter, we may add, had been very old and intimate friends, until divided, some years previous to our late war, by differences on the slavery question. Davis had for many years been adjutant of the 1st U. S. Dragoons, of which Hunter had been Captain Commanding; and a relationship of very close friendship had existed between their respective families. It was this thorough knowledge of his man, perhaps, which gave peculiar bitterness to Hunter's pen; and the letter is otherwise remarkable as a prophecy, or preordainment of that precise policy which Pres't. Johnson has so frequently announced, and reiterated since Mr. Lincoln's death. It ran—with some few omissions, no longer pertinent or of public interest—as follows:
"Sir:—While recently in command of the Department of the South, in accordance with the laws of the war and the dictates of common sense, I organized and caused to be drilled, armed and equipped, a regiment of enfranchised bondsmen, known as the 1st South Carolina Volunteers.
"For this action, as I have ascertained, the pretended government of which you are the chief officer, has issued against me and all of my officers who were engaged in organizing the regiment in question, a General Order of Outlawry, which announces that, if captured, we shall not even be allowed the usual miserable treatment extended to such captives as fall into your hands; but that we are to be regarded as felons, and to receive the death by hanging due to such, irrespective of the laws of war.
"Mr. Davis, we have been acquainted intimately in the past. We have campaigned together, and our social relations have been such as to make each understand the other thoroughly. That you mean, if it be ever in your power, to execute the full rigor of your threats, I am well assured; and you will believe my assertion, that I thank you for having raised in connection with me and my acts, this sharp and decisive issue. I shall proudly accept, if such be the chance of war, the martyrdom you menace; and hereby give you notice that unless your General Order against me and my officers be formally revoked, within thirty days from the date of the transmission of this letter, sent under a flag of truce, I shall take your action in the matter as finale; and will reciprocate it by hanging every rebel officer who now is, or may hereafter be taken, prisoner by the troops of the command to which I am about returning.
"Believe me that I rejoice at the aspect now being given to the war by the course you have adopted. In my judgment, if the undoubted felony of treason had been treated from the outset as it deserves to be—as the sum of all felonies and crimes—this rebellion would never have attained its present menacing proportions. The war you and your fellow conspirators have been waging against the United States must be regarded either as a war of justifiable defence, carried on for the integrity of the boundaries of a sovereign Confederation of States against foreign aggression, or as the most wicked, enormous, and deliberately planned conspiracy against human liberty and for the triumph of treason and slavery, of which the records of the world's history contain any note.
"If our Government should adopt the first view of the case, you and your fellowrebels may justly claim to be considered a most unjustly treated body of disinterested patriots,—although, perhaps, a little mistaken in your connivance with the thefts by which your agent, John B. Floyd, succeeded in arming the South and partially disarming the North as a preparative to the commencement of the struggle.
"But if on the other hand—as is the theory of our Government—the war you have levied against the U. S. be a rebellion the most causeless, crafty and bloody ever known,—a conspiracy having the rule-or-ruin policy for its basis; the plunder of the black race and the reopening of the African slave trade for its object, the continued and further degradation of ninety per cent. of the white population of the South in favor of a slave driving ten per cent. aristocracy, and the exclusion of all foreign-born immigrants from participation in the generous and equal hospitality foreshadowed to them in the Declaration of Independence,—if this, as I believe, be a fair statement of the origin and motives of the rebellion of which you are the titular head, then it would have been better had our Government adhered to the constitutional view of treason from the start, and hung every man taken in arms against the U. S. from the first butchery in the streets of Baltimore, down to the last resultless battle fought in the vicinity of Sharpsburg. If treason, in other words, be any crime, it is the essence of all crimes; a vast machinery of guilt, multiplying assassinations into wholesale slaughter, and organizing plunder as the basis for supporting a system of National Brigandage. Your action, and that of those with whom you are in league, has its best comment in the sympathy extended to your cause by the despots and aristocracies of Europe. You have succeeded in throwing back civilization for many years; and have made of the country that was the freest, happiest, proudest, richest, and most progressive but two short years ago, a vast temple of mourning, doubt, anxiety and privation; our manufactories of all but war material nearly paralyzed; the inventive spirit which was forever developing new resources destroyed, and our flag, that carried respect everywhere, now mocked by enemies who think its glory tarnished, and that its power is soon to become a mere tradition of the past.
"For all these results, Mr. Davis, and for the three hundred thousand lives already sacrificed on both sides in the war—some pouring out their blood on the battle-field, and others fever stricken and wasting away to death in overcrowded hospitals—you and the fellow miscreants who have been your associates in this conspiracy are responsible. Of you and them it may, with truth be said, that if all the innocent blood which you have spilled could be collected in one pool, the whole government of your Confederacy might swim in it.
"I am aware that this is not the language in which the prevailing etiquette of our army is in the habit of considering your conspiracy. It has come to pass—through what instrumentalities you are best able to decide—that the greatest and worst crime ever attempted against the human family, has been treated in certain quarters as though it were a mere error of judgment on the part of some gifted friend; a thing to be regretted, of course, as causing more or less disturbance to the relation of amity and esteem heretofore existing between those charged with the repression of such eccentricities and the eccentric actors; in fact, as a slight political miscalculation or peccadillo, rather than as an outrage involving the desolation of a continent, and demanding the promptest and severest retribution within power of human law.
"For myself, I have never been able to take this view of the matter. During a lifetime of active service, I have seen the seeds of this conspiracy planted in the rank soil of slavery, and the upas-growth watered by just such tricklings of a courtesy alike false to justice, expediency, and our eternal future. Had we at an earlier day commenced to call things by their right names, and to look at the hideous features of slavery with our ordinary eyesight and common sense, instead of through the rose-colored glasses of supposed political expediency, there would be three hundred thousand more men alive to-day on American soil; and our country would never for a moment have forfeited her proud position as the highest exampler of the blessings—morals, intellectual and material—to be derived from a free form of government.
"Whether your intention of hanging me and those of my staff and other officers who were engaged in organizing the 1st S. C. Volunteers, in case we are taken prisoners in battle, will be likely to benefit your cause or not, is a matter mainly for yourown consideration. For us, our profession makes the sacrifice of life a contingency ever present and always to be accepted; and although such a form of death as your order proposes, is not that to the contemplating of which soldiers have trained themselves, I feel well assured, both for myself and those included in my sentence, that we could die in no manner more damaging to your abominable rebellion and the abominable institution which is its origin.
"The South has already tried one hanging experiment, but not with a success—one would think—to encourage its repetition. John Brown, who was well known to me in Kansas, and who will be known in appreciative history through centuries which will only recall your name to load it with curses, once entered Virginia with seventeen men and an idea. The terror caused by the presence of his idea, and the dauntless courage which prompted the assertion of his faith, against all odds, I need not now recall. The history is too familiar and too painful. 'Old Ossawatomie' was caught and hung; his seventeen men were killed, captured or dispersed, and several of them shared his fate. Portions of his skin were tanned, I am told, and circulated as relics dear to the barbarity of the slave-holding heart. But more than a million of armed white men, Mr. Davis, are to-day marching South, in practical acknowledgement that they regard the hanging of three years ago as the murder of a martyr; and as they march to a battle which has the emancipation of all slaves as one of its most glorious results, his name is on their lips; to the music of his memory their marching feet keep time; and as they sling knapsacks each one becomes aware that he is an armed apostle of the faith preached by him,
"'Who has gone to be a soldierIn the army of the Lord!'
"'Who has gone to be a soldierIn the army of the Lord!'
"I am content, if such be the will of Providence to ascend the scaffold made sacred by the blood of this martyr; and I rejoice at every prospect of making our struggle more earnest and inexorable on both sides; for the sharper the conflict the sooner ended; the more vigorous and remorseless the strife, the less blood must be shed in it eventually.
"In conclusion, let me assure you, that I rejoice with my whole heart that your order in my case, and that of my officers, if unrevoked, will untie our hands for the future; and that we shall be able to treat rebellion as it deserves, and give to the felony of treason a felon's death.
"Very obediently yours,DAVID HUNTER,Maj.-Gen."
"Very obediently yours,DAVID HUNTER,Maj.-Gen."
"Not long after General Hunter's return to the Department of the South, the first step towards organizing and recognizing negro troops was taken by our Government, in a letter of instructions directing Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton—then Military Governor of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, within the limits of Gen. Hunter's command—to forthwith raise and organize fifty thousand able-bodied blacks, for service as laborers in the quartermaster's department; of whom five thousand—only five thousand, mark you—might be armed and drilled as soldiers for the purpose of 'protecting the women and children of their fellow-laborers who might be absent from home in the public service.'
"Here was authority given to Gen. Saxton, over Hunter's head, to pursue some steps farther the experiment which Hunter—soon followed by General Phelps, also included in the rebel order of 'outlawry'—had been the first to initiate. The rebel order still remained in full force, and with no protest against it on the part of our Government; nor to our knowledge, was any demand from Washington ever made for its revocation during the existence of the Confederacy. If Hunter, therefore, or any of his officers, had been captured in any of the campaigns of the past two and a half years, they had the pleasant knowledge for their comfort that any rebel officers into whose hands they might fall, was strictly enjoined to—not 'shoot them on the spot,' as was the order of General Dix, but to hang them on the first tree; and hang them quickly.
OFF FOR THE WAR.OFF FOR THE WAR.Negro men marching aboard a steamer to join their regiments at Hilton Head, S. C.
"With the subsequent history of our black troops the public is already familiar. General Lorenzo Thomas, titular Adjutant-General of our army, not being regarded as a very efficient officer for that place, was permanently detailed on various services; now exchanging prisoners, now discussing points of military law, now organizing black brigades down the Mississippi and elsewhere. In fact, the main object seemed to be to keep this Gen. Thomas—who must not be confounded with Gen. George H. Thomas, one of the true heroes of our army,—away from the Adjutant-General's office at Washington, in order that Brigadier-General E. W. Townsend—only a Colonel until quite recently—might perform all the laborious and crushing duties of Adjutant-General of our army, while only signing himself and ranking as First Assistant Adjutant-General. If there be an officer who has done noble service in the late war while receiving no public credit for the same,—no newspaper puffs nor public ovation,—that man is Brigadier-General E. W. Townsend, who should long since have been made a major-general, to rank from the first day of the rebellion."And now let us only add, as practical proof that the rebels, even in their most rabid state, were not insensible to the force of proper "reasons," the following anecdote: Some officers of one of the black regiments—Colonel Higginson's, we believe—indiscreetly rode beyond our lines around St. Augustine in pursuit of game, but whether feathered or female this deponent sayeth not. Their guide proved to be a spy, who had given notice of the intended expedition to the enemy, and the whole party were soon surprised and captured. The next we heard of them, they were confined in the condemned cells of one of the Florida State prisons, and were to be "tried"—i. e., sentenced and executed—as 'having been engaged in inciting negro insurrection.'"We had some wealthy young slave-holders belonging to the first families of South Carolina in the custody of Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. Hall—now Brigadier-General of this city, who was our Provost Marshal; and it was on this basis Gen. Hunter resolved to operate. 'Release my officers of black troops from your condemned cells at once, and notify me of the fact. Until so notified, your first family prisoners in my hands'—the names then given—'will receive precisely similar treatment. For each of my officers hung, I will hang three of my prisoners who are slave-holders.' This dose operated with instantaneous effect, and the next letter received from our captured officers set forth that they were at large on parole, and treated as well as they could wish to be in that miserable country."We cannot better conclude this sketch, perhaps, than by giving the brief but pregnant verses in which our ex-orderly, Private Miles O'Reilly, late of the Old Tenth Army Corps, gave his opinion on this subject. They were first published in connection with the banquet given in New York by Gen. T. F. Meagher and the officers of the Irish Brigade, to thereturned veterans of that organization on the 13th of Jan. 1864, at Irving Hall. Of this song it may, perhaps, be said, in verity and without vanity, that, as Gen. Hunter's letter to Mr. Wickliffe had settled the negro soldiers' controversy in its official and Congressional form, so did the publication and immediate popular adoption of these verses conclude all argument upon this matter in the mind of the general public. Its common sense, with a dash of drollery, at once won over the Irish, who had been the bitterest opponents of the measure, to become its friends; and from that hour to this, the attacks upon the experiment of our negro soldiery have been so few and far between that, indeed, they may be said to have ceased altogether. It ran as follows, and appeared in theHeraldthe morning after the banquet as a portion of the report of the speeches and festivities:"SAMBO'S RIGHT TO BE KIL'T.(Air—The Low-Backed Chair.)Some say it is a burnin' shameTo make the naygurs fight,An' that the thrade o' being kiltBelongs but to the white;But as for me, upon me sowl,So liberal are we here,I'll let Sambo be murthered in place o' meselfOn every day in the year.On every day in the year, boys,An' every hour in the day,The right to be kil't I'll divide wid him,An' divil a word I'll say.In battle's wild commotionI shouldn't at all object,If Sambo's body should stop a ballThat was comin' for me direct;An' the prod of a Southern bagnet,So liberal are we here,I'll resign and let Sambo take it,On every day in the year.On every day in the year boys,An' wid none o' your nasty pride,All right in a Southern bagnet prodWid Sambo I'll divide.The men who object to SamboShould take his place and fight;An' it's betther to have a naygur's hueThan a liver that's wake an' white;Though Sambo's black as the ace o' spadesHis finger a thrigger can pull,An' his eye runs sthraight on the barrel sightFrom under its thatch o' wool.So hear me all, boys, darlins!Don't think I'm tippen' you chaff,The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him,An' give him the largest half!"In regard to Hunter's reply to Mr. Wickliffe, we shall only add this anecdote, told us one day by that brilliant gentleman and scholar, the Hon "Sunset" Cox, of Ohio (now of New York): 'I tell you, that letterfrom Hunter spoiled the prettiest speech I had ever thought of making. I had been delighted with Wickliffe's motion, and thought the reply to it would furnish us first-rate Democrat's thunder for the next election. I made up my mind to sail in against Hunter's answer—no matter what it was—the moment it came; and to be even more humorously successful in its delivery and reception than I was in my speech against War Horse Gurley, of Ohio, which you have just been complimenting. Well, you see, man proposes, but providence orders otherwise. When the Clerk announced the receipt of the answer, and that he was about to read it, I caught the Speaker's eye and was booked for the first speech against your negro experiment. The first sentence, being formal and official, was very well; but at the second the House began to grin, and at the third, not a man on the floor—except Father Wickliffe, of Kentucky, perhaps—who was not convulsed with laughter. Even my own risibles I found to be affected; and before the document was concluded, I motioned the Speaker that he might give the floor to whom he pleased, as my desire to distinguish myself in that particular tilt was over.'"
"With the subsequent history of our black troops the public is already familiar. General Lorenzo Thomas, titular Adjutant-General of our army, not being regarded as a very efficient officer for that place, was permanently detailed on various services; now exchanging prisoners, now discussing points of military law, now organizing black brigades down the Mississippi and elsewhere. In fact, the main object seemed to be to keep this Gen. Thomas—who must not be confounded with Gen. George H. Thomas, one of the true heroes of our army,—away from the Adjutant-General's office at Washington, in order that Brigadier-General E. W. Townsend—only a Colonel until quite recently—might perform all the laborious and crushing duties of Adjutant-General of our army, while only signing himself and ranking as First Assistant Adjutant-General. If there be an officer who has done noble service in the late war while receiving no public credit for the same,—no newspaper puffs nor public ovation,—that man is Brigadier-General E. W. Townsend, who should long since have been made a major-general, to rank from the first day of the rebellion.
"And now let us only add, as practical proof that the rebels, even in their most rabid state, were not insensible to the force of proper "reasons," the following anecdote: Some officers of one of the black regiments—Colonel Higginson's, we believe—indiscreetly rode beyond our lines around St. Augustine in pursuit of game, but whether feathered or female this deponent sayeth not. Their guide proved to be a spy, who had given notice of the intended expedition to the enemy, and the whole party were soon surprised and captured. The next we heard of them, they were confined in the condemned cells of one of the Florida State prisons, and were to be "tried"—i. e., sentenced and executed—as 'having been engaged in inciting negro insurrection.'
"We had some wealthy young slave-holders belonging to the first families of South Carolina in the custody of Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. Hall—now Brigadier-General of this city, who was our Provost Marshal; and it was on this basis Gen. Hunter resolved to operate. 'Release my officers of black troops from your condemned cells at once, and notify me of the fact. Until so notified, your first family prisoners in my hands'—the names then given—'will receive precisely similar treatment. For each of my officers hung, I will hang three of my prisoners who are slave-holders.' This dose operated with instantaneous effect, and the next letter received from our captured officers set forth that they were at large on parole, and treated as well as they could wish to be in that miserable country.
"We cannot better conclude this sketch, perhaps, than by giving the brief but pregnant verses in which our ex-orderly, Private Miles O'Reilly, late of the Old Tenth Army Corps, gave his opinion on this subject. They were first published in connection with the banquet given in New York by Gen. T. F. Meagher and the officers of the Irish Brigade, to thereturned veterans of that organization on the 13th of Jan. 1864, at Irving Hall. Of this song it may, perhaps, be said, in verity and without vanity, that, as Gen. Hunter's letter to Mr. Wickliffe had settled the negro soldiers' controversy in its official and Congressional form, so did the publication and immediate popular adoption of these verses conclude all argument upon this matter in the mind of the general public. Its common sense, with a dash of drollery, at once won over the Irish, who had been the bitterest opponents of the measure, to become its friends; and from that hour to this, the attacks upon the experiment of our negro soldiery have been so few and far between that, indeed, they may be said to have ceased altogether. It ran as follows, and appeared in theHeraldthe morning after the banquet as a portion of the report of the speeches and festivities:
"SAMBO'S RIGHT TO BE KIL'T.(Air—The Low-Backed Chair.)Some say it is a burnin' shameTo make the naygurs fight,An' that the thrade o' being kiltBelongs but to the white;But as for me, upon me sowl,So liberal are we here,I'll let Sambo be murthered in place o' meselfOn every day in the year.On every day in the year, boys,An' every hour in the day,The right to be kil't I'll divide wid him,An' divil a word I'll say.In battle's wild commotionI shouldn't at all object,If Sambo's body should stop a ballThat was comin' for me direct;An' the prod of a Southern bagnet,So liberal are we here,I'll resign and let Sambo take it,On every day in the year.On every day in the year boys,An' wid none o' your nasty pride,All right in a Southern bagnet prodWid Sambo I'll divide.The men who object to SamboShould take his place and fight;An' it's betther to have a naygur's hueThan a liver that's wake an' white;Though Sambo's black as the ace o' spadesHis finger a thrigger can pull,An' his eye runs sthraight on the barrel sightFrom under its thatch o' wool.So hear me all, boys, darlins!Don't think I'm tippen' you chaff,The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him,An' give him the largest half!
"SAMBO'S RIGHT TO BE KIL'T.
(Air—The Low-Backed Chair.)
Some say it is a burnin' shameTo make the naygurs fight,An' that the thrade o' being kiltBelongs but to the white;But as for me, upon me sowl,So liberal are we here,I'll let Sambo be murthered in place o' meselfOn every day in the year.On every day in the year, boys,An' every hour in the day,The right to be kil't I'll divide wid him,An' divil a word I'll say.
In battle's wild commotionI shouldn't at all object,If Sambo's body should stop a ballThat was comin' for me direct;An' the prod of a Southern bagnet,So liberal are we here,I'll resign and let Sambo take it,On every day in the year.On every day in the year boys,An' wid none o' your nasty pride,All right in a Southern bagnet prodWid Sambo I'll divide.
The men who object to SamboShould take his place and fight;An' it's betther to have a naygur's hueThan a liver that's wake an' white;Though Sambo's black as the ace o' spadesHis finger a thrigger can pull,An' his eye runs sthraight on the barrel sightFrom under its thatch o' wool.So hear me all, boys, darlins!Don't think I'm tippen' you chaff,The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him,An' give him the largest half!
"In regard to Hunter's reply to Mr. Wickliffe, we shall only add this anecdote, told us one day by that brilliant gentleman and scholar, the Hon "Sunset" Cox, of Ohio (now of New York): 'I tell you, that letterfrom Hunter spoiled the prettiest speech I had ever thought of making. I had been delighted with Wickliffe's motion, and thought the reply to it would furnish us first-rate Democrat's thunder for the next election. I made up my mind to sail in against Hunter's answer—no matter what it was—the moment it came; and to be even more humorously successful in its delivery and reception than I was in my speech against War Horse Gurley, of Ohio, which you have just been complimenting. Well, you see, man proposes, but providence orders otherwise. When the Clerk announced the receipt of the answer, and that he was about to read it, I caught the Speaker's eye and was booked for the first speech against your negro experiment. The first sentence, being formal and official, was very well; but at the second the House began to grin, and at the third, not a man on the floor—except Father Wickliffe, of Kentucky, perhaps—who was not convulsed with laughter. Even my own risibles I found to be affected; and before the document was concluded, I motioned the Speaker that he might give the floor to whom he pleased, as my desire to distinguish myself in that particular tilt was over.'"
The character, qualifications and proficiency of the men, who, as officers, commanded the negro troops, may be judged by the process which they had to undergo in order to obtain commissions. Unlike the officers of the white volunteers (with whom loyalty and dash were the essential qualifications) they were required to possess much more than an ordinary knowledge of military tactics. Major-General Hunter, by whose order the first negro regiment with white officers was organized, commencing May, 1862, had an eye single to the make up of the men who should be placed in command of the regiments. As a beginning, Gen. Saxton addressed the following letter to Capt. T. W. Higginson, of the 51st Reg't. Mass. Volunteers, Beaufort, S. C., Nov. 5th, 1862:
"My Dear Sir:—I am organizing the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, with every prospect of success. Your name has been spoken of in connection with the command of this regiment, by some friends in whose judgment I have confidence. I take great pleasure in offering you the position of Col. in it, and hope that you may be induced to accept. I shall not fill the place until I hear from you, or sufficient time shall have passed for me to receive your reply. Should you accept I enclose a pass for Port Royal, of which I trust you will feel disposed to avail yourself at once. I am, with sincere regard,
"My Dear Sir:—I am organizing the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, with every prospect of success. Your name has been spoken of in connection with the command of this regiment, by some friends in whose judgment I have confidence. I take great pleasure in offering you the position of Col. in it, and hope that you may be induced to accept. I shall not fill the place until I hear from you, or sufficient time shall have passed for me to receive your reply. Should you accept I enclose a pass for Port Royal, of which I trust you will feel disposed to avail yourself at once. I am, with sincere regard,
Yours truly,R. Saxton,Brig. Gen., Mil. Gov."
Yours truly,R. Saxton,Brig. Gen., Mil. Gov."
This was an excellent selection, and Captain Higginson's acceptance rather assured a fair trial for the men who should compose this regiment, as well as the quality of its officers.
MAJOR MARTIN R. DELANEY, U. S. A.MAJOR MARTIN R. DELANEY, U. S. A.
The first Kansas regiment which recruited in that State, commencing in August, 1862, was also fortunate in having Colonel R. J. Hinton.
General Butler, at New Orleans, was prevented by circumstances surrounding him at the time, from choosing among the friends of the negro race, as was the case in the before mentioned regiments, men to command the first and second regiments organized by him in the above named city, in August, 1862. He was only too glad to find white men of military capacity to take charge of the drilling and disciplining of the troops. As an experiment he was more than lucky in the appointment of Colonels Stafford and Daniels to the command of these regiments, seconded by Lieut. Cols. Bassett and Hall, and Finnegass of the 3rd Regiment. These officers proved themselves worthy of the trust reposed in them, and made these regiments, in drill and discipline, second to none in the Department of the Gulf. Notwithstanding the captains and subordinate officers of the first and second regiments were men, who like those in a large majority of the white regiments had never made arms a profession, and, who, through American prejudice, had but very limited opportunities for acquiring even the rudiments of a common English education. Several of them, however, being mulattoes, had had some training in the schools of the parishes, and some few in the higher schools of France, and in the Islands of the Caribbean Sea. Maj. Dumas, of the 2nd Regiment, whose slaves composed nearly one whole company, was a gentleman of fine tact and ability, as were others.
Considering that they were all negroes, free and slave, their dash and manly courage, no less than their military aptitude, was equal, and in many instances superior, to those found in the regiments of Maine and New York. The 3rd Regiment was officered by soldiers of undoubted character and pluck, as they proved themselves to be, during the siege of Port Hudson, especially Capt. Quinn, who won distinction and promotion, as the record shows. The regiments raised thereafter were officered, more or less, by the non-commissioned officers of the white regiments,as a reward for gallantry and meritorious service upon the field, or on account of proficiency in drill. This rule of selection held good throughout all the departments in the organizing of negro troops. In May, 1863, President Lincoln, with a view of correcting an abuse that a certain commanding general had begun to practice in assigning inferior, though brave, men to the command of negro regiments; and in keeping with his new policy of arming the negroes, for which Gen. Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant General of the Army, had gone into the Mississippi Valley region to raise twenty regiments, he appointed a Board for the examination of those applying for commands in negro regiments.
The "Record of the 7th Reg't. U.S. Colored Troops," in regard to the matter, says: "That the labors of this Board contributed very materially to the success of the experiment of raising this class of troops, no one cognizant with the facts can doubt. The operations of the Board can best be shown by quoting the following letter received from Gen. Casey in reply to some enquiries on the subject:
"Brooklyn, Nov. 30th, 1875.* * * "The Board for the Examination of candidates for officers in colored regiments, of which I was President, was appointed in May, 1863, and continued its duties about two years. This movement was, at first, very unpopular with a portion of the people of the country, as also with a large portion of the army. I, although doubting at first with regard to the expediency of operating in large bodies with this species of force, determined, that so far as I was concerned, it should have a fair trial."A system was adopted for the examination of candidates which did not allow influence, favor or affection to interfere with the enforcement of its provisions. The Board examined nearly three thousand candidates, seventeen hundred of whom they recommended for commissions in various grades, from colonel down."From my knowledge of the officers of white volunteers, gained in my duties connected with receiving and organizing, in the city of Washington, 300,000 of them, and also as commander of a division on the Peninsula, I have no hesitation in saying that the officers of the colored regiments,who passed the Board, as a body were superior to them, physically, mentally and morally."From the concurrent reports received from various sources, there is but little doubt that the success of the colored troops in the field was brought about in no small degree by the action of the Board."The following is the copy of a letter which I addressed to a gentleman of Philadelphia, and which you may find of interest:'In conversation with you a few days since, I promised to elaborate somewhat the ideas which I expressed with regard to the appointment of officers of colored troops.'Military men, whose opinion is worth having, will agree in this, that to have good and efficient troops it is indispensable that we should have good officers. The material for soldiers which the loyal States have furnished during this rebellion, I have no hesitation in saying, is the best that the world has ever seen. Such men deserve to have officers to command them who have been educated to the military profession. But few men are really fit to command men who have not had such an education. In default of this, as a sufficient number of such men cannot be found in the country, the number has to be made up from the best available material. In order to ascertain whether or not the aspirant possesses the proper knowledge and capacity for command, it is necessary that he be examined by a board of competent officers. The fact that the life and death of the men of the regiment is intimately connected with the competency of its officers, is not sufficiently appreciated by the community.'The Board for the examination of officers of colored troops over which I preside, considers three things as indispensable before recommending a candidate, viz.: A good moral character, physical capacity, true loyalty to the country. A person possessing these indispensable qualifications is now submitted to an examination as to his knowledge of tactics and capacity for command.'The following grades are entertained, viz.:Colonel—1st, 2d and 3d Class.Lieut.-Colonel—1st, 2d and 3d Class.Major—"Captain—"1st Lieut.—"2d Lieut.—"and the recommendations for appointment made according to the applicant's merits.'We have endeavored, to the best of our ability, to make this recommendation without partiality, favor or affection. We consider alone, in making our awards, the ability of the person to serve his country in the duties appertaining to the office. If, in the opinion of the Board, the person is not possessed of sufficient knowledge or capacity to fill either of the above named to the advantage of his country, he is rejected, notwithstanding any influence he may be able to bring to bear in the case. Let it be remembered that zeal alone is not sufficient; but what we require for a good officer is zeal combined with knowledge. No ordinary man can properly fill the office of colonel of a regiment. To acquire that knowledge of tactics as would fit him to command his regiment, as it ought to be in all situations, requires much study and practice, and is by no means easy. He should, besides, possess good administrative qualities, in order that affairs should run smoothly in his command, and the officers and privates be as contented and happy as circumstances admit.Nor can too much trouble be taken properly to prepare persons to fill the responsible position of officers. Each State should have its military academy. In the meantime much good can be done by instituting a school for the instruction of persons (especially those who have had some experience in the service) who may have the requisite capacity and zeal to serve their country with advantage. Eschew all humbuggery and mere pretension, and let merit be the test of advancement.'Let it be impressed deeply on the conscience of every man of influence and authority that when he places in command an incompetent officer he is guilty of manslaughter. The country has lost millions of treasure and thousands of lives by the incompetency of officers. We have many enemies on earth besides the Southern rebels. The fate of free institutions, not only in our own country, but in other lands, the destiny of millions unborn, depend upon our ability to maintain this contest to a successful issue against all our enemies, both foreign and domestic.'The system of examination instituted by this Board, in my opinion, should be extended to the white as well as colored troops.'Many of those who have been unsuccessful in the examination before the Board have, no doubt, in some cases, felt aggrieved, as also their friends.'We have established a system of examination for officers, the good effects of which are already apparent in the colored organizations in the field. In the performance of this responsible, and not always agreeable duty, of presiding over this Board, I have always endeavored to be guided by conscientious regard for the good of the country, and I have every confidence that a just and intelligent people will award their approbation.
"Brooklyn, Nov. 30th, 1875.
* * * "The Board for the Examination of candidates for officers in colored regiments, of which I was President, was appointed in May, 1863, and continued its duties about two years. This movement was, at first, very unpopular with a portion of the people of the country, as also with a large portion of the army. I, although doubting at first with regard to the expediency of operating in large bodies with this species of force, determined, that so far as I was concerned, it should have a fair trial.
"A system was adopted for the examination of candidates which did not allow influence, favor or affection to interfere with the enforcement of its provisions. The Board examined nearly three thousand candidates, seventeen hundred of whom they recommended for commissions in various grades, from colonel down.
"From my knowledge of the officers of white volunteers, gained in my duties connected with receiving and organizing, in the city of Washington, 300,000 of them, and also as commander of a division on the Peninsula, I have no hesitation in saying that the officers of the colored regiments,who passed the Board, as a body were superior to them, physically, mentally and morally.
"From the concurrent reports received from various sources, there is but little doubt that the success of the colored troops in the field was brought about in no small degree by the action of the Board.
"The following is the copy of a letter which I addressed to a gentleman of Philadelphia, and which you may find of interest:
'In conversation with you a few days since, I promised to elaborate somewhat the ideas which I expressed with regard to the appointment of officers of colored troops.
'Military men, whose opinion is worth having, will agree in this, that to have good and efficient troops it is indispensable that we should have good officers. The material for soldiers which the loyal States have furnished during this rebellion, I have no hesitation in saying, is the best that the world has ever seen. Such men deserve to have officers to command them who have been educated to the military profession. But few men are really fit to command men who have not had such an education. In default of this, as a sufficient number of such men cannot be found in the country, the number has to be made up from the best available material. In order to ascertain whether or not the aspirant possesses the proper knowledge and capacity for command, it is necessary that he be examined by a board of competent officers. The fact that the life and death of the men of the regiment is intimately connected with the competency of its officers, is not sufficiently appreciated by the community.
'The Board for the examination of officers of colored troops over which I preside, considers three things as indispensable before recommending a candidate, viz.: A good moral character, physical capacity, true loyalty to the country. A person possessing these indispensable qualifications is now submitted to an examination as to his knowledge of tactics and capacity for command.
'The following grades are entertained, viz.:
Colonel—1st, 2d and 3d Class.Lieut.-Colonel—1st, 2d and 3d Class.Major—"Captain—"1st Lieut.—"2d Lieut.—"
and the recommendations for appointment made according to the applicant's merits.
'We have endeavored, to the best of our ability, to make this recommendation without partiality, favor or affection. We consider alone, in making our awards, the ability of the person to serve his country in the duties appertaining to the office. If, in the opinion of the Board, the person is not possessed of sufficient knowledge or capacity to fill either of the above named to the advantage of his country, he is rejected, notwithstanding any influence he may be able to bring to bear in the case. Let it be remembered that zeal alone is not sufficient; but what we require for a good officer is zeal combined with knowledge. No ordinary man can properly fill the office of colonel of a regiment. To acquire that knowledge of tactics as would fit him to command his regiment, as it ought to be in all situations, requires much study and practice, and is by no means easy. He should, besides, possess good administrative qualities, in order that affairs should run smoothly in his command, and the officers and privates be as contented and happy as circumstances admit.Nor can too much trouble be taken properly to prepare persons to fill the responsible position of officers. Each State should have its military academy. In the meantime much good can be done by instituting a school for the instruction of persons (especially those who have had some experience in the service) who may have the requisite capacity and zeal to serve their country with advantage. Eschew all humbuggery and mere pretension, and let merit be the test of advancement.
'Let it be impressed deeply on the conscience of every man of influence and authority that when he places in command an incompetent officer he is guilty of manslaughter. The country has lost millions of treasure and thousands of lives by the incompetency of officers. We have many enemies on earth besides the Southern rebels. The fate of free institutions, not only in our own country, but in other lands, the destiny of millions unborn, depend upon our ability to maintain this contest to a successful issue against all our enemies, both foreign and domestic.
'The system of examination instituted by this Board, in my opinion, should be extended to the white as well as colored troops.
'Many of those who have been unsuccessful in the examination before the Board have, no doubt, in some cases, felt aggrieved, as also their friends.
'We have established a system of examination for officers, the good effects of which are already apparent in the colored organizations in the field. In the performance of this responsible, and not always agreeable duty, of presiding over this Board, I have always endeavored to be guided by conscientious regard for the good of the country, and I have every confidence that a just and intelligent people will award their approbation.
SILAS CASEY,Bvt. Major-General U.S. Army.'"
SILAS CASEY,Bvt. Major-General U.S. Army.'"
Of course this did not apply to regiments raised at the North, generally. They were officered by theelite, such as Col. R. G. Shaw, of the 54th Massachusetts, a former member of the 7th New York Regiment, and upon whose battle monument his name is carved. Cols. James C. Beecher, Wm. Birney and a host of others, whose names can now be found on the army rolls, with the prefix General, commanded these regiments. Of those who commanded Southern regiments this is equally true, especially of those who served in the 9th, 10th, 18th and 19th Corps. Col. Godfred Weitzel, who in March, 1865, had been promoted to Major General of Volunteers, commanded the 25th Corps of 30,000 negro soldiers. The select corps of officers intended to officer Gen. Ullman's brigade of four regiments to be raised at New Orleans by order of the War Department, dated January 1863, as well as the battalion, which he was also ordered to raise for scouting purposes, the following March, included many men of rank. To command a negro regiment or company was at this date a coveted prize, for which men of wealth and education contended. The distinction which they were continually winning for their officers, frequently overcame the long-cherished prejudice of West Point, and the graduates of this caste institution now vied for commissions in negro regiments, in which many of them served during the Rebellion and since.
CAPT. O. S. B. WALL, U. S. A.CAPT. O. S. B. WALL, U. S. A.
It was the idea of Gen. Banks when organizing the Corps d'Afrique to appoint even the non-commissioned officers from the ranks of white regiments, and he did so in several instances. His hostility to negro officers was the cause of his removing them from the regiments, which Major General Butler organized at New Orleans in 1862. In organizing the Corps d'Afrique, the order, No. 40, reads:
"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 them 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 white men in the defence 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 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 them 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 white men in the defence 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."
At first it was proposed to pay the officers of negro troops less than was paid the officers of white soldiers, but this plan was abandoned. Toward the close of the war nearly all the chaplains appointed to negro regiments were negroes; non-commissioned officers were selected from the ranks, where they were found as well qualified as those taken from the ranks of white regiments. In the 10th and 18th Corps it was a common thing for the orderly sergeants to call their company's roll from memory, and the records of many companies and regiments are kept at the War Department in Washington, as mementoes of their efficiency.
Such were the men who commanded the Black Phalanx. The following are the names of the negro commissioned officers of the Butler Louisiana Regiments:
Capts.Andrew Cailloux,Louis A. Snaer,John Depass,"Henry L. Rey,Edward Carter,Joseph Follin,"James Lewis,James H. Ingraham,Aleide Lewis.Lieuts.Lewis Petit,Ernest Sougpre,J. G. Parker,"J. E. Morre,Wm. Harding,John Hardman,"F. Kimball,V. Lesner,J. D. Paddock,"Louis D. Lucien.
MajorF. E. Dumas,[21]Capts.E. A. Bertinnean,Hannibal Carter,E. P. Chase,"W. P. Barrett,S. W. Ringgold,P. B. S. Pinchback,"William Bellez,Monroe Menllim,Joseph Villeverde,"Samuel J. Wilkerson, R. H. Isabella.Lieuts.Octave Rey,J. P. Lewis,Jasper Thompson,"Ernest Murphy,Calvin Glover,J. Wellington,"Louis Degray,George T. Watson,Joseph Jones,"Alphonso Fluery,Rufus Kinsley,Ernest Hubian,"Theo. A. Martin,Soloman Hoys,Alfred Arnis,"Peter O. Depremont.
Capts.Jacques Gla,Peter A. Gardner,Leon G. Forstall,"Joseph C. Oliver,Charles W. Gibbons,Samuel Laurence,"John J. Holland.Lieuts.Paul Paree,Morris W. Morris,Emile Detrege,"Eugene Rapp,E. T. Nash,Alfred Bourgoan,"E. Moss,Chester W. Converse, G. B. Miller,"G. W. Talmon,Octave Foy,Chas. Butler.
Sergts.Joseph Boudraux,Andrieu Vidal,Joseph Bellevue,"Louis Martin,Jessy C. Wallace,Corpls.Paul Bonne,Thos. William,Joseph Labeaud,"Joseph Toolmer,Louis Ford,Peter Fleming,
As "muster in" rolls show.
1st Sergts.Joseph Francois,Adolph Augustin,John Frick,"Francois Remy,Louis Duquenez.Corpls.Dorsin Sebatier,Auguste Martin,Lucien Boute,"Adolphe Decoud,Oscar Samuel,Andre Gregoire,"Joseph Armand,Achilles Decoud.
As "muster out" rolls show.
Sergts.Hy. White,Robert Williams,Mathew Roden,"Frank Nichols,Corpls.Alfred Kellie,Philip Craff,Julius Vick.
As mustered out.
Sergts.Joseph R. Forstall,Edmund Tomlinson,Edgar Thezan,"Numa Brihou,Edward P. Ducloslange,Corpls.John G. Seldon,Thelesphore J. Sauvinet,Alonzo Tocca,"Joseph Francois,Antonio Segura,Auguste Martin,"Francois Remy,Ernest Brustic,
Sergts.Faustin Zenon,Louis Francois,August Bartholenny,"Joseph Alfred,Wm. Armstrong,
Arthur Gaspard was a Sergeant at "muster in" of company; discharged for wounds Dec. 10th, 1863.