In 1861 when President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops I
engaged myself for the great Civil War, the War of the Rebellion. I
went into the company of the Thirteenth Regiment, of Brooklyn. I went
to the front, as the United States was not taking Negro troops. In
1862 there was a riot in New York City. The colored people were being
dreadfully treated, being stoned, killed, and shown how despised they
were even in the North. An orphan asylum (colored) was burned, having
at that time three hundred children in it. I returned to Brooklyn under
the command of General B. F. Butler, who had been ordered to put down
the riot. While engaged in this mission I got into the very midst of
the rioters. Soon they were after me. I ran through the streets of New
York like a wild steer, while the rioters cried out, “Head the Nigger
Off!” At length, I reached the New Haven boat which brought us safely
to New Haven, Conn. While there I engaged at my trade with Mr. W.
Clark. On the 18th of December, 1863, I enlisted in the Twenty-ninth
Regiment, of the Connecticut Volunteers, as a private. On March 8,
1864, the regiment broke camp and left New Haven for Annapolis, Md.,
with Colonel W. B. Wooster in command. On the next Sabbath after we
reached Annapolis, I attended the Methodist Church and listened to a
powerful sermon by Rev. I. J. Hill, he being an orderly to Colonel
Wooster.
While in the camp at New Haven, Conn., we employed our idle time in
discussing the great problems that confronted the country at that
time. Lieutenant Seymour, Uncle Fred Moore, Horace Louden, Rev. I. J.
Hill and myself were the participants in these discussions. The new
party, the Republican, was then formed, the prime purpose of which
was the freedom of the slaves. We were most frequently surmising and
prophesying as to what would be the final outcome and the ultimate
benefits to the Negro race. There were vital questions at stake then.
The spirit of patriotism and the desire to lift oppression, were afire
in every breast of every true American. It would be well for the many
young Afro-Americans of today to remember that the supreme purpose of
the Republican party when it was organized, was not only to prohibit
the further extension of slavery, but to exterminate it as a system of
barter and traffic. On the other hand, the Democratic party at that
time was in favor of the infernal system of slavery, and in our
day, it is in sympathy with any movement that looks to keeping the
Negro race in some kind of shackles. They are still in favor of keeping
the Afro-American in slavery in some form. And they are succeeding
reasonably well. For at last, we are forced to conclude that no man is
really free unless he holds in his bosom the right of franchise and has
received the liberty to exercise that right. Have the ten millions of
Afro-Americans in the United States that right to-day? The answer comes
from many States, NO!
[Illustration: COL. W. P. WOOSTER