_Major General Commanding_.
The reading of this famous document in the House brought out such a
storm of laughter, from both friends and foes that further action was
impossible. The Hon. Sunset Cox speaking of the matter some years later
said: “I tell you that letter from 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 with first-rate
democratic thunder for the next election. I made up my mind to sail in
on 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. Well you see, man
proposes, but Providence orders otherwise. When the clerk announced the
receipt of the letter, 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, there was
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 to 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 beginning of 1863, saw the opening of the doors to the Negro in
every direction. General Lorenzo Thomas went in person to the valley of
the Mississippi to supervise it there. Massachusetts was authorized to
fill its quota with Negroes. The States of Maryland, Missouri, Delaware
and Tennessee were thrown open by order of the War Department, and all
slaves enlisting therefrom declared free. Ohio, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania and New York joined the band and sent the stalwart black
boy in blue to the front singing, “Give us a flag, all free, without a
slave.” For two years the fierce and determined opposition had kept them
out, but now the bars were down and they came pouring in. Some one said
he cared not who made the laws of a people if he could make their songs.
A better exemplification of this would be difficult to find than is the
song written by “Miles O’Reilly” (Col. Halpine), of the old 10th Army
Corps. I cannot resist the temptation to quote it here. With General
Hunter’s letter and this song to quote from, the episode was closed:
Some say it is a burning shame to make the Naygurs fight,
An’ that the trade o’ being kilt belongs but to the white:
But as for me, upon me sowl, so liberal are we here,
I’ll let Sambo be murthered, in place of meself, on every day of the
year.
On every day of the year, boys, and every hour in the day,
The right to be kilt I’ll divide wid him, and divil a word I’ll say.
In battles wild commotion I shouldn’t at all object,
If Sambo’s body should stop a ball that was coming for me direct,
An’ the prod of a southern bayonet, 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 of your nasty pride,
All right in a southern bagnet prod, wid Sambo I’ll divide.
The men who object to Sambo, should take his place and fight,
An’ it is betther to have a Naygur’s hue, than a liver that’s weak
an’ white,
Though Sambo’s black as the ace of spades, his finger a thryger can
pull,
An’ his eye runs straight on the barrel sight from under its thatch
of wool,
So hear me all, boys, darlin, don’t think I’m tipping you chaff,
The right to be kilt, I’ll divide with him, an’ give him the largest
half.
It took three years of war to place the enlisted Negro upon the same
ground as the enlisted white man as to pay and emoluments; _perhaps_ six
years of war might have given him shoulder-straps, but the war ended
without authorization of law for that step. At first they were received,
under an act of Congress that allowed each one, without regard to rank,
ten dollars per month, three dollars thereof to be retained for clothing
and equipments. I think it was in May, ’64, when the act was passed
equalizing the pay, but not opening the doors to promotion.
Under an act of the Confederate Congress, making it a crime punishable
with death for any white person to train any Negro or mulatto to arms,
or aid them in any military enterprise, and devoting the Negro caught
under arms to the tender mercies of the “present or future laws of the
State” in which caught, a large number of _promotions_ were made by the
way of a rope and a tree along the first year of the Negro’s service (I
can even recall one instance as late as April 1865, though it had been
long before then generally discontinued).
What the Negro did, how he did it, and where, it would take volumes to
properly record, I can however give but briefest mention to a few of the
many evidences of his fitness for the duties of the war, and his aid to
the cause of the Union.
The first fighting done by organized Negro troops appears to have been
done by Company A, First South Carolina Negro Regiment, at St. Helena
Island, November 3-10, 1862, while participating in an expedition along
the coast of Georgia and Florida under Lt.-Col. O. T. Beard, of the
Forty-eighth New York Infantry, who says in his report:—
“The colored men fought with astonishing coolness and bravery. I found
them all I could desire, more than I had hoped. They behaved gloriously,
and deserve all praise.”
The testimony thus inaugurated runs like a cord of gold through the web
and woof of the history of the Negro as a soldier from that date to
their final charge, the last made at Clover Hill, Va., April 9, 1865.
Necessarily the first actions in which the Negro bore a part commanded
most attention. Friends and enemies were looking eagerly to see how they
would acquit themselves, and so it comes to pass that the names of Fort
Wagner, Olustee, Millikens Bend, Port Hudson and Fort Pillow are as
familiar as Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh and Gettysburg, and while those
first experiences were mostly severe reverses, they were by that very
fact splendid exemplifiers of the truth that the Negroes, could be
relied upon to fight under the most adverse circumstances, against any
odds, and could not be discouraged.
Let us glance for a moment at Port Hudson, La., in May, 1863, assaulted
by General Banks with a force of which the First and Second Regiments,
Louisiana Native Guards, formed a part. When starting upon their
desperate mission, Colonel Stafford of the First Regiment in turning
over the regimental colors to the color guard, made a brief and
patriotic address, closing in the words:
“Color Guard: Protect, defend, die for, but do not surrender these
colors.” The gallant flag-sergeant, Plancianos, taking them replied:
“Colonel: I will bring back these colors to you in honor, or report to
God the reason why.”
Six times with desperate valor they charged over ground where success
was hopeless, a deep bayou between them and the works of the enemy at
the point of attack rendered it impossible to reach them, yet strange to
say, six times they were ordered forward and six times they went to
useless death, until swept back by the blazing breath of shot and shell
before which nothing living could stand. Here fell the gallant Captain
Cailloux, black as the ace of spades; refusing to leave the field though
his arm had been shattered by a bullet he returned to the charge until
killed by a shell.
A soldier limping painfully to the front was halted and asked where he
was going, he replied; “I am shot bad in de leg, and dey want me to go
to de hospital, but I guess I can give ’em a little more yet.”
The colors came back but crimsoned with the blood of the gallant
Plancianos, who reported to God from that bloody field.
Shall we glance from this to Millikens Bend, La., in January, 1863,
garrisoned by the Ninth and Eleventh Louisiana and the First
Mississippi, all Negroes, and about one hundred and sixty of the
twenty-third Iowa (white), about eleven hundred fighting men in all.
Attacked by a force of six Confederate regiments, crushed out of their
works by sheer weight of numbers, borne down toward the levee, fighting
every step of the way, hand to hand, clubbed musket, bayonets and
swords, from three a. m. to twelve, noon, when a Union gun-boat came to
the rescue and shelled the desperate foe back to the woods, with a total
loss to the defenders of 437 men, two-fifths of their strength.
Shall we turn with sadness to Fort Wagner, S. C., in July, 1863, when
the Fifty-fourth Mass. won its deathless fame, and its grand young
commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, passed into the temple of
immortality. After a march of all day, under a burning sun, and all
night through a tempest of wind and rain, drenched, exhausted, hungry,
they wheel into line, without a murmur for that awful charge, that dance
of death, the struggle against hopeless odds, and the shattered remnants
were hurled back as from the mouth of hell, leaving the dead bodies of
their young commander and his noble followers to be buried in a common
grave. Its total loss was about one-third of its strength.
Here it was that the gallant Flag-sergeant Carney, though grievously
wounded, bore back his flag to safety, and fell fainting and exhausted
with loss of blood, saying, “Boys, the old flag never touched the
ground!” Or another glance, at ill-starred Olustee, where the gallant
8th U. S. C. T. lost 87 killed of its effective fighting force, the
largest loss in any one colored regiment in any one action of the war.
And so on, by Fort Pillow, which let us pass in merciful silence, and to
Honey Hill, S. C., perhaps the last desperate fight in the far south, in
which the 32nd, 35th and 102nd U. S. C. T. and the 54th and 55th Mass.
Inf. won fresh and fadeless laurels for splendid fighting against
hopeless odds and insurmountable difficulties, and then to Nashville,
Tennessee, with its recorded loss of 84 killed in the effectives of the
13th U. S. C. T.
These were all brilliant actions, and they covered the actors with and
reflected upon the race a blaze of glory. But it was in the armies of
the James and of the Potomac that the true metal of the Negro as a
soldier rang out its clearest notes amid the tremendous diapasons that
rolled back and forth between the embattled hosts. Here was war indeed,
upon its grandest scale, and in all its infinite variety. The tireless
march under burning sun, chilling frosts and driven tempests, the lonely
vigil of the picket under starless skies, the rush and roar of countless
“hosts to battle driven” in the mad charge and the victorious shout that
pursued the fleeing foe; the grim determination that held its line of
defenses with set teeth, blood-shot eye and strained muscle beating back
charge after charge of the foe; the patient labor in trench and mine, on
hill and in valley, swamp and jungle, with disease adding its horrors to
the decimation of shot and shell.
Here the Negro stood in the full glare of the greatest search light,
part and parcel of the grandest armies ever mustered upon this
continent, competing side by side with the best and bravest of the Union
army against the flower of the Confederacy, the best and bravest of
Lee’s army, and losing nothing in the contrast. Never again while time
lasts will the doubt arise as in 1861, “Will the Negro fight?” As a
problem, it has been solved, as a question it has been answered, and as
a fact it is as established as the eternal hills. It was they who rang
up the curtain upon the last act of the bloody tragedy at Petersburg,
Va., June 15, 1864, and they who rang it down at Clover Hill, Va., April
9, 1865. They were one of the strong fingers upon the mighty hand that
grasped the giant’s throat at Petersburg and never flexed until the
breath went out at Appomattox. In this period it would take page on page
to recount their deeds of valor and their glorious victories.
See them on the 15th of June, 1864, carrying the outpost at Baylor’s
field in early morning, and all that long, hot, summer day advancing, a
few yards at a time, then lying down to escape the fire from the works,
but still gradually creeping nearer and nearer, until, just as the sun
went down, they swept like a tornado over the works and started upon a
race for the city, close at the heels of the flying foe, until
mistakenly ordered back. Of this day’s experience Gen. Badeau writes:
“No worse strain on the nerves of troops is possible, for it is harder
to remain quiet under cannon fire, even though comparatively harmless,
than to advance against a storm of musketry.” General W. F. “Baldy”
Smith, speaking of their conduct, says: “No nobler effort has been put
forth to-day, and no greater success achieved than that of the colored
troops.”
In his order of the day he says:
“To the colored troops comprising the Division of General Hinks, the
general commanding would call the attention of his command. With the
veterans of the Eighteenth corps, they have stormed the works of the
enemy and carried them, taking guns and prisoners, and in the whole
affair they have displayed all the qualities of good soldiers.”
Or, again, at the terrible mine explosion of July 30, 1864, on the
Petersburg line, and at the fearful slaughter of September 29, 1864, at
New Market Heights and Fort Harrison. On this last date in the Fourth U.
S. Col. Troops, out of a color guard of twelve men, but one came off the
field on his own feet. The gallant Flag-sergeant Hilton, the last to
fall, cried out as he went down, “Boys, save the colors;” and they were
saved.
After the magnificent fighting of this last date, under date of Oct. 11,
1864, Maj.-General B. F. Butler issued an order, a portion of which I
quote, as follows:
“Of the colored soldiers of the third divisions of the 18th and 10th
Corps and the officers who led them, the general commanding desires to
make special mention. In the charge on the enemy’s works by the colored
division of the 18th Corps at New Market, better men were never better
led, better officers never led better men. A few more such gallant
charges and to command colored troops will be the post of honor in the
American armies. The colored soldiers, by coolness, steadiness,
determined courage and dash, have silenced every cavil of the doubters
of their soldierly capacity, and drawn tokens of admiration from their
enemies, have brought their late masters even to the consideration of
the question whether they will not employ as soldiers the hitherto
despised race.”
Some ten or more years later, in Congress, in the midst of a speech
advocating the giving of civil rights to the Negro, Gen. Butler said,
referring to this incident:
“There, in a space not wider than the clerk’s desk, and three hundred
yards long, lay the dead bodies of 543 of my colored comrades, slain in
the defense of their country, who had laid down their lives to uphold
its flag and its honor, as a willing sacrifice. And as I rode along,
guiding my horse this way and that, lest he should profane with his
hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as I looked at their
bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against
the wrongs of the country for which they had given their lives, and
whose flag had been to them a flag of stripes, in which no star of glory
had ever shone for them—feeling I had wronged them in the past, and
believing what was the future duty of my country to them—I swore to
myself a solemn oath: ‘May my right hand forget its cunning, and my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if ever I fail to defend the
rights of the men who have given their blood for me and my country this
day and for their race forever.’ And, God helping me, I will keep that
oath.”
Or another instance: when under Butler first and Terry later, driven by
storms and tempestous seas to powerful Fort Fisher, cooperating with our
gallant Navy in its capture, and thence starting on the long march that
led through Wilmington, and on to Goldsboro, N. C., where Johnson’s
army, the last large force of the Confederacy in the field, was caught
between the forces under Terry and the forces under Howard; and the war
as such was ended with his surrender, April 26, 1865.
A little of statistics, and I will close.
The total number of colored soldiers in this last war was 178,975, and
the number of deaths 36,847.
Of enlistments the United States made 96,337, and the several States
79,638.
Enlistments were divided as follows:
Alabama 2,969
Louisiana 24,052
New Hampshire 125
Massachusetts 3,966
Connecticut 1,764
New Jersey 1,185
Delaware 954
Dist. 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 Ter. 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
Miscellaneous 5,896
The completed organizations were as follows:
138 regiments of infantry.
6 regiments of cavalry.
14 regiments of heavy artillery.
1 regiments of light artillery.
On 449 occasions their blood was spilled.
These are a few of the regiments having the largest number of men killed
in any one engagement.
The 8th U. S. C. T., at Olustee, 87 killed.
The 13th U. S. C. T., at Nashville, 84 killed.
The 23rd U. S. C. T., at Petersburg, 81 killed.
The 7th U. S. C. T., at Fort Gilmore, 68 killed.
The 5th U. S. C. T., at Chaffin’s Farm 63 killed.
The 6th U. S. C. T., at Chaffin’s Farm 61 killed.
The 54th Mass. Inf., at Fort Wagner, 58 killed.
The regiments having more than fifty men killed during their period of
service are as follows:
Seventy-ninth U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 183
Eighth U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 115
Fourth U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 102
Thirteenth U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 86
Seventh U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 84
Twenty-third U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 82
Sixth U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 79
Fifth U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 77
Twenty-second U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 70
First U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 67
Forty-ninth U. S. C. T. Total Killed, 59
Sometimes a comparison will illustrate better than figures alone. I give
a single instance: Every one has heard of the charge of the Light
Brigade, at Balaklava. I will put beside it a Black Brigade of about the
same number of men.
Here they are: