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012 - The Negro as a Soldier · Army Life in a Black Regiment

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Speaker 1: Chapter twelve of Army Life in a Black Regiment. This
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Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by f n H Army Life
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Speaker 1: in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Chapter twelve,
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Speaker 1: The Negro as a soldier. There was in our regiment
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Speaker 1: a very young recruit named Sam Roberts, of whom Trowbridge
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Speaker 1: used to tell this story. Early in the war. Trowbridge
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Speaker 1: had once sent to Amelia Island with a squad of
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Speaker 1: men under direction of Commodore Goldsborough, to remove the Negroes
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Speaker 1: from the island. As the officers stood on the beach
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Speaker 1: talking to some of the older freedmen, they saw this
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Speaker 1: urchin peeping at them from front and rear in a
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Speaker 1: scrutinizing way, for which he his father at last called
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Speaker 1: him to account as Thus, Hi, Sammy, what use do
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Speaker 1: in Chile? Daddy said the inquisitive youth. Don't you know
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Speaker 1: massa tells Yankee habtail. I don't see no tale, Daddy.
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Speaker 1: There were many who went to Port Royal during the
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Speaker 1: war in civil or military position, whose previous impressions of
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Speaker 1: the colored race were about as intelligent as Sam's. Few
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Speaker 1: of themselves. But for once, I had always so much
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Speaker 1: to do with fugitive slaves, and had studied the whole
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Speaker 1: subject with such interest that I found not much to
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Speaker 1: learn or unlearn as to this one point. Their courage
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Speaker 1: I had seen before tested, their docile and lovable qualities
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Speaker 1: I had known, and the only real surprise that experience
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Speaker 1: brought me was in finding them so little demoralized. I
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Speaker 1: had not allowed for the extreme remoteness and seclusion of
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Speaker 1: their lives, especially among the sea islands. Many of them
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Speaker 1: had literally spent their whole existence on some lonely island
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Speaker 1: or remote plantation, where the master never came and the
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Speaker 1: overseer only once or twice a week. With these exceptions,
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Speaker 1: such persons had never seen a white face, and of
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Speaker 1: the excitements of sins or larger communities, they had not
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Speaker 1: a conception. My friend, Colonel Hallowell of the fifty fourth Massachusetts,
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Speaker 1: told me that he had among his men some of
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Speaker 1: the worst reprobates of northern cities. While I had some
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Speaker 1: men who were unprincipled and troublesome, there was not one
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Speaker 1: whom I would have called a hardened villain. I was
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Speaker 1: constantly expecting to find male torpses with no notions of
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Speaker 1: good and plenty of evil, But I never found one.
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Speaker 1: Among the most ignorant, there was often a childlike absence
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Speaker 1: of vices, which was rather to be classed as inexperienced
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Speaker 1: than as innocence, but which had some of the advantages
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Speaker 1: of both. Apart from this, they were very much like
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Speaker 1: other men. General Saxon, examining, with some impatience, a long
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Speaker 1: list of questions from some philanthropic commission at the North
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Speaker 1: respecting the traits and habits of the freedmen, bade some
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Speaker 1: staff officer answer all of them in two words, intensely human.
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Speaker 1: We all admitted that it was a striking and comprehensive description.
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Speaker 1: For instance, as to courage, so far as I have seen,
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Speaker 1: the mass of men are naturally courageous up to a
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Speaker 1: certain point. A man seldom runs away from danger which
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Speaker 1: he ought to face, unless others run. Each is apt
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Speaker 1: to keep with the mass, and colored soldiers have more
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Speaker 1: than usual of this gregariousness. In almost every regiment, black
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Speaker 1: or white, there are a score or two of men
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Speaker 1: who are naturally daring who really hunger after dangerous adventures,
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Speaker 1: and are happiest when allowed to seek them. Every commander
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Speaker 1: gradually finds out who these men are and habitually uses them.
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Speaker 1: Certainly I had such, and I remember with delight their bearing,
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Speaker 1: their coolness, and their dash. Some of them were negroes,
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Speaker 1: some mulettos. One of them would have passed for white,
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Speaker 1: with brown hair and blue eyes, while others were so
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Speaker 1: black you could hardly see their features. These picked men
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Speaker 1: varied in other respects too. Some were neat and well
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Speaker 1: drilled soldiers, while others were slovenly, heedless fellows, the despair
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Speaker 1: of their officers at inspection, their pride on a raid.
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Speaker 1: They were natural scouts and rangers of the regiment. They
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Speaker 1: had the two o'clock in the morning courage, which Napoleon
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Speaker 1: thought so rare. The mass of the regiment rose to
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Speaker 1: the same level under excitement, and were more excitable, I think,
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Speaker 1: than whites, but neither more or less courageous. Perhaps the
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Speaker 1: best proof of a good average of courage among them
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Speaker 1: was in the readiness they always showed for any special enterprise.
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Speaker 1: I do not remember, ever to have had the slightest
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Speaker 1: difficulty in obtaining volunteers, but rather in keeping down the number.
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Speaker 1: The previous pages include many illustrations of this, as well
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Speaker 1: as of their endurance of pain and discomfort. For instance,
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Speaker 1: one of my lieutenants, a very daring Irishman who had
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Speaker 1: served for eight years as a sergeant of regular artillery
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Speaker 1: in Texas, Utah, and South Carolina, said he had never
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Speaker 1: been engaged in anything so risky as our raid up
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Speaker 1: the Saint Mary's. But in truth it seems to me
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Speaker 1: a mere absurdity to deliberately argue the question of courage
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Speaker 1: as applied to men among whom I waked and slept
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Speaker 1: day and night for so many months together, as well
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Speaker 1: as might he who had been wandering for years upon
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Speaker 1: the desert with a bedouin escort, discussed the courage of
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Speaker 1: the men whose tents had been his shelter and whose
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Speaker 1: spears his guard. We their officers did not go there
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Speaker 1: to teach lessons, but to receive them. There were more
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Speaker 1: than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily
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Speaker 1: met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any
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Speaker 1: of my young captains had occurred in all their lives.
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Speaker 1: There was a family named Wilson, I remember, of which
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Speaker 1: we had several representatives. Three or four brothers had planned
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Speaker 1: an escape from the interior to our lines. They finally
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Speaker 1: decided that the youngest should stay and take care of
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Speaker 1: the old mother. The rest, with their sister and her children,
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Speaker 1: came in a dugout down one of the rivers. They
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Speaker 1: were fired upon again and again by the pickets along
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Speaker 1: the banks, until finally every man on board was wounded,
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Speaker 1: and still they got safely through. When the bullets began
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Speaker 1: to fly about them, the woman shed tears, and her
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Speaker 1: little girl of nine said to her, don't cry, mother,
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Speaker 1: Jesus will help you, and then the child began praying
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Speaker 1: as the wounded men still urged the boat along. This
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Speaker 1: the mother told me, but I had previously heard it
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Speaker 1: from an officer who was on the gunboat that picked
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Speaker 1: them up, a big rough man whose voice fairly broke
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Speaker 1: as he described their appearance. He said that the mother
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Speaker 1: and child had been hid for their nine months in
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Speaker 1: the woods before attempting their escape, and the child would
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Speaker 1: speak to no one, Indeed, she hardly would. When she
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Speaker 1: came to our camp. She was almost and this officer
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Speaker 1: wished to adopt her, But the mother said, I would
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Speaker 1: do anything but for that una, this being a sort
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Speaker 1: of Indian formation of the second person plural, such as
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Speaker 1: they sometimes use. This same officer afterwards saw a reward
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Speaker 1: offered for this family in a Savannah paper. I used
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Speaker 1: to think that I should not care to read Uncle
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Speaker 1: Tom's cabin in our camp. It would have seemed tame.
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Speaker 1: Any group of men in a tent would have had
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Speaker 1: more exciting tales to tell. I needed no fiction when
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Speaker 1: I had my Fanny write, for instance, daily passing to
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Speaker 1: and fro before my tent with a shy little girl
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Speaker 1: clinging to her skirts. Fanny was a modest little Mulletto woman,
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Speaker 1: a soldier's wife and a company laundress. She had escaped
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Speaker 1: from the main land in a boat with that child
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Speaker 1: and another. Her baby was shot dead in her arms,
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Speaker 1: and she reached our lines with one child safe on
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Speaker 1: earth and the other in heaven. I never found it
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Speaker 1: needful to give any elementary in Sae structions encouraged to
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Speaker 1: Fanny's husband. You may be sure there was another family
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Speaker 1: of brothers in the regiment named Miller. Their grandmother, a
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Speaker 1: fine old looking woman nearly seventy I should think but
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Speaker 1: erect as a pine tree used sometimes to come and
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Speaker 1: visit them. She and her husband had once tried to
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Speaker 1: escape from a plantation near Savannah. They had failed and
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Speaker 1: had been brought back. Her husband had received five hundred lashes,
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Speaker 1: and while the white men on the plantation were viewing
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Speaker 1: the punishment, she was collecting her children and grandchildren to
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Speaker 1: the number of twenty two in a neighboring marsh, preparatory
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Speaker 1: to another attempt. That night, they found a flat boat
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Speaker 1: which had been rejected as unseaworthy, got on board still
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Speaker 1: under the old woman's orders, and drifted forty miles down
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Speaker 1: the river to our lines. Trowbridge happened to be on
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Speaker 1: board the gunboat which picked them up, and he said
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Speaker 1: that when the flat touched the side of the vessel,
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Speaker 1: the grandmother rose to her full height, with her youngest
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Speaker 1: grandchild in her arms, and said, only, my God, are
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Speaker 1: we free by one of those coincidences of which life
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Speaker 1: is full. Her husband escaped also after his punishment, and
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Speaker 1: was taken up by the same gunboat. I hardly need
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Speaker 1: point out that my young lieutenants did not have to
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Speaker 1: teach the principles of courage to this woman's grandchildren. I
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Speaker 1: often ask myself why it was that, with this capacity
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Speaker 1: of daring and endurance they had not kept the land
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Speaker 1: in a perpetual flame of insurrection. Why, especially since the
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Speaker 1: opening of the war, they had kept so still. The
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Speaker 1: answer was to be found in the peculiar temperament of
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Speaker 1: their races, in their religious faith, and in the habit
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Speaker 1: of patience that centries had fortified. The shrewder men all
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Speaker 1: said substantially the same thing. What was the use of insurrection?
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Speaker 1: Where everything was against them? They had no knowledge, no money,
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Speaker 1: no arms, no drill, no organization, above all, no mutual confidence.
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Speaker 1: It was the tradition among them that all insurrec actions
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Speaker 1: were always betrayed by somebody. They had no mountain passes
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Speaker 1: to defend, like the Maroons in Jamaica, no impenetrable swamps
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Speaker 1: like the Maroons in Surinam. Where they had these, even
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Speaker 1: on a small scale, they had used them, as in
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Speaker 1: certain swamps around Savannah, and in the Everglades of Florida,
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Speaker 1: where they united with the Indians and would stand fire.
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Speaker 1: So I was towed by General Saxon, who had fought
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Speaker 1: them there. When the Indians would retreat. It always seemed
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Speaker 1: to me that had I been a slave my life
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Speaker 1: would have been one long scheme of insurrection, But I
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Speaker 1: learned to respect the patient self control of those who
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Speaker 1: had waited till the course of events should open a
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Speaker 1: better way. When it came, they accepted it. Insurrection on
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Speaker 1: their part would at once have divided the Northern sentiment,
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Speaker 1: and a large part of our army would have joined
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Speaker 1: with the Southern army to hunt them down. By their
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Speaker 1: waiting till we needed them, their freedom was secured by
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Speaker 1: things chiefly surprised me in their feeling towards their former masters,
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Speaker 1: the absence of affection and the absence of revenge. I
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Speaker 1: expected to find a good deal of the patriarchal feeling.
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Speaker 1: It always seemed to me a very ill applied emotion
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Speaker 1: as connected with the facts and laws of American slavery.
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Speaker 1: Still I expected to find it. I suppose that my
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Speaker 1: men and their families and visitors may have had as
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Speaker 1: much of it as the mass of freed slaves, but
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Speaker 1: certainly they had not a particle. I never could cajole
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Speaker 1: one of them, in his most discontented moment, into regretting
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Speaker 1: old master time for a single instant. I never heard
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Speaker 1: one speak of the masters except as natural enemies. Yet
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Speaker 1: they were perfectly discriminating as to individuals. Many of them
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Speaker 1: claimed to have had very kind owners, and some expressed
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Speaker 1: great gratitude to them for particular favors received. It was
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Speaker 1: not the individuals, but the ownership of which they complained
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Speaker 1: that they saw to be wrong, which no special kindness
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Speaker 1: could write. On this, As on all points connected with slavery,
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Speaker 1: they understood the matter as clearly as Garrison or Phillips.
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Speaker 1: The wisest philosophy could teach them nothing as to that,
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Speaker 1: nor could any false philosophy befog them. After all, personal
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Speaker 1: experience is the best logician. Certainly, this indifference did not
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Speaker 1: proceed from any want of personal affection, for they were
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Speaker 1: the most affectionate people among whom I had ever lived.
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Speaker 1: They attached themselves to every officer who deserved love, and
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Speaker 1: to some who did not, And if they failed to
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Speaker 1: show it to their masters, it proved the wrongfulness of
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Speaker 1: the mastery. On the other hand, they rarely showed one
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Speaker 1: gleam of revenge. And I shall never forget the self
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Speaker 1: control with which one of our best sergeants pointed out
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Speaker 1: to me at Jacksonville, the very place where one of
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Speaker 1: his brothers had been hanged by the Whites for leading
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Speaker 1: a party of fugitive slaves. He spoke of it as
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Speaker 1: a historical matter without any bearing on the present day.
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Speaker 1: But side by side with this faculty of patients, there
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Speaker 1: was a certain tropical element in the men, a sort
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Speaker 1: of fiery ecstasy when aroused, which seemed to link them
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Speaker 1: by blood to the French Turcos, and made them really
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Speaker 1: resemble their natural enemies, the Celts, far more than the
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Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon temperament. To balance this, there were great individual
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Speaker 1: resources when alone, a sort of Indian wiliness and subtlety
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Speaker 1: of resource. Their gregariousness and love of drill made them
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Speaker 1: more easy to keep in hand than White American troops,
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Speaker 1: who rather liked to straggle or to go in little
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Speaker 1: squads looking out for themselves without being bothered with officers.
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Speaker 1: The Blacks prefer organization. The point of inferiority that I
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Speaker 1: always feared, though I never had occasion to prove it,
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Speaker 1: was that they might show less fiber less, tough and
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Speaker 1: dogged resistance than Whites during a prolonged trial, a long
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Speaker 1: disastrous march, for instance, or the hopeless defense of a
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Speaker 1: besieged town. I should not be afraid of their mutying
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Speaker 1: or running away, but of their drooping and dying. It
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Speaker 1: might not turn out so, but I mention it for
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Speaker 1: the sake of fairness, and to avoid overstating the merits
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Speaker 1: of these troops as to the simple general fact of
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Speaker 1: courage and reliability. I think no officer in our camp
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Speaker 1: ever thought of there being any difference between black and white,
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Speaker 1: And certainly the opinions of these officers, who for years
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Speaker 1: risked their lives every moment on the fidelity of their men,
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Speaker 1: were worth more than those of all the world. Beside,
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Speaker 1: no doubt, there were reasons why this particular war was
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Speaker 1: an especially favorable test for the colored soldiers. They had
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Speaker 1: more to fight for than the whites. Besides the flag
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Speaker 1: and the union they at home, wife and child. They
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Speaker 1: fought with ropes round their necks, and when the orders
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Speaker 1: were issued that officers of colored troops should be put
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Speaker 1: to death on capture, they took a grim satisfaction. It
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Speaker 1: helped their spirit to care immensely with us at LEAs
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Speaker 1: there was to be no play soldier. Though they had
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Speaker 1: begun with a slight feeling of inferiority to the white troops,
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Speaker 1: this compliment substituted a peculiar sense of self respect, And
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Speaker 1: even when the new colored regiments began to arrive from
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Speaker 1: the north, my men still pointed out this difference, that
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Speaker 1: in case of ultimate defeat, the Northern troops, black or white,
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Speaker 1: would go home, while the first South Carolina must fight
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Speaker 1: it out or be re enslaved. This was one thing
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Speaker 1: that made the Saint John's River so attractive to them,
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Speaker 1: and even to me, it was so much nearer the Everglades.
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Speaker 1: I used seriously to ponder during the darker periods of
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Speaker 1: the war whether I might not end my days as
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Speaker 1: an outlaw, a leader of maroons. Meanwhile, I used to
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Speaker 1: try and make some capital for the Northern troops in
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Speaker 1: their estimate by pointing out that it was a disinterested
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Speaker 1: thing in these men from the free States to come
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Speaker 1: down here and fight that the slaves might be free.
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Speaker 1: But they were act keenly to reply that. Many of
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Speaker 1: the white soldiers disavowed this object and said that it
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Speaker 1: was not the object of the war, nor even likely
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Speaker 1: to be its end. Some of them even repeated mister
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Speaker 1: Seward's unfortunate words to mister Adams, which some general had
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Speaker 1: been heard to quote. So on the whole. I took
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Speaker 1: nothing by the motion, as was apt to be the
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Speaker 1: case with those who spoke a good word of our
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Speaker 1: government in those facilitating and half pro slavery days. At
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Speaker 1: any rate, this ungenerous discouragement had this good effect that
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Speaker 1: it touched their pride. They would deserve justice even if
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Speaker 1: they did not obtain it. This pride was afterwards severely
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Speaker 1: tested during the disgraceful period when the Party of Repudiation
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Speaker 1: in Congress temporarily deprived them of their promised pay. In
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Speaker 1: my regiment, the men never mutinied nor even threatened to mutiny.
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Speaker 1: They seemed to make it a matter of honor to
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Speaker 1: do their part, even if the government proved a defaulter.
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Speaker 1: Third of them, including the best men in the regiment,
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Speaker 1: quietly refused to take a dollar's pay at the reduced price.
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Speaker 1: We's give our soldier into the government gunneal, they said.
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Speaker 1: But we won't supplies ourselves so much to take d
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Speaker 1: seven dollar. They even made a contemptuous ballad of which
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Speaker 1: I once caught a snatch ten dollar a month, tree,
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Speaker 1: a dat for clothing, go to Washington, fight for Lincoln's data.
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Speaker 1: This Lincoln's daughter stood for the goodness of liberty. It
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Speaker 1: would seem they would be true to her, but they
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Speaker 1: would not take the half pay. This was contrary to
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Speaker 1: my advice and that of their officers, But now I
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Speaker 1: think it was wise. Nothing less than this would have
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Speaker 1: called the attention of the American people to this outrageous fraud.
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Speaker 1: The same slow forecast had often marked their action in
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Speaker 1: other ways. One of our ablest sergeants, Henry McIntyre, who
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Speaker 1: had earned two dollars a month and a half per
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Speaker 1: day as a master carpenter in Florida, and paid one
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Speaker 1: dollar and a half to his master, told me that
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Speaker 1: he had deliberately refrained from learning to read, because that
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Speaker 1: knowledge exposed the slaves to so much more watching and suspicion.
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Speaker 1: This man and a few others had built on contract
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Speaker 1: the greater part of the town of Micanopie in Florida,
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Speaker 1: and was a thriving man. When his accustomed discretion failed
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Speaker 1: for once and he lost all. He named his child
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Speaker 1: William Lincoln, and it brought upon him such suspicion that
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Speaker 1: he had to make his escape. I cannot conceive what
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Speaker 1: people of the North mean by speaking of negroes as
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Speaker 1: a bestial or brutal race, except in some insensibility to
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Speaker 1: animal pain. I never knew of an act in my
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Speaker 1: regiment which I should call brutal. In reading Kay's condition
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Speaker 1: of the English peasantry, I was constantly struck with the
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Speaker 1: unlikeliness of my men to those therein described. This could
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Speaker 1: not proceed from my prejudices as an abolitionist, for they
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Speaker 1: would have led me the other way. And indeed I
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Speaker 1: had once written a little essay to show the brutalizing
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Speaker 1: influences of slavery. I learned to think that we abolitionists
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Speaker 1: had underrated the suffering produced by slavery among the Negroes,
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Speaker 1: but had overrated the demoralization. Or rather, we did not
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Speaker 1: know how the religious temperament of the Negroes had checked
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Speaker 1: the demoralization. Yet again, it must be admitted that this temperament,
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Speaker 1: born of sorrow and oppression, is far more marked in
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Speaker 1: the slave than in the native African. Theorize as we may,
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Speaker 1: there was certainly in our camp an average tone of propriety,
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Speaker 1: which visitors noticed, and which was not created but only
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Speaker 1: preserved by discipline. I was always struck, not merely by
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Speaker 1: the courtesy of the men, but also by a certain
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Speaker 1: sober decency of language. If a man had to report
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Speaker 1: to me any disagreeable fact, for instance, he was sure
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Speaker 1: to do it with gravity and decorum, and not blurt
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Speaker 1: it out in an offensive way. And it certainly was
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Speaker 1: a significant fact that the ladies of our camp, when
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Speaker 1: we were so fortunate as to have guests, the young wives,
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Speaker 1: especially of the adjutant and quartermaster, used to go among
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Speaker 1: the tents when the men were off duty, in order
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Speaker 1: to hear their big pupils read and spell without the
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Speaker 1: slightest fear of annoyance. I do not mean direct annoyance
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Speaker 1: or insult, for no man who valued his life would
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Speaker 1: have ventured that in presence of others. But I mean
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Speaker 1: the annoyance of accidentally seeing or hearing improprieties not intended
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Speaker 1: for them. They both declared that they would not have
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Speaker 1: moved about with anything like the same freedom in any
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Speaker 1: white camp they had entered, and it always roused their
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Speaker 1: indignation to hear the Negro race called brutal or depraved.
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Speaker 1: This came partly from natural good manners, partly from the
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Speaker 1: habit of deference, partly from ignorance of the refined and
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Speaker 1: ingenious evil which is learned in large towns, but a
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Speaker 1: large part came from their strongly religious tales imperament. Their
21:01
Speaker 1: comparative freedom from swearing, for instance, an abstinence which I
21:05
Speaker 1: fear military life did not strengthen, was partly a matter
21:08
Speaker 1: of principle. Once I heard one of them say to another,
21:11
Speaker 1: in a transport of indignation, ha ha ha, boys, suppose
21:15
Speaker 1: I no be a Christian, I cuss you soul, which
21:18
Speaker 1: was certainly drawing pretty hard upon the bridle. Cuss, however,
21:23
Speaker 1: was a generic term for all manner of evil speaking.
21:25
Speaker 1: They would say, he cussed me fool, or he cussed
21:28
Speaker 1: me coward, as if the essence of propriety were in
21:32
Speaker 1: harsh and angry speech, which I take to be good ethics.
21:37
Speaker 1: But certainly, if Uncle Toby could have recruited his army
21:40
Speaker 1: in Flanders from our ranks, the swearing would have ceased
21:43
Speaker 1: to be historic. It used to seem to me that
21:47
Speaker 1: never since Cromwell's time had there been soldiers in whom
21:50
Speaker 1: the religious element had such a place. A religious army,
21:54
Speaker 1: a gospel army were their frequent phrases. In their prayer meetings.
21:59
Speaker 1: There was always a singing, often quaint enough of the
22:02
Speaker 1: warlike and the pious, If each one of us was
22:05
Speaker 1: a praying man, said Corporal Thomas Long in a sermon,
22:08
Speaker 1: it appears to me that we could fight as well
22:10
Speaker 1: with prayers as with bullets. For the Lord has said
22:13
Speaker 1: that if you have faith, even a grain of mustard
22:15
Speaker 1: seed cut into four parts, you can say to the
22:18
Speaker 1: sycamore tree, arise, and it will come up. Though Corporal
22:22
Speaker 1: Long may have got a little perplexed in his botany,
22:25
Speaker 1: his faith proved itself by works. Free volunteered and went
22:28
Speaker 1: many miles on a solitary scouting expedition into the enemy's
22:31
Speaker 1: country in Florida, and got back safe after I had
22:34
Speaker 1: given him up for lost. The extremes of religious enthusiasm
22:39
Speaker 1: I did not venture to encourage, for I could not
22:41
Speaker 1: do it honestly. Neither did I discourage them, but simply
22:45
Speaker 1: treated them with respect and let them have their way,
22:48
Speaker 1: so long as it did not interfere with the discipline.
22:51
Speaker 1: In general, they promoted it. The mischievous little drummer boys,
22:55
Speaker 1: whose scrapes and quarrels were the torment of my existence,
22:58
Speaker 1: might be seen kneeling together in their tents to say
23:00
Speaker 1: their prayers at night, and I could hope that their
23:03
Speaker 1: slumbers were blessed by some spirit of peace, such as
23:06
Speaker 1: certainly did not rule over their waking. The most reckless
23:10
Speaker 1: and daring fellows in the regiment were perfect faithless in
23:13
Speaker 1: their confidence that God would watch over them, and that
23:16
Speaker 1: if they died, it would be because it was their
23:18
Speaker 1: time that had come. This almost excessive faith and their
23:23
Speaker 1: love of freedomen of their families all co operated with
23:26
Speaker 1: their pride as soldiers to make them do their duty.
23:30
Speaker 1: I could not have spared any of these incentives. Those
23:33
Speaker 1: of our officers, who were personally the least influenced by
23:36
Speaker 1: such considerations, still saw the need of encouraging them. Among
23:40
Speaker 1: the men, I am bound to say that this strongly
23:44
Speaker 1: devotional turn was not always accompanied by the practical virtues,
23:48
Speaker 1: but neither was it strikingly divorce from them. A few
23:52
Speaker 1: men I remember who belonged to the ancient order of hypocrites,
23:56
Speaker 1: but not many. Old Jim Cushman was our favorite representative scamp.
24:02
Speaker 1: He used to vex his righteous soul over the admission
24:04
Speaker 1: of the unregenerate to prayer meetings, and went off once,
24:08
Speaker 1: shaking his head and muttering too much goat shout with
24:11
Speaker 1: de sheep. But he who objected to this profane admixture
24:15
Speaker 1: used to get our mess funds far more hopelessly mixed
24:17
Speaker 1: with his own when he went out to buy chickens.
24:21
Speaker 1: And I remember that, on being asked by our major
24:23
Speaker 1: in that semi Ethiopian dialect into which we sometimes slid,
24:27
Speaker 1: how much wife you got, Jim the veteran replied with
24:30
Speaker 1: a sort of penitence for lost opportunities. Only about four, sir,
24:37
Speaker 1: another man of somewhat similar quality went among us, by
24:39
Speaker 1: the name of Henry Ward Beecher, from a remarkable resemblance
24:43
Speaker 1: in face and figure to that sturdy divine. I always
24:47
Speaker 1: felt a sort of admiration for this worthy because of
24:49
Speaker 1: the thoroughness with which he outwitted me, and the sublime
24:52
Speaker 1: impudence in which he culminated. He got a series of
24:56
Speaker 1: passes from me every week or two to go and
24:58
Speaker 1: see his wife on a neighboring place, And finally, when
25:01
Speaker 1: this resource seemed exhausted, he came boldly for one more
25:05
Speaker 1: pass that he might go and be married. We used
25:08
Speaker 1: to quote him a good deal also as a sample
25:10
Speaker 1: of a certain Shakespearian boldness of personification, in which the
25:14
Speaker 1: men sometimes indulged once. I remember his captain had given
25:18
Speaker 1: him a fowling piece to clean, Henry Ward had left
25:20
Speaker 1: it in the captain's tent, and the latter, finding it,
25:23
Speaker 1: had transferred the job to some one else. Then came
25:27
Speaker 1: a confession in this precise form, with many dignified gesticulations.
25:32
Speaker 1: Cap'n I took that gun. I put da bun into
25:35
Speaker 1: cap'n tent. Then I look and de gun not dar.
25:39
Speaker 1: Then conscience say, Cappaan must have give that gun to
25:42
Speaker 1: somebody else for clean. Then I say, conscience, you must
25:47
Speaker 1: reason correct. Compare Lancelet Gobbo's soliloquy in the two Gentlemen
25:52
Speaker 1: of her owner. Still, I maintained that as a whole,
25:56
Speaker 1: the men were remarkably free from inconvenient vices. There was
26:00
Speaker 1: no more lying and stealing than in the average white regiments.
26:04
Speaker 1: The surgeon was not much troubled by shamming sickness, and
26:07
Speaker 1: there were not a great many complaints of theft. There
26:11
Speaker 1: was less quarreling than among white soldiers, and scarcely ever
26:14
Speaker 1: an instance of drunkenness. Perhaps the influence of their officers
26:18
Speaker 1: had something to do with this, for not a ration
26:21
Speaker 1: of whisky was ever issued to the men, Nor did
26:24
Speaker 1: I ever touch it while in the army, nor approve
26:26
Speaker 1: a requisition for any of the officers, without which it
26:29
Speaker 1: could not easily be obtained. In this respect, our surgeons
26:33
Speaker 1: fortunately agreed with me, and we never had reason to
26:36
Speaker 1: regret it. I believed the use of ardent spirits to
26:40
Speaker 1: be as useless and injurious in the army as on
26:43
Speaker 1: board ship, and among the colored troops, especially who had
26:46
Speaker 1: never been accustomed to it, I think that it did
26:49
Speaker 1: only harm the point of greatest laxity in their moral habits.
26:54
Speaker 1: The want of a high standard of chastity was not
26:57
Speaker 1: one which affected the camp life to any great extent,
27:00
Speaker 1: and it therefore came less under my observation. But I
27:03
Speaker 1: found my relief that whatever their deficiency in this respect,
27:06
Speaker 1: he was modified by the general quality of their temperament,
27:09
Speaker 1: and indicated rather a softening and a relaxation than a
27:13
Speaker 1: hardening and brutalizing of their moral natures. Any insult or
27:17
Speaker 1: violence in this direction was a thing unknown. I never
27:20
Speaker 1: heard of an instance. It was not uncommon for the
27:23
Speaker 1: men to have two or three wives in different plantations,
27:27
Speaker 1: the second or remoter partner being called a broad wife,
27:30
Speaker 1: I e. Wife abroad. But the whole tendency was towards marriage,
27:34
Speaker 1: and this state of things was only regarded as a
27:37
Speaker 1: bequest from massa time. I knew a great deal about
27:41
Speaker 1: their marriages, for they often consulted me and took my counsel,
27:44
Speaker 1: as lovers are wont to do, that is, when it
27:47
Speaker 1: pleased their fancy. Sometimes they would consult their captains first
27:51
Speaker 1: and then to come to me. In despairing appeal, cap'n
27:54
Speaker 1: Scrowby Trowbridge, he advised me to come and married this lady.
27:58
Speaker 1: Could she have seven children? What for use? Cap'n Scroby,
28:02
Speaker 1: can't love for me? I must love for myself, and
28:05
Speaker 1: I love he. I remember that on this occasion he
28:10
Speaker 1: stood by a most unattractive woman, jet black, with an
28:14
Speaker 1: old pink muslin dress, torn white cotton gloves, and a
28:17
Speaker 1: very flowery bonnet that must have descended through generations of
28:21
Speaker 1: tawdy mistresses. I felt myself compelled to reaffirm the decision
28:25
Speaker 1: of the inferior court. The result was unusual. They were
28:29
Speaker 1: married the next day, and I believe that she proved
28:32
Speaker 1: an excellent wife, though she had seven children whose father
28:35
Speaker 1: was also in the regiment. If she did not. I
28:39
Speaker 1: know many others who did, and certainly I have never
28:42
Speaker 1: seen more faithful or happy marriages than among that people.
28:46
Speaker 1: The question was often asked whether the Southern slaves or
28:49
Speaker 1: the Northern free blacks made the best soldiers. It was
28:52
Speaker 1: a compliment to both classes that each officer usually preferred
28:55
Speaker 1: those whom he had personally commanded. I preferred those who
28:59
Speaker 1: had been slaves for the greater docility and affectionateness, for
29:04
Speaker 1: the powerful stimulus which their new freedom gave, and for
29:07
Speaker 1: the fact that they were fighting in a manner for
29:09
Speaker 1: their own homes and firesides. Every one of these considerations
29:13
Speaker 1: afforded a special aid to discipline, and cemented a peculiar
29:17
Speaker 1: tie of sympathy between them and their officers. They seemed
29:21
Speaker 1: like clansmen and had a more confiding and filial relation
29:25
Speaker 1: to us than seemed to me to exist in the
29:27
Speaker 1: Northern colored regiments. So far as the mere habits of
29:32
Speaker 1: slavery went, they were a poor preparation for military duty.
29:36
Speaker 1: Inexperienced officers often assumed that because these men had been
29:40
Speaker 1: slaves before enlistment, they would bear to be treated as such. Afterwards.
29:44
Speaker 1: Experience proved the contrary. The more strongly we mark the
29:48
Speaker 1: difference between the slave and the soldier, the better for
29:50
Speaker 1: the regiment. One half of military duty lies in obedience,
29:55
Speaker 1: the other half in self respect. A soldier without self
29:58
Speaker 1: respect is worthless. Consequently, there were no regiments in which
30:02
Speaker 1: it was so important to observe the courtesies and proprieties
30:05
Speaker 1: of military life as in these. I had to caution
30:10
Speaker 1: the officers to be more than usually particular in returning
30:13
Speaker 1: the salutations of the men, to be very careful in
30:16
Speaker 1: their dealings with those on picqut or guard duty, and
30:19
Speaker 1: on no account to omit the titles of the non
30:21
Speaker 1: commissioned officers. So in dealing out punishments we had carefully
30:25
Speaker 1: to avoid all that was brutal and arbitrary, all that
30:28
Speaker 1: savored of the overseer. Any such dealing found them as
30:32
Speaker 1: obstinate and contemptuous, as was Topsy when Missophelia undertook to
30:36
Speaker 1: chastise her. A system of light punishments, rigidly administered according
30:42
Speaker 1: to the prescribed military forms, had more weight with them
30:45
Speaker 1: than any amount of angry severity. To make them feel
30:49
Speaker 1: as remote as possible from the plantation. This was essential.
30:53
Speaker 1: By adhering to this and constantly appealing to their pride
30:56
Speaker 1: as soldiers and their sense of duty. We were able
30:59
Speaker 1: to maintain a high standard of discipline, so at least
31:02
Speaker 1: the inspecting officers said, and to get rid almost entirely
31:05
Speaker 1: of the more degrading class of punishments standing on barrels,
31:09
Speaker 1: tying up by the thumbs, and the ball and chain.
31:13
Speaker 1: In all ways we had to educate their self respect.
31:16
Speaker 1: For instance, at first they disliked to obey their own
31:19
Speaker 1: non commissioned officers. I don't want him to play de
31:22
Speaker 1: white man over me was a sincere objection. They had
31:26
Speaker 1: been so impressed with the sense of inferiority that the
31:29
Speaker 1: distinction extended to the very principles of honor. I ain't
31:33
Speaker 1: got colored man principles, said Corporal London Simmons, indignantly defending
31:37
Speaker 1: himself from some charge before me. I's got white Geman principles.
31:42
Speaker 1: Ies do my best. If Capann tell me to take
31:44
Speaker 1: a man supposed to man as big as a house,
31:47
Speaker 1: I clam hold on him till I die. Inception, I'm sick.
31:52
Speaker 1: But it was plain that this feeling was a bequest
31:55
Speaker 1: of slavery, which military life would wear off. We impressed
31:59
Speaker 1: it upon them that they did not obey their officers
32:02
Speaker 1: because they were white, but because they were their officers,
32:05
Speaker 1: just as the captain must obey me and I the General,
32:09
Speaker 1: that we were all subject to military law and protected
32:12
Speaker 1: by it. In turn, then we taught them to take
32:15
Speaker 1: pride in having good material for non commissioned officers among themselves,
32:18
Speaker 1: and in obeying them. On my arrival, there was one
32:22
Speaker 1: white first sergeant, and it was a question whether to
32:24
Speaker 1: appoint others. This I prevented, but left that one, hoping
32:29
Speaker 1: the men themselves would at last petition for his removal,
32:32
Speaker 1: which at length they did. He was at once detailed
32:35
Speaker 1: on other duty. The picturesqueness of the regiment suffered, for
32:40
Speaker 1: he was very tall and fair, and I like to
32:42
Speaker 1: see him step forward in the center when the line
32:45
Speaker 1: of first sergeants came together at dress parade. But it
32:48
Speaker 1: was a help to discipline to eliminate the saxon, for
32:51
Speaker 1: it recognized a principle. Afterwards, I had excellent battalion drills
32:56
Speaker 1: without a single white officer. By way of experiment putting
32:59
Speaker 1: each company under a sergeant and going through the most
33:02
Speaker 1: difficult movements such as division of columns and oblique squares,
33:06
Speaker 1: and as to actual discipline, it is doing no injustice
33:10
Speaker 1: to the line officers of the regiment to say that
33:12
Speaker 1: none of them received from the men more implicit obedience
33:15
Speaker 1: than color Sergeant Rivers. I should have tried to obtain
33:19
Speaker 1: commissions for him and several others before I left the regiment,
33:22
Speaker 1: had their literary education been sufficient, And such an attempt
33:26
Speaker 1: was finally made by Lieutenant Colonel Trowbridge, my successor in
33:29
Speaker 1: immediate command, but it proved unsuccessful. It always seemed to
33:33
Speaker 1: me an insult to those brave men to have novices
33:37
Speaker 1: put over their heads on the ground of color alone,
33:40
Speaker 1: and the men felt it more keenly as they remained
33:43
Speaker 1: longer in service. There were more than seven hundred enlisted
33:47
Speaker 1: men in the regiment when mustered out after more than
33:50
Speaker 1: three years service. The ranks had been kept full by enlistment,
33:54
Speaker 1: but there were only fourteen line offices instead of the
33:57
Speaker 1: full thirty. The men who should have fie those vacancies
34:01
Speaker 1: were doing duty as sergeants in the ranks. In what
34:06
Speaker 1: respect were the Colored troops a source of disappointment to me?
34:10
Speaker 1: In one respect only that of health. Their health improved, indeed,
34:15
Speaker 1: as they grew more familiar with military life. But I
34:18
Speaker 1: think that neither their physical nor moral temperament gave them
34:21
Speaker 1: that toughness, that obstinate purpose of living which sustains the
34:25
Speaker 1: more materialistic Anglo Saxon. They had, not, to be sure,
34:29
Speaker 1: the same predominant diseases, suffering in the pulmonary not in
34:33
Speaker 1: the digestive organs, but they suffered a good deal. They
34:37
Speaker 1: felt malaria less, but they were more easily choked by
34:40
Speaker 1: dust and made ill by dampness. On the other hand,
34:44
Speaker 1: they submitted more readily to sanitary measures than whites, and
34:48
Speaker 1: with efficient officers, were more easily kept clean. They were
34:52
Speaker 1: injured throughout the army by an undue share of fatigued duty,
34:56
Speaker 1: which is not only exhausting but demoralizing to a soldier,
34:59
Speaker 1: by them, the unsuitableness of the rations, which gave them
35:02
Speaker 1: salt meat instead of rice and hominy, and by the
35:05
Speaker 1: lack of good medical attendants. Their childlike constitutions peculiarly needed
35:11
Speaker 1: prompt and efficient surgical care. But almost all the Color
35:14
Speaker 1: troops were enlisted late in the war, when it was
35:16
Speaker 1: hard to get good surgeons for any regiments, and especially
35:20
Speaker 1: for these. In this respect, I had nothing to complain of,
35:24
Speaker 1: since there were no surgeons in the army for whom
35:26
Speaker 1: I would have exchanged my own. And this late arrival
35:30
Speaker 1: on the scene affected not only the medical supervision of
35:32
Speaker 1: the Colored troops, but their opportunity for a career. It
35:36
Speaker 1: is not my province to write their history, nor to
35:39
Speaker 1: vindicate them, nor to follow them upon those larger fields
35:42
Speaker 1: compared with which the adventures of my regiment appear but
35:45
Speaker 1: a partisan warfare. Yet this at least may be said.
35:50
Speaker 1: The operations on the South Atlantic coast, which long seemed
35:53
Speaker 1: merely a subordinate and incidental part of the great contest,
35:57
Speaker 1: proved to be one of the final pivots on which
35:59
Speaker 1: it turned. Now all admit that the fate of the
36:02
Speaker 1: Confederacy was decided by Sherman's march to the sea. Port
36:06
Speaker 1: Royal was the objective point to which he marched, and
36:09
Speaker 1: he found the Department of the South when he reached it,
36:11
Speaker 1: held almost exclusively by Colored troops. Next to the merit
36:16
Speaker 1: of those who made the march was that of those
36:19
Speaker 1: who held the open door. That service will always remain
36:23
Speaker 1: among the laurels of the Black regiments. End of Chapter twelve,
36:29
Speaker 1: recording by F. N. H. Visit w w W dot book,
36:32
Speaker 1: Ranger dot co dot uk