Army Life in a Black Regiment | Page 2

such attempts; the government kept very shy of the
experiment, and it did not seem possible that the time had come when it
could be fairly tried.
For myself, I was at the head of a fine company of my own raising, and
in a regiment to which I was already much attached. It did not seem
desirable to exchange a certainty for an uncertainty; for who knew but
General Saxton might yet be thwarted in his efforts by the pro-slavery
influence that had still so much weight at head-quarters? It would be
intolerable to go out to South Carolina, and find myself, after all, at the
head of a mere plantation-guard or a day-school in uniform.
I therefore obtained from the War Department, through Governor
Andrew, permission to go and report to General Saxton, without at
once resigning my captaincy. Fortunately it took but a few days in

South Carolina to make it clear that all was right, and the return
steamer took back a resignation of a Massachusetts commission.
Thenceforth my lot was cast altogether with the black troops, except
when regiments or detachments of white soldiers were also under my
command, during the two years following.
These details would not be worth mentioning except as they show this
fact: that I did not seek the command of colored troops, but it sought
me. And this fact again is only important to my story for this reason,
that under these circumstances I naturally viewed the new recruits
rather as subjects for discipline than for philanthropy. I had been
expecting a war for six years, ever since the Kansas troubles, and my
mind had dwelt on military matters more or less during all that time.
The best Massachusetts regiments already exhibited a high standard of
drill and discipline, and unless these men could be brought tolerably
near that standard, the fact of their extreme blackness would afford me,
even as a philanthropist, no satisfaction. Fortunately, I felt perfect
confidence that they could be so trained, having happily known, by
experience, the qualities of their race, and knowing also that they had
home and household and freedom to fight for, besides that abstraction
of "the Union." Trouble might perhaps be expected from white officials,
though this turned out far less than might have been feared; but there
was no trouble to come from the men, I thought, and none ever came.
On the other hand, it was a vast experiment of indirect philanthropy,
and one on which the result of the war and the destiny of the negro race
might rest; and this was enough to tax all one's powers. I had been an
abolitionist too long, and had known and loved John Brown too well,
not to feel a thrill of joy at last on finding myself in the position where
he only wished to be.
In view of all this, it was clear that good discipline must come first;
after that, of course, the men must be helped and elevated in all ways as
much as possible.
Of discipline there was great need, that is, of order and regular
instruction. Some of the men had already been under fire, but they were
very ignorant of drill and camp duty. The officers, being appointed
from a dozen different States, and more than as many regiments,
infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers, had all that diversity of
methods which so confused our army in those early days. The first need,

therefore, was of an unbroken interval of training. During this period,
which fortunately lasted nearly two months, I rarely left the camp, and
got occasional leisure moments for a fragmentary journal, to send home,
recording the many odd or novel aspects of the new experience.
Camp-life was a wonderfully strange sensation to almost all volunteer
officers, and mine lay among eight hundred men suddenly transformed
from slaves into soldiers, and representing a race affectionate,
enthusiastic, grotesque, and dramatic beyond all others. Being such,
they naturally gave material for description. There is nothing like a
diary for freshness, at least so I think, and I shall keep to the diary
through the days of camp-life, and throw the later experience into
another form. Indeed, that matter takes care of itself; diaries and
letter-writing stop when field-service begins.
I am under pretty heavy bonds to tell the truth, and only the truth; for
those who look back to the newspaper correspondence of that period
will see that this particular regiment lived for months in a glare of
publicity, such as tests any regiment severely, and certainly prevents all
subsequent romancing in its historian. As the scene of the only effort
on the Atlantic coast to arm the negro, our camp attracted a continuous
stream of visitors, military and civil. A battalion of black soldiers, a