Army Life in a Black Regiment | Page 4

one step from the
camp of a Massachusetts regiment to this, and that step over leagues of
waves.
It is a holiday wherever General Saxton's proclamation reaches. The
chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seems like New England, but
those alone. The air is full of noisy drumming, and of gunshots; for the
prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is
chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken
windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great
live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with
a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with
grayness. Below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass,
bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff,
shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture.
Numerous plantation-buildings totter around, all slovenly and
unattractive, while the interspaces are filled with all manner of wreck

and refuse, pigs, fowls, dogs, and omnipresent Ethiopian infancy. All
this is the universal Southern panorama; but five minutes' walk beyond
the hovels and the live-oaks will bring one to something so
un-Southern that the whole Southern coast at this moment trembles at
the suggestion of such a thing, the camp of a regiment of freed slaves.
One adapts one's self so readily to new surroundings that already the
full zest of the novelty seems passing away from my perceptions, and I
write these lines in an eager effort to retain all I can. Already I am
growing used to the experience, at first so novel, of living among five
hundred men, and scarce a white face to be seen, of seeing them go
through all their daily processes, eating, frolicking, talking, just as if
they were white. Each day at dress-parade I stand with the customary
folding of the arms before a regimental line of countenances so black
that I can hardly tell whether the men stand steadily or not; black is
every hand which moves in ready cadence as I vociferate, "Battalion!
Shoulder arms!" nor is it till the line of white officers moves forward,
as parade is dismissed, that I am reminded that my own face is not the
color of coal.
The first few days on duty with a new regiment must be devoted almost
wholly to tightening reins; in this process one deals chiefly with the
officers, and I have as yet had but little personal intercourse with the
men. They concern me chiefly in bulk, as so many consumers of rations,
wearers of uniforms, bearers of muskets. But as the machine comes into
shape, I am beginning to decipher the individual parts. At first, of
course, they all looked just alike; the variety comes afterwards, and
they are just as distinguishable, the officers say, as so many whites.
Most of them are wholly raw, but there are many who have already
been for months in camp in the abortive "Hunter Regiment," yet in that
loose kind of way which, like average militia training, is a doubtful
advantage. I notice that some companies, too, look darker than others,
though all are purer African than I expected. This is said to be partly a
geographical difference between the South Carolina and Florida men.
When the Rebels evacuated this region they probably took with them
the house-servants, including most of the mixed blood, so that the
residuum seems very black. But the men brought from Fernandina the
other day average lighter in complexion, and look more intelligent, and
they certainly take wonderfully to the drill.

It needs but a few days to show the absurdity of distrusting the military
availability of these people. They have quite as much average
comprehension as whites of the need of the thing, as much courage (I
doubt not), as much previous knowledge of the gun, and, above all, a
readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill,
counterbalances any defect of mental training. To learn the drill, one
does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager,
active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are the
better. There is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites in
that. As to camp-life, they have little to sacrifice; they are better fed,
housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they appear to
have few inconvenient vices. They are simple, docile, and affectionate
almost to the point of absurdity. The same men who stood fire in open
field with perfect coolness, on the late expedition, have come to me
blubbering in the most irresistibly ludicrous manner on being
transferred from one company in the regiment to another.
In noticing the squad-drills I perceive that the men learn less
laboriously than whites