Black troops are now an established success,
and hereafter—while the race can furnish enough
able-bodied males—the probability would seem
that one-half the permanent naval and military
forces of the United States will be drawn from this
material, under the guidance and control of white
officers. To-day there is much competition among
the field and staff officers of our white volunteers—
more especially in those regiments about being
disbanded—to obtain commissions of like or even
lower grade in the colored regiments of Uncle
Sam. General Casey's board of examination cannot
keep in session long enough, nor dismiss incompetent
aspirants quick enough, to keep down
the vast throngs of veterans, with and without
shoulder-straps, who are now seeking various
grades of command in the colored brigades of the
Union.

Over this result all intelligent men will rejoice

[figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]

—the privilege of being either killed or wounded
in battle, or stricken down by the disease, toils,
and privations incident to the life of a marching
soldier, not belonging to that class of prerogatives
for the exclusive enjoyment of which men of
sense, and with higher careers open to them, will
long contend.

Looking back, however, but a few years to the
organization of the first regiment of black troops
in the department of the South—what a change
in public opinion are we compelled to recognise!
In sober verity, War is not only the sternest, but
the quickest, of all teachers; and contrasting the
Then and Now of our negro regiments, as we
propose to do in this sketch, the contrast will forcibly
recall Galileo's obdurate assertion that “the
world still moves.”

Be it known, then, that the first regiment of
black troops raised in our recent war, was raised
in the spring of 1862 by the commanding general
of the department of the South, of his own
motion, and without any direct authority of law,
order, or even sanction from the President, the
Secretary of War, or our Houses of Congress. It
was done by General Hunter as “a military
necessity” under very peculiar circumstances, to
be detailed hereafter; and, although repudiated
at first by the Government—as were so many
other measures originated in the same quarter—

[figure description] Page 173.[end figure description]

it was finally adopted as the settled policy of the
country and of our military system; as have likewise
since been adopted all the other original
measures for which this officer, at the time of
their first announcement, was made to suffer both
official rebuke and the violently vituperative
denunciation of more than one-half the Northern
press.

In the spring of 1862, General Hunter, finding
himself with less than eleven thousand men under
his command, and charged with the duty of holding
the whole tortuous and broken sea-coast of
Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, had applied
often, and in vain, to the authorities at Washington
for reinforcements. All the troops that could
be gathered in the North were less than sufficient
for the continuous drain of General McClellan's
great operations against the enemy's capital; and
the reiterated answer of the War Department
was: “You must get along as best you can. Not
a man from the North can be spared.”

On the mainland of the three States nominally
forming the Department of the South, the flag of
the Union had no permanent foothold, save at
Fernandina, St. Augustine, and some few unimportant
points along the Florida coast. It was on
the Sea-islands of Georgia and South Carolina
that our troops were stationed, and continually
engaged in fortifying—the enemy being

[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]

everywhere visible, and in force, across the narrow
creeks dividing us from the mainland; and
mutual raids—they across to our islands, and we
back to their mainland, and up their creeks, with
a few gunboats to help us—being the order of the
day: yea, and yet oftener, of the night.

No reinforcements to be had from the North;
vast fatigue duties in throwing up earthworks
imposed on our insufficient garrisons; the enemy
continually increasing both in insolence and numbers;
our only success the capture of Fort
Pulaski, sealing up Savannah; and this victory
off-set, if not fully counterbalanced, by many
minor gains of the enemy;—this was about the
condition of affairs as seen from the headquarters
fronting Port Royal bay, when General Hunter
one fine morning, with twirling glasses, puckered
lips, and dilated nostrils—(he had just received
another “don't-bother-us-for-reinforcements” dispatch
from Washington)—announced his intention
of “forming negro regiments,” and compelling
“every able-bodied black man in the department
to fight for the freedom which could not but
be the issue of our war.”

This resolution being taken, was immediately
acted upon with vigor, the General causing all the
necessary orders to be issued, and taking upon
himself, as his private burden, the responsibility
for all the irregular issues of arms, clothing,

[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]

equipments, and rations involved in collecting and
organizing the first experimental negro regiment.
The men he intended to pay, at first, by placing
them as laborers on the pay-rolls of the chief
quartermaster; but it was his hope that the
obvious necessity and wisdom of the measure he
had thus presumed to adopt without authority,
would secure for it the immediate approval of the
higher authorities, and the necessary orders to
cover the required pay and supply-issues of the
force he had in contemplation. If his course
should be indorsed by the War Department, well
and good; if it were not so indorsed, why he had
enough property of his own to pay back to the
Government all he was irregularly expending in
this experiment.

But now, on the very threshold of this novel
enterprise, came the first—and it was not a trivial—
difficulty. Where could experienced officers be
found for such an organization? “What! command
niggers!” was the reply—if possible more
amazed than scornful—of nearly every competent
young lieutenant or captain of volunteers to whom
the suggestion of commanding this class of
troops was made. “Never mind,” said Hunter,
when this trouble was brought to his notice; “the
fools or bigots who refuse are enough punished by
their refusal. Before two years they will be competing
eagerly for the commissions they now reject.”

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

Straightway there was issued a circular to all
commanding officers in the department, directing
them to announce to the non-commissioned officers
and men of their respective commands that commissions
in the “South Carolina Regiments of
Colored Infantry,” would be given to all deserving
and reputable sergeants, corporals, and men
who would appear at department headquarters,
and prove able to pass an examination in the
manual and tacties before a Board of Examiners,
which was organized in a general order of concurrent
date. Capt. Arthur M. Kinzie, of Chicago,
aide-de-camp—now of Hancock's Veteran
Reserve Corps—was detailed as Colonel of the
regiment, giving place, subsequently, in consequence
of injured health, to the present Brig.
Gen. James D. Fessenden, then a captain in the
Berdan Sharpshooters, though detailed as acting
aide-de-camp on Gen. Hunter's staff. Captain
Kinzie, we may add, was General Hunter's
nephew, and his appointment as Colonel was made
partly on the grounds of superior fitness; and
partly to prove—so violent was then the prejudice
against negro troops—that the Commanding General
asked nothing of others which he was not
willing that one of his own flesh and blood should
be engaged in.

The work was now fairly in progress, but the
barriers of prejudice were not to be lightly

[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]

overthrown. Non-commissioned officers and men of
the right stamp, and able to pass the examination
requisite, were scarce articles. Few had the hardihood
or moral courage to face the screaming, riotous
ridicule of their late associates in the white
regiments. We remember one very striking
instance in point, which we shall give as a sample
of the whole.

Our friend Mr. Charles F. Briggs, of this city,
so well known in literary circles, had a nephew
enlisted in that excellent regiment the 48th New
York, then garrisoning Fort Pulaski and the
works on Tybee Island. This youngster had
raised himself by gallantry and good conduct to
be a non-commissioned officer; and Mr. Briggs
was anxious that he should be commissioned,
according to his capacities, in the colored troops
then being raised. The lad was sent for, passed
his examination with credit, and was immediately
offered a first-lieutenancy, with the promise of
being made captain when his company should be
filled up to the required standard—probably within
ten days. The inchoate first-lieutenant was in
ecstasies; a gentleman by birth and education, he
longed for the shoulder-straps. He appeared joyously
grateful; and only wanted leave to run up
to Fort Pulaski for the purpose of collecting his
traps, taking leave of his former comrades, and
procuring his discharge-papers from Col. Barton.

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

Two days after that came a note to department
headquarters respectfully declining the commission!
He had been laughed and jeered out of
accepting a captaincy by his comrades; and this—
though we remember it more accurately from our
correspondence with Mr. Briggs—was but one of
many score of precisely similar cases.

At length, however, officers were found; the
ranks were filled; the men learned with uncommon
quickness, having the imitativeness of so
many monkeys apparently, and such excellent
ears for music that all evolutions seemed to come
to them by nature. At once, despite all hostile
influences, the negro regiment became one of the
lions of the South; and strangers visiting the
department, crowded out eagerly to see its evening
parades and Sunday-morning inspections. By a
strange coincidence, its camp was pitched on the
lawn and around the mansion of General Drayton,
who commanded the rebel works guarding
Hilton Head, Port Royal, and Beaufort, when the
same were first captured by the joint naval and
military operations under Admiral Du Pont and
General Timothy W. Sherman—General Drayton's
brother, Captain Drayton of our navy, having
command of one of the best vessels in the
attacking squadron; as he subsequently took part
in the first iron-clad attack on Fort Sumter.

Meantime, however, the War Department gave

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

no sign, and the oracles of the Adjutant-General's
office were dumb as the statue of the Sphynx.
Reports of the organization of the First South
Carolina infantry were duly forwarded to army
headquarters; but evoked no comment, either of
approval or rebuke. Letters detailing what had
been done, and the reason for doing it; asking
instructions, and to have commissions duly issued
to the officers selected; appeals that the department
paymasters should be instructed to pay these
negro troops like other soldiers; demands that the
government should either shoulder the responsibility
of sustaining the organization, or give such
orders as would absolve Gen. Hunter from the
responsibility of backing out from an experiment
which he believed to be essential to the salvation
of the country—all these appeals to Washington
proved in vain; for the oracles still remained profoundly
silent, probably waiting to see how public
opinion and the politicians would receive this daring
innovation.

At length one evening a special dispatch-steamer
ploughed her way over the bar, and a
perspiring messenger delivered into General
Hunter's hands a special despatch from the War
Department, “requiring immediate answer.” The
General was just about mounting his horse for
his usual evening ride along the picket-line, when
this portentous missive was brought under his

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

notice. Hastily opening it, he first looked grave,
then began to smile, and finally burst into peals
of irrepressible laughter—such as were rarely
heard from “Black David,” his old army-name.
Never was the General seen, before or since, in
such good spirits; he literally was unable to speak
from constant interruptions of laughter; and all
his Adjutant-General could gather from him was:
“That he would not part with the document in his
hand for fifty thousand dollars.”

At length he passed over the dispatch to his
Chief of Staff, who, on reading it, and re-reading
it, could find in its text but little apparent
cause for merriment. It was a grave demand
from the War Department for information in
regard to our negro regiment—the demand being
based on certain resolutions introduced by the
Hon. Mr. Wickliffe, of Kentucky, asking for
specific information on the point in a tone clearly
not friendly. These resolutions had been adopted
by Congress; and as Hunter was without authority
for any of his actions in the case, it seemed
to his then not cheerful Adjutant-General that the
documents in his hands were the reverse of hilarious.

Still Hunter was in extravagant spirits as he
rode along, his laughter startling the squirrels in
the dense pine-woods, and every attempt that he
made to explain himself being again and again

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

interrupted by renewed peals of inextinguishable
mirth. “The fool,” he at length managed to say;
“that old fool has just given me the very chance
I was growing sick for! The War Department
has refused to notice my black regiment; but now,
in reply to this resolution, I can lay the matter
before the country, and force the authorities either
to adopt my negroes or to disband them.”

He then rapidly sketched out the kind of reply
he wished to have prepared; and, with the first
ten words of his explanation, the full force of the
cause he had for laughter became apparent. Never
did General and his Chief-of-staff, in a more unseemly
state of cachinnation, ride along a picket-line.
At every new phase of the subject it presented
new features of the ludicrous; and though
the reply, at this late date, may have lost much
of the drollery which then it wore, it is a seriocomic
document of as much vital importance in
the moral history of our late contest as any that
can be found in the archives under the care of
General E. D. Townsend. It was received late
Sunday evening, and was answered very late that
night, in order to be in time for the steamer Arago,
which sailed at daylight next morning—the
dispatch-steamer which brought the request for
“immediate information” having sustained some
injuries which prevented an immediate return. It
was written after midnight, we may add, in a

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

tornado of thunder and tempest such as has rarely
been known even on that tornado-stricken coast;
but loud as were the peals and vivid the flashes
of heaven's artillery, there were at least two persons
within the lines on Hilton Head who were
laughing far too noisily themselves to pay any
heed to external clamors. The reply thus concocted
and sent, from an uncorrected manuscript
copy now in our possession, ran as follows:

“Headquarters, Department of the South,
Hilton Head, S. C., June, 1862.
“To the Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War,
Washington, D. C.

“Sir:—I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of a communication from the Adjutant-General
of the Army, dated June 13, 1862, requesting
me to furnish you with the information
necessary to answer certain Resolutions introduced
in the House of Representatives, June 9, 1862, on
motion of the Hon. Mr. Wickliffe of Kentucky—
their substance being to inquire:

“1st. Whether I had organized, or was organizing,
a regiment of `fugitive slaves' in this Department.

“2d. Whether any authority had been given
to me from the War Department for such organization;
and

[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]

“3d. Whether I had been furnished, by order
of the War Department, with clothing, uniforms,
arms, equipments, and so forth, for such a force?

“Only having received the letter at a late hour
this evening, I urge forward my answer in time
for the steamer sailing to-morrow morning—this
haste preventing me from entering, as minutely as
I could wish, upon many points of detail, such as
the paramount importance of the subject would
seem to call for. But, in view of the near termination
of the present session of Congress, and the
wide-spread interest which must have been awakened
by Mr. Wickliffe's resolutions, I prefer sending
even this imperfect answer, to waiting the
period necessary for the collection of fuller and
more comprehensive data.

“To the first question, therefore, I reply: that
no regiment of `fugitive slaves' has been, or is
being, organized in this department. There is,
however, a fine regiment of loyal persons whose
late masters are `fugitive rebels'—men who everywhere
fly before the appearance of the National
Flag, leaving their loyal and unhappy servants
behind them, to shift, as best they can, for themselves.
So far, indeed, are the loyal persons composing
this regiment from seeking to evade the
presence of their late owners, that they are now,
one and all, endeavoring with commendable zeal
to acquire the drill and discipline requisite to

[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]

place them in a position to go in full and effective
pursuit of their fugacious and traitorous proprietors.

“To the second question, I have the honor to
answer that the instructions given to Brig.-Gen.
T. W. Sherman by the Hon. Simon Cameron, late
Secretary of War, and turned over to me, by succession,
for my guidance, do distinctly authorize
me to employ `all loyal persons offering their services
in defence of the Union, and for the suppression
of this rebellion,' in any manner I may see
fit, or that circumstances may call for. There is
no restriction as to the character or color of the
persons to be employed, or the nature of the employments—
whether civil or military—in which
their services may be used. I conclude, therefore,
that I have been authorized to enlist `fugitive
slaves' as soldiers, could any such `fugitives' be
found in this department.

“No such characters, however, have yet appeared
within view of our most advanced pickets—the
loyal negroes everywhere remaining on their
plantations to welcome us, aid us, and supply us
with food, labor, and information. It is the masters
who have in every instance been the `fugitives,
' running away from loyal slaves as well as
loyal soldiers; and these, as yet, we have only
partially been able to see—chiefly their heads over
ramparts, or dodging behind trees, rifle in hand,

[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]

in the extreme distance. In the absence of any
`fugitive master law,' the deserted slaves would
be wholly without remedy, had not the crime of
treason given them the right to pursue, capture,
and bring back those persons of whose benignant
protection they have been thus suddenly and
cruelly bereft.

“To the third interrogatory, it is my painful
duty to reply that I never have received any
specific authority for issues of clothing, uniforms,
arms, equipments, and so forth, to the troops in
question—my general instructions from Mr.
Cameron, to employ them in any manner I might
find necessary, and the military exigencies of the
department and the country, being my only, but,
I trust, sufficient, justification. Neither have I
had any specific authority for supplying these
persons with shovels, spades, and pickaxes, when
employing them as laborers; nor with boats and
oars, when using them as lighter-men; but these
are not points included in Mr. Wickliffe's resolution.
To me it seemed that liberty to employ
men in any particular capacity implied and carried
with it liberty, also, to supply them with the
necessary tools; and, acting upon this faith, I
have clothed, equipped, and armed the only loyal
regiment yet raised in South Carolina, Georgia, or
Florida.

“I must say, in vindication of my own conduct,

[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]

that, had it not been for the many other diversified
and imperative claims on my time and attention,
a much more satisfactory result might have
been achieved; and that, in place of only one
regiment, as at present, at least five or six well-drilled,
brave, and thoroughly acclimated regiments
should, by this time, have been added to
the loyal forces of the Union.

“The experiment of arming the blacks, so far
as I have made it, has been a complete and even
marvellous success. They are sober, docile, attentive,
and enthusiastic—displaying great natural
capacities in acquiring the duties of the soldier.
They are now eager beyond all things to take the
field and be led into action; and it is the unanimous
opinion of the officers who have had charge
of them that, in the peculiarities of this climate and
country, they will prove invaluable auxiliaries—
fully equal to the similar regiments so long and
successfully used by the British authorities in the
West India Islands.

“In conclusion, I would say, it is my hope—
there appearing no possibility of other reinforcements,
owing to the exigencies of the campaign in
the Peninsula—to have organized by the end of
next fall, and be able to present to the government,
from forty-eight to fifty thousand of these
hardy and devoted soldiers.

“Trusting that this letter may be made part of

[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]

your answer to Mr. Wickliffe's resolutions, I have
the honor to be, very respectfully, your most
obedient servant,

This missive was duly sent, with many misgivings
that it would not get through the routine of
the War Department in time to be laid before
Congress previous to the adjournment of that
honorable body, which was then imminent. There
were fears, too, that the Secretary of War might
think it not sufficiently respectful, or serious in
its tone; but such apprehensions proved unfounded.
The moment it was received and read in the
War Department, it was hurried down to the
House, and delivered, ore rotundo, from the Clerk's
desk.

Here its effect was magical. The Clerk could
scarcely read it with decorum; nor could half his
words be heard amidst the universal peals of
laughter in which both Democrats and Republicans
appeared to vie as to which should be the more
noisy. Mr. Wickliffe, who only entered during
the reading of the latter half of the document,
rose to his feet in a frenzy of indignation, complaining
that the reply, of which he had only
heard some portion, was an insult to the dignity
of the House, and should be severely noticed.

[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]

The more he raved and gesticulated, the more
irrepressibly did his colleagues, on both sides of
the slavery question, scream and laugh; until,
finally, the merriment reached its climax on a
motion made by some member—Schuyler Colfax,
if we remember rightly—that “as the document
appeared to please the honorable gentleman from
Kentucky so much, and as he had not heard the
whole of it, the Clerk be now requested to read
the whole again”—a motion which was instantaneously
carried amid such an uproar of universal
merriment and applause as the frescoed walls
of the chamber have seldom heard, either before
or since. It was the great joke of the day, and
coming at a moment of universal gloom in the
public mind, was seized upon by the whole loyal
press of the country as a kind of politico-military
champagne-cocktail.

This set that question at rest for ever; and not
long after, the proper authorities saw fit to authorize
the employment of “fifty thousand able-bodied
blacks for labor in the Quartermaster's
Department,” and the arming and drilling as soldiers
of five thousand of these—but for the sole
purpose of “protecting the women and children
of their fellow-laborers who might be absent from
home in the public service.”

Here we have another instance of the reluctance
with which the National Government took up this

[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]

idea of employing negroes as soldiers—a resolution,
we may add, to which they were only finally
compelled by General Hunter's disbandment of
his original regiment, and the storm of public
indignation which followed that act.

OUTLAWRY OF HUNTER AND HIS OFFICERS BY
THE REBEL GOVERNMENT—HUNTER'S SUPPRESSED
LETTER TO JEFFERSON DAVIS.