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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts in the Army and Navy during the war of 1861-1865, vol. 1: prelminary narrative, Preliminary narrative. (search)
serving only to test the courage of the men. In this respect it had an effect, beyond any action of the war, in vindicating the character of the colored troops. On this subject there can hardly be said to have been a dissenting voice. When the writer asked General Strong afterwards, on board the steamer which was to carry him North, how the 54th behaved, he said emphatically, No new regiment, which had lost its colonel, could have behaved better. For a similar remark made by him to Mr. E. L. Pierce, see Emilio's 54th Mass., p. 94. But the final test is that of Confederate officers themselves. Lieut. Iredell Jones, visiting the battery afterwards, wrote, One file of negroes numbered thirty. Numbers of both white and black were killed on top of our breastworks as well as inside. The negroes fought gallantly and were headed by as brave a colonel as ever lived. He mounted the breastworks waving his sword and at the head of his regiment, and he and a negro orderly sergeant fell dea