[61] every little thing that goes wrong. After review and drill, General Hunter made the men a little speech, at my request, and told them that he wished there were fifty thousand of them. General Saxton spoke to them afterwards, and said that fifty thousand-muskets were on their way for colored troops. The men cheered both the generals lustily; and they were complimentary afterwards, though I knew that the regiment could not have appeared nearly so well as on its visit to Beaufort. I suppose I felt like some anxious mamma whose children have accidentally appeared at dancing-school in their old clothes. General Hunter promises us all we want,--pay when the funds arrive, Springfield rifled muskets, and blue trousers. Moreover, he has graciously consented that we should go on an expedition along the coast, to pick up cotton, lumber, and, above all, recruits. I declined an offer like this just after my arrival, because the regiment was not drilled or disciplined, not even the officers; but it is all we wish for now.
What care I how black I be?quoth Mother Goose. Forty rounds will marry us to the American Army, past divorcing, if we can only use them well. Our successor failure may make or mar the prospects of colored troops. But it is well to remember in advance that military success is really less satisfactory than any other, because it may depend on a moment's turn of events, and that may be determined by some trivial thing, neither to be anticipated nor controlled. Napoleon ought to have won at Waterloo by all reasonable calculations; but who cares? All that one can expect is, to do one's best, and to take with equanimity the fortune of war.
Forty pounds will marry me,
