Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment

At any rate, this ungenerous discouragement had this good effect, that it touched their pride; they would deserve justice, even if they did not obtain it. This pride was afterwards severely tested during the disgraceful period when the party of repudiation in Congress temporarily deprived them of their promised pay. In my regiment the men never mutinied, nor even threatened mutiny; they seemed to make it a matter of honor to do their part, even if the Government proved a defaulter; but one third of them, including the best men in the regiment, quietly refused to take a dollar's pay, at the reduced price. “We'se gib our sogerin‘ to de Guv'ment, Cunnel,” they said, “but we won't ‘spise ourselves so much for take de seben dollar.” They even made a contemptuous ballad, of which I once caught a snatch.

Ten dollar a month!
Tree ob dat for clothin‘!
Go to Washington
Fight for Linkum's darter!

This “Lincoln's daughter” stood for the Goddess of Liberty, it would seem. They would be true to her, but they would not take the half-pay. This was contrary to my advice, and to that of their other officers ; but I now think it was wise. Nothing less than this would have called the attention of the American people to this outrageous fraud.¹

The same slow forecast had often marked their action in other ways. One of our ablest sergeants, Henry McIntyre, who had earned two dollars and a half per day as a master-carpenter in Florida, and paid one dollar and a half to his master, told me that he had deliberately refrained from learning to read, because that knowledge