[15] most natural way of doing the thing. The steamboat captain declared that they unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the night, I reproached one whom I found sitting by a campfire, cooking a surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin,--
O no, Cunnel, da's no work at all, Cunnel; dat only jess enough for stretch we.
December 2, 1862.
I believe I have not yet enumerated the probable drawbacks to the success of this regiment, if any. We are exposed to no direct annoyance from the white regiments, being out of their way; and we have as yet no discomforts or privations which we do not share with them.
I do not as yet see the slightest obstacle, in the nature of the blacks, to making them good soldiers, but rather the contrary.
They take readily to drill, and do not object to discipline; they are not especially dull or inattentive; they seem fully to understand the importance of the contest, and of their share in it. They show no jealousy or suspicion towards their officers.
They do show these feelings, however, towards the Government itself; and no one can wonder.
Here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting.
Were this a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, I am satisfied, ere now. The trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust bequeathed by the abortive regiment of General Hunter,--into which they were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department.
The formation of that regiment was, on the whole, a great 