Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[250] opposition to the enlistment of negro soldiers was very strong. It was illustrated by the fact that, when, in May, 1863, the Fifty-fourth (colored) Massachusetts, which performed such gallant acts at Fort Wagner under Colonel Shaw,¹ was ready to start for South Carolina, the Superintendent of the Police of New York declared, in answer to a question, that they could not be protected from insult in that city, if they should attempt to pass through it. So they sailed directly from Boston for Port Royal. But there was soon a change of public sentiment on the subject there, a few months later, as we have observed,² when a regiment of colored troops, bearing a flag presented by the women of the city and cheered by thousands, marched through its streets for the battle-field. From that time such troops were freely enlisted everywhere, and as freely used; and the universal testimony of experts is, that as soldiers they were equal to the white men. Nearly two hundred thousand of them fought for the preservation of our free institutions, in which their own race was deeply involved. Their brethren in bondage had been freely used by the Confederates from the beginning of the war, not as soldiers, but as laborers, as we have observed. We frequently saw notices of their enrollment into the military service of the Conspirators, but arms were never put into their hands. It would have been a fatal experiment, and the Oligarchy knew it. They were organized into companies, under white leaders, but were always “armed and equipped with shovels, axes, spades, pickaxes, and blankets.” Such employment of the colored race by the Confederates, in carrying on the war, was well known, yet the Opposition in Congress and elsewhere most strenuously opposed their enlistment as soldiers; but the Government went steadily forward in the path of prescribed duty, and in March, 1863, Adjutant-General Thomas was sent to the Mississippi Valley for the express purpose of promoting the enlistment of colored troops. In that work he labored zealously. He visited Memphis, Helena, Vicksburg, and other places where large numbers of colored people were gathered, and he addressed them on the subject of emancipation, their duties as citizens, and the importance of their doing all in their power to assist the Government in its struggle for life against the common enemy of both. He also addressed the National officers and soldiers in favor of the employment of colored troops, reminding them that the strength of the Confederate cause lay, in a large measure, in the employment of negroes in the cultivation of the soil while the white people were in the army, and showing that it was policy in every way, either by enlisting the negroes in our armies, or otherwise employing them, to deprive the enemies of the Government of the labor of these men. “All of you,” he said, “will some day be on picket-duty, and I charge you all, if any of this unfortunate race come within your lines, that you do not turn them away, but receive them kindly and cordially. They are to be encouraged to come to us; they are to be received with open arms; they are to be fed and clothed; they are to be armed.”