atisfied that "American citizens of African descent" will not be of very great service in the battle-field.
Therefore, the United States army is very ready to acquiesce in the disbanding of some, at least, of the black troops, and their transfer to Mr. Welles's vessels of war. How they will demean themselves on the sea, we may well conjecture.
They cannot run there; but that they will prove to be either good sailors or good fighters on the water, is not at all probable.
If Semmes, or Maffitt, were to encounter a Federal vessel manned by these sable sailors, he would contemplate an engagement with them with a feeling of amusement, blended, however, with a trace of pity for the poor, misguided, and deluded beings, whom the nefarious Yankee has thus employed to be ultimately betrayed and cast friendless upon the world.
It would certainly be no great achievement for the Confederate Captains on the seas, who have won for themselves such world-wide renown, to defeat a vessel thus ma
