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Louisiana (Louisiana, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
I opened a letter from Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton, military commander of the Department of the South, saying that he had at last received authority to recruit a regiment of freed slaves, and wished me to be its colonel. It was an offer that took my breath away, and fulfilled the dream of a lifetime. This was long before Massachusetts took steps in the same direction; Kansas was, however, enlisting a regiment of free negroes, and three similar regiments, formed by the Confederates in Louisiana, had been turned into Union troops by General Butler; but the first regiment of emancipated slaves as such had yet to be mustered in. There remained but one doubt: would it really be a regiment, or a mere plantation guard in uniform? This doubt could be determined only on the spot; so I got a furlough, went to South Carolina to inspect the situation, and saw promptly that General Saxton was in earnest, and that I could safely leave all and follow him. The whole condition of affairs at
Sydney (Ohio, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
urage, there was not, I suspect, much difference. Most men have the ordinary share of that attribute; comparatively few are adventurous; the commander of any regiment, white or black, soon knew perfectly well just which of his men would be likely to volunteer for a forlorn hope. Whether the better education and social position of white soldiers brought them more under the influence of what Sir Philip Sidney calls the great appetites of honor I cannot say; this being, it will be remembered, Sidney's reason for expecting more courage from officers than from enlisted men. It is quite certain, on the other hand, that any want of such qualities was more than balanced by the fact that the black soldiers were fighting for their freedom and that of their families, this being the most potent of all motives. They used often to point out, in conversation, that they had really far more at stake than their officers had, since, if the Confederates conquered, or even if it were a drawn game, the n
Jacksonville (Florida, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
life made an impression that no later experience surpassed. A more important enterprise was the recapture of Jacksonville, Florida, which had been held by the Union troops, and then deserted; it was the only position that had been held on the m) Charles Steedman, U. S. N. We took a large supply of uniforms, equipments, and extra rations, with orders, when once Jacksonville was secured, to hand it over to white troops that were to be sent under Colonel John D. Rust; we meanwhile pressing on that President Lincoln wrote to General Hunter (April I, 1863): I am glad to see the account of your colored force at Jacksonville. I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as is to be expected. It is important to the enemy that such a force red, when General Hunter, with one of his impulsive changes of purpose, altered his whole plan, and decided to abandon Jacksonville. Once again, after the arrival of General Gillmore, we were sent up a Southern river. A night was chosen when the
Georgia (Georgia, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
s when sung by the Hampton singers and others. Riding towards the camp, just after dark, I could hear, when within a half-mile or thereabouts, the chorus of the song and the rhythmical clapping of hands; and as I drew nearer, the gleam of the camp-fires on the dusky faces made the whole scene look more like an encampment of Bedouin Arabs than like anything on the Atlantic shores. Before I had joined the regiment, detachments of recruits had been sent down the coast of South Carolina and Georgia to destroy saltworks and bring away lumber; and after it had grown to fuller size, there occurred several expeditions into the interior, under my command, with or without naval escort. We went by ourselves up the St. Mary's River, where the men were for the first time actively under fire, and acquitted themselves well. The river itself was regarded by naval officers as the most dangerous in that region, from its great rapidity, its sudden turns, and the opportunity of attack given by the
Rhode Island (Rhode Island, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
act it came no nearer the truth than the famous definition of a crab by Cuvier's pupil, since I had never been a curate, had already left the pulpit for literature before the war, and was so far from stipulating for a colored regiment that I had just been commissioned in a white one; nevertheless the hit was palpable, and deserved its popularity. I had formed even in a short time a strong attachment to my own company, regiment, and regimental commander,--and one day, when the governor of Rhode Island had made his first abortive suggestion of a black regiment, I had notified my young lieutenants, John Goodell and Luther Bigelow, that such an enterprise would be the only thing likely to take me from them. A few days after, as we sat at dinner in the Worcester barracks, I opened a letter from Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton, military commander of the Department of the South, saying that he had at last received authority to recruit a regiment of freed slaves, and wished me to be its colon
Waterloo (Missouri, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
will stand erect again! These men were not Garrisonians or theoretical disunionists, but the pressure of events seemed, for the moment, to be driving us all in their direction. I find that at the jubilant twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (January 2, 1857) I said, in Faneuil Hall, To-morrow may call us to some work so stern that the joys of this evening will seem years away. To-morrow may make this evening only the revelry by night before Waterloo. Under this conviction I took an active part with the late Francis W. Bird and a few other Republicans and some Garrisonian Abolitionists in calling a state disunion convention at Worcester on January 15, 1857; but the Republican party was by no means ready for a movement so extreme, though some of its leaders admitted frankly that it was well for the North to suggest that freedom was more valuable than even the Union. The Kansas question, it must be remembered, was yet impending, and it
Saint Marys River (Missouri, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
the gleam of the camp-fires on the dusky faces made the whole scene look more like an encampment of Bedouin Arabs than like anything on the Atlantic shores. Before I had joined the regiment, detachments of recruits had been sent down the coast of South Carolina and Georgia to destroy saltworks and bring away lumber; and after it had grown to fuller size, there occurred several expeditions into the interior, under my command, with or without naval escort. We went by ourselves up the St. Mary's River, where the men were for the first time actively under fire, and acquitted themselves well. The river itself was regarded by naval officers as the most dangerous in that region, from its great rapidity, its sudden turns, and the opportunity of attack given by the projecting bluffs. To this day I have never understood why our return was not cut off by the enemy's felling trees, which could have been done easily at several points. We were on a double-ender, --a steamer built for a ferr
Kansas (Kansas, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
ar Black faces in the camp Where moved those peerless brows and eyes of old. Browning's Luria. From the time of my Kansas visit I never had doubted that a farther conflict of some sort was impending. The absolute and increasing difference bettution, what must its exceptional tragedies be? With such an experience in my mind, and the fact everywhere visible in Kansas of the armed antagonism of the Free State and pro-slavery parties, I readily shared the feeling-then more widely spread that I might ask him to appropriate a sum from his contingent fund, and to let me again summon Montgomery and his men from Kansas; going with them into the mountains of Virginia, there to kindle a back fire of alarm and draw any rebel force away from breath away, and fulfilled the dream of a lifetime. This was long before Massachusetts took steps in the same direction; Kansas was, however, enlisting a regiment of free negroes, and three similar regiments, formed by the Confederates in Louisiana,
West Point (Georgia, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
mptly that General Saxton was in earnest, and that I could safely leave all and follow him. The whole condition of affairs at what was to be for me the seat of war was then most peculiar. General Saxton, who had been an Abolitionist even at West Point, was discharging the semi-civil function of military governor. Freed slaves by thousands, men, women, and children, had been collected on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, and were being rationed, employed, and taught under the direction of mlessly suspicious; nor was our beloved General Saxton always free from oversensitiveness. Incidentally, also, we found that in all connection with the regular army we must come in for our share of its internal feuds; and we discovered that old West Point grudges were sometimes being wreaked on our unoffending heads, General Saxton's enemies occasionally striking at him through us. He, on the other hand, distrusted the intentions of certain officers in regard to us, feared lest we should be sac
South Carolina (South Carolina, United States) (search for this): chapter 10
d in uniform? This doubt could be determined only on the spot; so I got a furlough, went to South Carolina to inspect the situation, and saw promptly that General Saxton was in earnest, and that I coreed slaves by thousands, men, women, and children, had been collected on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, and were being rationed, employed, and taught under the direction of missionaries, agents, taking his position in a doorway. After the war he was appointed a justice of the peace in South Carolina. It was a fortunate thing for both General Saxton and myself that each of us had been sat Before I had joined the regiment, detachments of recruits had been sent down the coast of South Carolina and Georgia to destroy saltworks and bring away lumber; and after it had grown to fuller size uselessness of women in time of war. I have given few details as to my way of living in South Carolina and Florida, because much of it was described a few years after in a volume called Army life
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