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

[249] around them, hired a room and began to drill, thinking their services might be wanted. The Superintendent of Police found it necessary, because of threats made by sympathizers with the insurgents, to order the colored people to desist, lest their patriotism should cause a breach of the public peace. So they waited until called for. More than a year later, General Hunter, as we have seen,¹ directed the organization of negro regiments in his Department of the South. It raised a storm of indignation in Congress, and Wickliffe, of Kentucky, asked the Secretary of War, through a resolution of the House of Representatives, several questions touching such a measure, and, among others, whether Hunter had organized a regiment composed of fugitive slaves, and whether he was authorized to do so by the Government. The Secretary answered that he was not authorized to do so, and allowed General Hunter to make explicit answers.² Yet a few weeks later Secretary Stanton, by special order, directed

Aug 25, 1862.

General Rufus Saxton, Military Governor of the sea-coast islands, to “arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the service of the United States, such number of volunteers of African descent, not exceeding five thousand,” as he might deem expedient to guard that region and the inhabitants from injury by the public enemy

Then followed a proposition from General G. W. Phelps to General Butler, his chief, to organize negro regiments in Louisiana, to be composed of the fugitive slaves who were flocking to his camp at Carrollton, near New Orleans. Receiving no reply, he made a requisition

July 30.

for arms and clothing for “three regiments of Africans,” to be employed in defending his post. Butler had no authority to comply, and told Phelps to employ them in cutting trees and constructing abatis. “I am not willing to become the mere slave-driver you propose, having no qualifications that way,” Phelps replied, and, throwing up his commission, returned to Vermont. Not long afterward, General Butler, impressed with the perils of his isolated .situation, called for volunteers from the free colored men in New Orleans, and within a fortnight a full regiment was organized. A second was soon in arms, and very speedily a third; and these were the colored troops whom Butler turned over to his successor, General Banks, as we have observed on page 352, volume II.

Another year passed by, and yet few of the thousands of negroes freed by the President's Proclamation were found in arms. There was a universal prejudice against them. Yet, as the war was assuming vaster proportions, and a draft was found to be inevitable, that prejudice, which had been growing weaker for a long time, gave way entirely, and, when Lee invaded Pennsylvania, the Government authorized the enlistment of colored troops in the Free-labor States, as we have observed.³ Congress speedily authorized

July 16, 1863.

the President to accept them as volunteers, and prescribed that “the enrollment of the militia shall in all cases include all able-bodied male citizens,” &c., without distinction of color. Yet