Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

But in the attack on Newmarket Heights I did deliberately expose my men to the loss of greater numbers than I really believed the capture of the redoubt was worth; for if the enemy's lines at Fort Harrison were captured, as they were, then Newmarket Heights would have been evacuated without loss, for I do not know that they were ever reoccupied by either side afterwards during the war. Now comes the inquiry in the minds of reflecting men: “Why make the attack?” Because it was to be done with my negro troops. “Are we to understand that you would sacrifice your negro troops where you would not your white troops?” No; except for a great purpose in behalf of their race and in behalf of the Union. If I have tried to make anything apparent up to this time in what I have written, it is that from prejudice and ignorance of their good qualities it was not really believed in and out of the army by military men, with a very few exceptions, that the negroes would fight. My white regiments were always nervous when standing in line flanked by colored troops, lest the colored regiments should give way and they (the white) be flanked. This fear was a deep-seated one and spread far and wide, and the negro had had no sufficient opportunity to demonstrate his valor and his staying qualities as a soldier. And the further cry was that the negroes never struck a good blow for their own freedom. Therefore, I determined to put them in position, to demonstrate the fact of the value of the negro as a soldier, “coute qui coute,” and that the experiment should be one of which no man should doubt, if it attained success. Hence the attack by the negro column on Newmarket Heights.

After that in the Army of the James a negro regiment was looked upon as the safest flanking regiment that could be put in line.

I had the fullest reports made to me of the acts of individual bravery of colored men on that occasion, and I had done for the negro soldiers, by my own order, what the government has never done for its white soldiers — I had a medal struck of like size, weight, quality, fabrication and intrinsic value with those which Queen Victoria gave with her own hand to her distinguished private soldiers of the Crimea.

I have caused an engraving of that medal to be printed in this book in honor of the colored soldiers and of myself.