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his men in good training is revealed in such notes as these:—
White soldiers [are seen] with coats unbuttoned and black with them buttoned; for this is a cardinal point with me, you know, and my test of the condition of a regiment; if a man begins with swearing and stealing, bad practices grow and you always find him at last with his coat unbuttoned.
In ‘Army Life,’
Colonel Higginson tells of his delight in studying the characteristics of his men and of listening to their ‘spirituals,’ but occasionally in his journal or letters are bits of description not heretofore printed.
For instance:—
One of the men [said] to the Quartermaster who had tried long to explain something to him— “You know, Quartermaster, no use for nigger to try to comb he wool straight, he always short and kinky —He brains short, too, sa.”
At
Port Royal,
Colonel Higginson encountered, in the
Brigadier-General commanding opposing troops, a former
Brattleboro acquaintance.
He wrote, April 19, 1863:—
The best thing is that this Brigadier-General Walker . . . is an old friend!
He is that Lieutenant Walker, U. S. A., who was sick at the Water Cure and liked me because of my physique and my abolitionism, he being a desperately pro-slavery invalid; who afterwards met me in Kansas as Captain Walker,
