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roll: a division decidedly more palpable than most sectarian barriers.
In the journal, at about this time, there appears this abstract from
acting chaplain Private Thomas Long's sermon:—
We can remember, when we fust enlisted, it was hardly safe for we to pass by de camps to Beaufort and back, lest [unless] we went in a mob and carried our side arms.
But we whipped down all dat—Not by going into de white camps for whip um; we did n't tote our bayonets for whip um; but we lived it down by our naturally manhood; and now de white sojers take us by de hand and say Broder Sojer.
Dat's what dis regiment did for de Epiopian [Ethiopian] race.
If we had n't become sojers, all might have gone back as it was before; our freedom might have slipped through de two houses of Congress and President Linkum's four years might have passed by and notina been done for we. But now tings can neber go back, because we have showed our energy and our courage and our naturally manhood.
Anoder ting is, suppose you had kept your freedom widout enlisting in dis army; your chilen might have grown up free and been well cultivated so as to be equal to any business, but it would have been always flung in dere faces— “Your fader never fought for he own freedom” —and what could dey answer?
Neber can say that to dis African race any more . . .
