NEGRO SOLDIERS.*

IT is now admitted on all sides that by the adoption (tardily and reluctantly as the step was taken) of Negro volunteers into its army, the North touched at last upon the vital point of the war, the true ground of secession, and gave the first stimulus to a healthy reaction. That some four millions of blacks were held in slavery might not be the motive, but it was none the less surely the cause of the Civil War which threatened the very existence of the Union ; and " till the blacks were armed there was no guarantee for their freedom. It was their demeanour under arms that shamed the nation into recognizing them as men." In this sentence Lieutenant-Colonel Higginson shows his consciousness of the vacillating and temporizing policy of even the best among the statesmen of the North in those dark and difficult days ; he gives, too, the key-note of the very interest- ing little book, into which he has compressed his year and a half's experience of the negro militant. A pleasanter experience could not have been wished for by even the most ardent abolitionist, and amid the sad and ever-growing list of wars from jealousy, revenge, and lust of territory, it is refreshing to read of one, at least, taken up from the pure passion for freedom, and carried on without rancour, where rancour would have been only too natural and almost excusable. To us, who in the midst of outcries of alarm, of predictions of massacre more fearful than any in the annals of servile war (massacres, strange to say, of masters so kind and indulgent that, if we were to believe the descriptions of pro- slavery advocates, Time " had run back and fetched the age of gold," and restored the ancient patriarchal life to the plantations of the South) ; to us, who believing neither in negro content- ment under servitude, nor in negro incapacity for freedom, always maintained that the truest humanity and the truest policy both called for the arming of the black race, and the giving it an active share in that war which was to them of such intense meaning, the confirmation of our views by one so well informed and capable as Colonel Higginson, makes the pages of the journal in which he has recorded his experience especially interesting and attractive.

In November, 1862, Captain Higginson, of the 51st Massa- chusetts, received a call to take upon himself the organization of the earliest negro regiment. "Had an invitation reached me," he writes, " to take command of a regiment of Kalmuck Tartars, it could hardly have been more unexpected." The experiment already made in the " abortive Hunter Regiment" was not en- couraging; but " I had been an abolitionist too long, and loved John Brown too well, not to feel a thrill of joy at last on finding myself in the position where he only wished to be." The cap- taincy was resigned, and Colonel Higginson threw in his lot with the black race. It must be borne in mind that negro soldiers and their white officers were at that time unrecognized by the Southern army, and hanging or slavery were the impartial doom of either, if taken prisoner.

The chief duty of the 1st South Carolina was to hold the Sea Islands, on the coast, to which Sherman made his celebrated march; beanies this, they were to ascend the rivers, harass the enemy on

• Army Life in a Black Regiment. By Thomas Wentworth Higginson, late Colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. Boston: Fields, Osgood, and Co. all sides, and bring off the plantation slaves. In these raids the. courage and discipline of the newly-raised troops were sometimes, severely tried, and they came well out of the ordeal. In courage, if well led, they fully equalled white soldiers ; in prompt obedience to command they surpassed them. "I have never yet heard a doubt expressed among the officers as to the superiority of these men to white troops in aptitude for drill and discipline, because- of their imitativeness and docility, and the pride they take in the-

service. One captain said to me to-day, ' I have this afternoon- taught my men to load-in-nine-times, and they do it better thaw we did in my former company in three months.'" Of the pride they took in the service, and their zeal of office as sentinels, some amusing anecdotes are given. One night, early in his experience. of the qualities of his soldiers, the Colonel went the rounds= of his sentinels incognito. " I can only say that I shall never try such an experiment again, and have cautioned my officers against it. 'Tis a wonder I escaped with life and limb, such a charging of bayonets and clicking of gun-locks." At an evening party, Colonel Higginson heard his- officers asking eagerly for the pass-word, declaring that as the- darkies ' were on guard to-night they must take care to be all right." "It is this capacity of honour and fidelity which gives me- such entire faith in them as soldiers ; without it all their religious. demonstrations would be mere sentimentality." We agree with him that the answer given by a serjeant of the guard to a white man, who questioned his authority, could hardly have been improved..

" Know what dat mean," said the indignant serjeant, pointing to

the chevrons on his own sleeve, " dat mean Guvinent ! " This deep, sentiment of loyalty to constituted authority would hardly have-

been looked for in a race so lately freed from oppression. It is n most hopeful sign for the future of the negro. Their thorough self-identification with the Union, even while seeing shrewdly enough, the motives of the North in freeing and giving them arms, and even.

while distrusting, with good cause, as it proved eventually, the liberal promises of the Government, is amusingly illustrated in a.

strange speech overheard by Colonel Higginson. The speaker, Corporal Prince Lambkin, began by reminding his hearers " that, he had predicted this war ever since Fremont's time, to which, some of the crowd assented ; he gave a very intelligent account of, the Presidential campaign, and then described most impressively the secret anxiety of the slaves in Florida to know all about Pre- sident Lincoln's election, and told how all refused to work on the- 4th of March, expecting their freedom to date from that day. He finally brought out one of the few really impressive appeals, for the American flag that I ever heard Our masr's dey hal) lib under de flag, dey got dere wealth under it, and eberyting beautiful for dere chilren. Under it dey hab grind us up, and put us in dere pocket for money. But de fust minute dey fink dat the flag mean freedom for we colored people, dey pall it right down.

and run up de rag of dere own. (Immense applause.) But we'll. neber desert de ole flag, boys, neber ; we hab lib under it for eighteen hundred and sixty-two years, and we'll die for it now." We do not mean to enter into the painful subject of the mean economy of the Government in reducing the pay of the black. soldier, after enlisting him on the distinct understanding that his- pay and rations should be the same as those of white soldiers ; this gross injustice was at last remedied, but in the meantime, while "in my regiment the men never mutinied nor even threat- ened mutiny, and they seemed to make it a matter of honour to do- their part, even if Government proved a defaulter, one-third of• them, including the best men in the regiment, quietly refused to take a dollar's pay at the reduced price. We'se gib our sogerin"

to de Guv'ment, Cannel,' they said, but we won't 'spice our- selves so much for take de seben dollar.' They even made a con- temptuous ballad, of which I once caught a snatch :— "'Ten dollar a month,—

Tree ob dat for clothing Go to Washington Fight for Linkum's darter !'" This "Lincoln's daughter" stood for the Goddess of Liberty, it.

would seem. They would be true to her, but would not take the. half-pay. This was contrary to my advice, and to that of their other officers ; but I now think it was wise. Nothing less than, this would have called the attention of the American people to.

this outrageous fraud."

"Two things" writes Colonel Higginson, "chiefly surprised.me in their feeling toward their former masters,—the absence of affec- tion and the absence of revenge. I expected to find a good deal of

the patriarchal feeling but certainly they had not a particle. I never could cajole one of them in his most discon- tented moment into regretting "the mar time," for a. single instant ; I never knew one speak of the masters except as natural enemies. Yet they, were perfectly discriminating as to individuals ; many of them claimed to have had kind owners, and some ex- pressed great gratitude to them for particular favours received. It was not the individuals but the ownership of which they complained." We wish we had space to extract the vivid description given by our author of the lauding of his men on a plantation where the negroes were at work, of the sudden excitement among them, and their rapid flight to the Yankee boats. " With the wild faces, eager figures, strange garments, it seemed, as one of the the poor things reverently suggested, like notin' but de judgment day ;" but we must give the words of one old negro, "De people was all a hoein', massa. Dey was a hoein' in. the rice-field when de gun- boats come. Den ebery man drops dem hoe, and leff de rice. De massa he stand and call, ' Run to de wood for hide Yankee come, sell you to Cuba ; run for hide !' Ebery man he run, and, my God, run all toder way. Massa stand in de wood, peep, peep, faid for truss [afraid to trust]. He say, ' Run to de wood,' and ebery man run by him, straight to de boat."

The religious element in the negro's character has been so often dwelt upon, that there is no need to say more here than that Colonel Higginson bears ample testimony to its sincerity and depth. His chapter on negro spiritual songs is full of interest ; but it is more to our immediate purpose to hear that their strong religious feelings have so powerfully checked the demoralizing tendencies of slavery, that he found them rather more than less easy to keep under moral restraints than white soldiery ; drunkenness and swearing were almost unknown in his camp. " Once I heard one of them," he writes, " say to another, in a transport of indignation, Ha-a-a, boy ! S'pose I no a Christian, I cuss you so I' "

On one point we were over-sanguine as to negro qualifications for service in the field, and it is the only point in which their Colonel himself was disappointed, namely, physical strength. "Their weakness is pulmonary ; pneumonia and pleurisy are their besetting ailments ; they are easily made ill, and easily cured, if promptly treated ; childish organizations again. Guard duty injures them more than whites apparently ; and double-quick movements in choking dust set them coughing badly. But then it is to be remembered that this is their sickly season, from January to March, and that their healthy ',season will come in summer, when the whites break down. Still my conviction of the physical superiority of the more highly civilized races is strengthened, on the whole, not weakened by observing them."

We have been able to touch only on a few of the points of interest in this pleasant little volume. It is impossible to read it without a feeling of lively satisfaction in the results of the slaves' first training in freedom, and in the exertions of Colonel Higginson, to whom those results were so largely due.