NEGROES AS SOLDIERS.
WE devote pages 161, 168, and 169 to illustrations of the negroes as soldiers. So much ignorant prejudice is still entertained in many parts of the North to the employment of colored troops that it is due to the country that the capacity of the negro to drill and fight can not be too strongly insisted upon.
The picture on page 161 represents the negro learning the use of the Minie rifle. The drill masters in the Department of the South report that the negroes in the South Carolina regiments evince great aptitude at learning the manual of arms. They are more docile than white recruits, and when once they have mastered a movement they retain the knowledge perfectly. Similar testimony is borne by officers in the West. One of them predicts that with proper drill and training the negroes will be the steadiest rank and file in the world.
With regard to their fighting qualities we can not do better than reproduce the following extracts. The first is from a letter to the New York Times, describing the battle, or rather the skirmish of Island Mounds, where a detachment of the First Kansas Colored Volunteers attacked and routed a band of rebels. He says:
The detachment under Gardner was attacked by the foe, who swept down like a whirlwind upon it. One volley was fired in concert, which emptied several saddles, and then this devoted body was separated by the force of that sweeping charge. The fight thus became a hand to hand encounter of one man to six. The rebels were mostly armed with shot-guns, revolvers, and sabres, our men with the Austrian rifle and sabre-bayonet. The latter is a fearful weapon, and did terrible execution in the hands of the muscular blacks. Six-Killer, the leader of the Cherokee negroes, fell with six wounds after shooting two men, bayoneting a third, and laying a fourth hors du combat with the butt of his gun. Another one, badly wounded, Sergeant Ed. Lowrey, was attacked by three men; he had discharged his rifle, and had no time to load again, when they fell upon him with revolver and sabre. He was then badly hurt with a shot-gun wound. One man demanded his surrender, to which the reply was a stunning blow from the butt of the rifle, knocking him off his horse. The negro, when approached, had his sabre-bayonet in hand, about to fix it on his gun. The prostrate man got a crashing blow from it on the skull as he fell, and then, as the other charged, the bayonet was used with effect on the nearest horse, and the butt of the gun on the next man.
Captain Crew, retaining his position at the head of the few men who keep together, retreated with his face to the enemy, firing his revolver as he did so. He fell with a terrible wound in the groin, but again rose and retreated. Surrounded by half a dozen of the foe, he was ordered to surrender. “Never!” he shouted, at the same time calling to the half dozen negroes around him to die rather than give up. He then fell dead with a bullet in his heart. His body was instantly rifled of revolver and watch, though his purse was not found. Five minutes afterward the rebel who took the watch was killed by one of the negroes, who again took the watch from him and brought it into camp.
So ended the battle of Island Mounds, which, though commenced through the rash and impetuous daring of the officers, yet, under most unfavorable circumstances, resulted in a complete victory to the negro regiment.
What I narrate I saw myself, and having witnessed several engagements since this rebellion commenced, I know what fighting amounts to. H.
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The other extract is from the official report of Colonel Higginson of the First South Carolina Volunteers (colored), describing an expedition into the interior undertaken by him:
ON BOARD STEAMER “BEN DEFORD,” Sunday, Feb. 1, 1863. Brigadier-General Saxton, Military Governor, etc.:
GENERAL,—I have the honor to report the safe return of the expedition under my command, consisting of 462 officers and men of the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, who left Beaufort on January 23, on board the steamers John Adams, Planter, and Ben Deford. The expedition has carried the regimental flag and the President’s Proclamation far into the interior of Georgia and Florida. The men have been repeatedly under fire; have had infantry, cavalry, and even artillery arranged against them, and have, in every instance, come off not only with unblemished honor, but with undisputed triumph. At Township, Florida, a detachment of the expedition fought a cavalry company which met us unexpectedly on a midnight march through pine woods, and which completely surrounded us. They were beaten off with a loss on our part of one man killed and seven wounded, while the opposing party admits twelve men killed (including Lieutenant Jones, in command of the company), besides many wounded. So complete was our victory that the enemy scattered, hid in the woods all night, not returning to his camp, which was five miles distant, until noon next day—a fact which was unfortunately unknown until too late to follow up our advantage. Had I listened to the urgent appeals of my men, and pressed the flying enemy, we could have destroyed his camp; but in view of the darkness, his uncertain numbers, and swifter motions, with your injunctions of caution, I judged it better to rest satisfied with the victory already gained.
Nobody knows any thing about these men who has not seen them in battle. I find that I myself knew nothing. There is a fiery energy about them beyond any thing of which I have ever read, unless it be the French Zouaves. It requires the strictest discipline to hold them in hand. During our first attack on the river, before I got them all penned below, they crowded at the open ends of the steamer, loading and firing with inconceivable rapidity, and shouting to each other, “Never give it up!”
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Published in March 14, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly.
