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Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence

[187] <h3>THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER</h3> By Christian A. Fleetwood Christian A. Fleetwood, Sergeant-Major, United States Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1866. Received a Medal of Honor from Congress for meritorious action in saving the colors at Chapin Farm, September 29, 1864, where he seized them after two color-bearers had been shot down, and bore them throughout the fight. Also has a General B. F. Butler Medal for bravery and courage before Richmond. For 1600 years prior to the war between Great Britain and the Colonies, the pages of history bear no record of the Negro as a soldier. Tracing his separate history in the Revolutionary War is a task of much difficulty, for the reason that while individual instances of valor and patriotism abound, there were so few separate bodies of Negro troops that no separate record appears to have been made. The simple fact is that the fathers as a rule enlisted men both for the Army and Navy, just as now it is only continued by the Navy; that is to say, they were assigned wherever needed, without regard to race or color. Varner's Rhode Island Battalion appears to have been the only large aggregation of Negroes in this war, though Connecticut, New York, and New Hampshire each furnished one separate company in addition to individuals scattered through their other organizations, so that ere the close of the war, there were very few brigades, [188]regiments, or companies in which the Negro was not in evidence. The free Negro appears to have gone in from the beginning without attracting or calling out special comment. Later, as men grew scarcer and necessity more pressing, slaves were taken in also, and then the trouble began. Those who held slaves did not care to lose them in this way. Others who had not did not think it just the thing in a war for avowed freedom to place an actual slave in the ranks to fight. Some did not want the Negro, bonded or free, to take part as a soldier in the struggle. So that in May, 1775, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety voted that thereafter only free men should be enlisted. In July, General Gates issued an order prohibiting further enlistments of Negroes, but saying nothing of those already in the service. In October a council of war presided over by General Washington, comprising three major-generals and six brigadier-generals, voted unanimously against the enlistment of slaves, and by a decided majority against further enlistments of Negroes. Ten days later in a conference held at Cambridge, Mass., participated in by General Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Lynch, and the deputy governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island, a similar action was taken. On the 7th November, 1775, Earl Dundore, commanding the force of His Majesty the King, issued a proclamation offering freedom and equal pay to all slaves who would join his armies as soldiers. It did not take the colonists long to find out their mistake, although[189] General Washington, in accordance with the expressed will of his officers and of the Committee of Safety, did on the 17th of November, 1775, issue a proclamation forbidding the further enlistment of Negroes. Less than two months later, that is to say on the 30th of December, 1775, he issued a second proclamation again authorizing the enlistment of free Negroes. He advised Congress of his action, and stated that he would recall it if so directed. But he was not. The splendid service rendered by the Negro and the great and pressing need of men were such, that although the opposition continued from some sections, it was not thereafter strong enough to obtain recognition. So the Negroes went and came, much as other men. In all the events of the war, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, they bore an honorable part. The history of the doings of the armies is their history, as in everything they took part and did their share. Their total enlistment was about 3,000 men,—a very fair percentage for the population of that period. I might instance the killing of Major Pitcairn, at Bunker Hill, by Peter Salem, and of Major Montgomery, at Fort Griswold, by Jordan Freeman. The part they took in the capture of Major-General Prescott at Newport; their gallant defense of Colonel Greene, their beloved commander, when he was surprised and murdered at Croton River, May 13, 1781, when it was only after the last of his faithful guards had been shot and cut down that he was reached; or the battle of Rhode Island, when a battalion of 400 Negroes withstood three separate and distinct charges from 1,500 Hessians under[190] Count Donop, and beat them back with such tremendous loss that Count Donop at once applied for an exchange, fearing that his men would kill him, if he went into battle with them again, for having exposed them to such slaughter; and many other instances that are of record. The letter following, written December 5, 1775, explains itself: "To the Honorable General Court of the Massachusetts Bay: "The subscribers beg leave to report to your Honorable House (which we do in justice to the character of so brave a man) that under our own observation we declare that a Negro man named Salem Poor, of Colonel Frye's Regiment, Captain Ames' Company, in the late battle at Charleston, behaved like an experienced officer as well as an excellent soldier. To set forth particulars of his conduct would be tedious. We would only beg to say, in the person of this Negro centers a brave and gallant soldier. The reward due to so great and distinguished a character we submit to Congress." This is a splendid and well-attested tribute to a gallant and worthy Negro. There were many such, but, beyond receiving and reading, no action was taken thereon by Congress. There is no lack of incidents, and the temptation to quote many of them is great, but the time allotted me is too brief for extended mention, and I must bring this branch of my subject to a close. It is in evidence that while so many Negroes were offering their lives a willing sacrifice for the country, in some sections the[191] officers of the Continental forces received their bounty and pay in Negroes, "grown" and "small," instead of "dollars" and "cents." Fighting for liberty and taking pay in slaves! When the war was over the free men returned to meet their same difficulties; the slaves were caught when possible and re-enslaved by their former masters. In Boston a few years later we find a party of black patriots of the Revolution mobbed on Boston Common while celebrating the anniversary of the abolition of the slave-trade. The captain of a vessel trading along the coast tells of a Negro who had fought in the war and been distinguished for bravery and soldierly conduct. He was reclaimed and re-enslaved by his master after the war, and served him faithfully until old age rendered him useless. The master then brought the poor old slave to this captain and asked him to take him along on his trip and try to sell him. The captain hated to sell a man who had fought for his country, but finally agreed, took the poor old man to Mobile, and sold him for $100 to a man who put him to attending a chicken-coop. His former master continued to draw the old slave's pension as a soldier in the Revolution, until he died. The War of 1812 was mainly fought upon the water, and in the American Navy at that time the Negro stood in the ratio of about one to six. We find record of complaint by Commodore Perry at the beginning because of the large number of Negroes sent him, but later the highest tribute to their bravery and efficiency. Captain Shaler, of the armed brig General Thompson, writing of[192] an engagement between his vessel and a British frigate, says: "The name of one of my poor fellows who was killed ought to be registered in the book of fame, and remembered as long as bravery is a virtue. He was a black man, by name John Johnson. A twenty-four pound shot struck him in the hip, and took away all the lower part of his body. In this state the poor brave fellow lay on the deck, and several times exclaimed to his shipmates: 'Fire away, my boys; nor haul a color down!' Another black man, by the name of John Davis, who was struck in much the same manner, repeatedly requested to be thrown overboard, saying that he was only in the way of the others." I know of nothing finer in history than these incidents of valor and patriotism. As before, the Negro was not universally welcomed to the ranks of the American Army; but later, continued reverses and a lack of enthusiasm in enlistments made it necessary to seek his aid, and from Mobile, Ala., on September 21, 1814, General Jackson issued a stirring call to the free colored people of Louisiana for aid. In a remarkably short period, two battalions were raised, under Majors LaCaste and Savary, which did splendid service in the battle of New Orleans. New York enrolled two battalions, and sent them to Sacketts Harbor. Pennsylvania enrolled 2400, and sent them to Gray's Ferry at the capture of Washington, to prepare for the invading column. Another battalion also was raised,[193] armed, equipped, and ready to start to the front, when peace was declared. In one of the actions of this war, a charging column of the American Army was repulsed and thrown into great disorder. A Negro private named Jeffreys, seeing the disaster, sprang upon a horse, and by heroic effort rallied the troops, led them back upon a second charge, and completely routed the enemy. He was rewarded by General Jackson with the honorary title of Major. Under the laws he could not commission him. When the war was over, this gallant man returned to his home in Nashville, Tenn., where he lived for years afterward, highly respected by its citizens of all races. At the age of seventy years, this black hero was obliged, in self-defense, to strike a white ruffian, who had assaulted him. Under the laws of the State he was arrested and given nine and thirty lashes on his bare back. It broke his heart, and Major Jeffreys died. It seems a little singular that in the tremendous struggle between the States in 1861-1865, the South should have been the first to take steps toward the enlistment of Negroes. Yet such is the fact. Two weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter, the Charleston Mercury records the passing through Augusta of several companies of the the 3rd and 4th Georgia Regiment, and of sixteen well-drilled companies and one Negro company from Nashville, Tenn. The Memphis Avalanche and The Memphis Appeal of May 9, 10, and 11, 1861, gave notice of the appointment by the "Committee of Safety" of a committee of three[194] persons "to organize a volunteer company composed of our patriotic freemen of color of the city of Memphis, for the service of our common defense." A telegram from New Orleans dated November 23, 1861, notes the review by Governor Moore of over 28,000 troops, and that one regiment comprised "1,400 colored men." The New Orleans Picayune, referring to a review held February 9, 1862, says: "We must also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very well drilled and comfortably equipped." It is a little odd, too, that in the evacuation of New Orleans a little later, in April, 1862, all of the troops succeeded in getting away except the Negroes. They "got left." It is not in our line to speculate upon what would have been the result of the war had the South kept up this policy, enlisted the freemen, and emancipated the enlisting slaves and their families. The immense addition to their fighting force, the quick recognition of them by Great Britain, to which slavery was the greatest bar, and the fact that the heart of the Negro was with the South but for slavery, and the case stands clear. But the primary successes of the South closed its eyes to its only chance of salvation, while at the same time the eyes of the North were opened. In 1865, the South saw, and endeavored to remedy, its error. On March 9, 1865, the Confederate Congress passed a bill, recommended by General Lee, authorizing the enlistment of 200,000 Negroes; but it was then too late. [195] The North came slowly and reluctantly to recognize the Negro as a factor for good in the war. "This is a white man's war," met the Negroes at every step of their first efforts to gain admission to the armies of the Union. To General David Hunter, more than to any other one man, is due the credit for the successful entry upon the stage of the Negro as a soldier in this war. In the spring of 1862, he raised and equipped a regiment of Negroes in South Carolina, and when the fact because known in Washington and throughout the country, such a storm was raised about the ears of the Administration that they gracefully stood aside and left the brave general to fight his enemies in the front and rear as best he might. He was quite capable to do both, as it proved.   *   *   *   *   *   The beginning of 1863 saw the opening of the doors to the Negro in every direction. General Lorenzo Thomas went in person to the valley of the Mississippi to supervise it there. Massachusetts was authorized to fill its quota with Negroes. The States of Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, and Tennessee were thrown open by order of the War Department, and all slaves enlisting therefrom declared free. Ohio, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York joined the band and sent the stalwart black boy in blue to the front singing, "Give us a flag, all free, without a slave." For two years the fierce and determined opposition had kept them out, but now the bars were down and they came pouring in. Some one said, "he cared not who made the laws of a people if he could make their songs." [196] A better exemplification of this would be difficult to find than is the song written by "Miles O'Reilly" (Colonel Halpine), of the old 10th Army Corps. I cannot resist the temptation to quote it here. With General Hunter's letter and this song to quote from, the episode was closed: "Some say it is a burning shame to make the Naygurs fight, An' that the trade o' being kilt belongs but to the white; But as for me, upon me sowl, so liberal are we here, I'll let Sambo be murthered, in place of meself, on every day of the year. On every day of the year, boys, and every hour in the day, The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him, and divil a word I'll say. In battles' wild commotion I shouldn't at all object If Sambo's body should stop a ball that was coming for me direct, An' the prod of a Southern bayonet; so liberal are we here, I'll resign and let Sambo take it, on every day in the year, On every day in the year, boys, an' wid none of your nasty pride, All right in Southern baynet prod, wid Sambo I'll divide. The men who object to Sambo should take his place and fight, An' it is betther to have a Naygur's hue, than a liver that's weak an' white, Though Sambo's black as the ace of spades, his finger a thryger can pull, An' his eye runs straight on the barrel-sight from under its thatch of wool. So hear me all, boys, darlin', don't think I'm tipping you chaff,— The right to be kilt, I'll divide with him, an' give him the largest half." It took three years of war to place the enlisted Negro upon the same ground as the enlisted white man as to pay and emoluments; perhaps six years of war might have[197] given him shoulder-straps, but the war ended without authorization of law for that step. At first they were received, under an act of Congress that allowed each one, without regard to rank, ten dollars per month, three dollars thereof to be retained for clothing and equipments. I think it was in May, 1864, when the act was passed equalizing the pay, but not opening the doors to promotion. Under an act of the Confederate Congress, making it a crime punishable with death for any white person to train Negroes or mulattoes to arms, or aid them in any military enterprise, and devoting the Negro caught under arms to the tender mercies of the "present or future laws of the State" in which caught, a large number of promotions were made by the way of a rope and a tree along the first year of the Negro's service. (I can even recall one instance as late as April, 1865, though it had been long before then generally discontinued.) What the Negro did, how he did it, and where, it would take volumes to properly record, I can however give but briefest mention to a few of the many evidences of his fitness for the duties of the war, and his aid to the cause of the Union. The first fighting done by organized Negro troops appears to have been done by Company A, 1st South Carolina Negro Regiment, at St. Helena Island, November 3 to 10, 1862, while participating in an expedition along the coast of Georgia and Florida under Lieutenant-Colonel O. T. Beard, of the 48th New York Infantry, who says in his report:[198] "The colored men fought with astonishing coolness and bravery. I found them all I could desire,—more than I had hoped. They behaved gloriously, and deserve all praise." The testimony thus inaugurated runs like a cord of gold through the web and woof of the history of the Negro as a soldier from that date to their final charge, the last made at Clover Hill, Va., April 9, 1865. Necessarily the first actions in which the Negro bore a part commanded most attention. Friends and enemies were looking eagerly to see how they would acquit themselves, and so it comes to pass that the names of Fort Wagner, Olustee, Millikens Bend, Port Hudson, and Fort Pillow are as familiar as Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh and Gettysburg, and while those first experiences were mostly severe reverses, they were by that very fact splendid exemplifiers of the truth that the Negroes could be relied upon to fight under the most adverse circumstances, against any odds, and could not be discouraged. Let us glance for a moment at Port Hudson, La., in May, 1863, assaulted by General Banks with a force of which the 1st and 2nd Regiments, Louisiana Native Guards, formed a part. When starting upon their desperate mission, Colonel Stafford of the 1st Regiment, in turning over the regimental colors to the color-guard, made a brief and patriotic address, closing with the words: "Color-guard: Protect, defend, die for, but do not surrender, these colors." The gallant flag-sergeant, Plancianos, taking them replied: "Colonel: I will bring[199] back these colors to you in honor, or report to God the reason why." Six times with desperate valor they charged over ground where success was hopeless, a deep bayou between them and the works of the enemy at the point of attack rendering it impossible to reach them, yet strange to say, six times they were ordered forward and six times they went to useless death, until swept back by the blazing breath of shot and shell before which nothing living could stand. Here fell the gallant Captain Cailloux, black as the ace of spades. Refusing to leave the field though his arm had been shattered by a bullet, he returned to the charge until killed by a shell. A soldier limping painfully to the front was halted and asked where he was going. He replied, "I am shot bad in de leg, and dey want me to go to de hospital, but I guess I can give 'em a little more yet." The colors came back, but crimsoned with the blood of the gallant Plancianos, who reported to God from that bloody field. Shall we glance from this to Millikens Bend, La., in January, 1863, garrisoned by the 9th and 11th Louisiana and the 1st Mississippi, all Negroes, and about 160 of the 23rd Iowa (white), about 1100 fighting men in all? Attacked by a force of six Confederate regiments, crushed out of their works by sheer weight of numbers, borne down toward the levee, fighting every step of the way, hand to hand—clubbed musket, bayonets, and swords,—from three A. M. to twelve noon, they fought desperately until a Union gun-boat came to the rescue and shelled the[200] desperate foe back to the woods, with a total loss to the defenders of 437 men,—two-fifths of their strength. Shall we turn with sadness to Fort Wagner, S. C., in July, 1863, when the 54th Massachusetts won its deathless fame, and its grand young commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, passed into the temple of immortality? After a march of all day, under a burning sun, and all night through a tempest of wind and rain, drenched, exhausted, hungry, they wheeled into line, without a murmur for that awful charge, that dance of death, the struggle against hopeless odds, and the shattered remnants were hurled back as from the mouth of hell, leaving the dead bodies of their young commander and his noble followers to be buried in a common grave. Its total loss was about one-third of its strength. Here it was that the gallant flag-sergeant, Carney, though grievously wounded, bore back his flag to safety, and fell fainting and exhausted with loss of blood, saying, "Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!" Or another glance, at ill-starred Olustee, where the gallant 8th United States Colored Troops lost 87 killed of its effective fighting force, the largest loss in any one colored regiment in any one action of the war. And so on, by Fort Pillow, which let us pass in merciful silence, and to Honey Hill, S. C., perhaps the last desperate fight in the far south, in which the 32nd, 35th, and 102nd United States Colored Troops and the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry won fresh and fadeless laurels for splendid fighting against hopeless odds and insurmountable difficulties, and then to Nashville, Tenn., with its[201] recorded loss of 84 killed in the effectives of the 13th United States Colored Troops. These were all brilliant actions, and they covered the actors with, and reflected upon the race, a blaze of glory. But it was in the armies of the James and of the Potomac that the true metal of the Negro as a soldier rang out its clearest notes amid the tremendous diapasons that rolled back and forth between the embattled hosts. Here was war indeed, upon its grandest scale and in all its infinite variety: The tireless march under burning sun, chilling frosts, and driven tempests; the lonely vigil of the picket under starless skies, the rush and roar of countless "hosts to battle driven" in the mad charge and the victorious shout that pursued the fleeing foe; the grim determination that held its line of defenses with set teeth, blood-shot eye, and strained muscle, beating back charge after charge of the foe; the patient labor in trench and mine, on hill and in valley, swamp and jungle, with disease adding its horrors to the decimation of shot and shell. Here the Negro stood in the full glare of the greatest search-light, part and parcel of the grandest armies ever mustered upon this continent, competing side by side with the best and bravest of the Union Army against the flower of the Confederacy, the best and bravest of Lee's army, and losing nothing in the contrast. Never again while time lasts will the doubt arise as in 1861, "Will the Negro fight?" As a problem, it has been solved; as a question, it has been answered; and as a fact, it is as established as the eternal hills. It was the Negroes who rang up the curtain upon the last act of the bloody tragedy[202] at Petersburg, Va., June 15, 1864, and they who rang it down at Clover Hill, Va., April 9, 1865. They were one of the strong fingers upon the mighty hand that grasped the giant's throat at Petersburg and never flexed until the breath went out at Appomattox. In this period it would take page on page to recount their deeds of valor and their glorious victories. See them on the 15th of June, 1864, carrying the out-post at Baylor's field in early morning, and all that long, hot, summer day advancing, a few yards at a time, then lying down to escape the fire from the works, but still gradually creeping nearer and nearer, until, just as the sun went down, they swept like a tornado over the works and started upon a race for the city, close at the heels of the flying foe, until mistakenly ordered back. Of this day's experience General Badeau writes: "No worse strain on the nerves of troops is possible, for it is harder to remain quiet under cannon fire, even though comparatively harmless, than to advance against a storm of musketry." General W. F. "Baldy" Smith, speaking of their conduct, says: "No nobler effort has been put forth to-day, and no greater success achieved than that of the colored troops."   *   *   *   *   *   Or, again, at the terrible mine explosion of July 30, 1864, on the Petersburg line, and at the fearful slaughter of September 29, 1864, at New Market Heights and Fort Harrison. On this last date in the Fourth United States Colored Troops, out of a color-guard of twelve men, but[203] one came off the field on his own feet. The gallant flag-sergeant, Hilton, the last to fall, cried out as he went down, "Boys, save the colors"; and they were saved.   *   *   *   *   *   Some ten or more years later, in Congress, in the midst of a speech advocating the giving of civil rights to the Negro, General Butler said, referring to this incident: "There, in a space not wider than the clerk's desk, and three hundred yards long, lay the dead bodies of 543 of my colored comrades, slain in the defense of their country, who had laid down their lives to uphold its flag and its honor, as a willing sacrifice. And as I rode along, guiding my horse this way and that, lest he should profane with his hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as I looked at their bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the country for which they had given their lives, and whose flag had been to them a flag of stripes, in which no star of glory had ever shone for them—feeling I had wronged them in the past, and believing what was the future duty of my country to them,—I swore to myself a solemn oath: 'May my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if ever I fail to defend the rights of the men who have given their blood for me and my country this day and for their race forever.' And, God helping me, I will keep that oath."   *   *   *   *   *   History further repeats itself in the fact that in every war so far known to this country, the first blood, and, in some cases, the last also, has been shed by the faithful[204] Negro, and this in spite of all the years of bondage and oppression, and of wrongs unspeakable. Under the sun there has nothing been known in the history of any people more marvellous than these facts! Oh, to the living few, Comrades, be just, be true. Hail them as heroes tried, Fight with them side by side; Never in field or tent, Scorn the Black Regiment. It is but a little thing to ask, they could ask no less: be just; but, oh, the shame of it for those who need be asked! There is no need for panegyric, for sounding phrases or rounded periods. The simple story is eloquent with all that is necessary to make the heart swell with pride. In the hour allotted me to fill, it is possible only to indicate in skeleton the worth of the Negro as a soldier. If this brief sketch should awaken even a few to interest in his achievements, and one be found willing and fitted to write the history that is their due, that writer shall achieve immortality. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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