Читать книгу The Black Phalanx - Joseph T. Wilson - Страница 51

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The recruiting officer, in the first year of the enlistment of negroes, did not have a pleasant service to perform. At New Orleans there was no trouble in recruiting the regiments organized under Butler's command, for, beside the free negroes, the slave population for miles around were eager to enlist, believing that with the United States army uniform on, they would be safe in their escape from "ole master and the rebs." And then the action of the confederate authorities in arming the free negroes lent a stimulant and gave an ambition to the whole slave population to be soldiers. Could arms have been obtained, a half a dozen regiments could have been organized in sixty days just as rapidly as were three. Quite early in 1862, while the negroes in New Orleans were being enrolled in the Confederate service, under Gov. Moore's proclamation, in separate and distinct organizations from the whites, the Indians and negroes were enlisting in the Union service, on the frontier, in the same company and regiments, with white officers to command them. In the "Kansas Home Guard," comprising two regiments of Indians, were over 400 negroes, and these troops were under Custer, Blunt and Herron. They held Fort Gibson twenty months against the assaults of the enemy. Two thousand five hundred negroes served in the Federal army from the Indian Nations, and these, in all probability, are a part of 5,896 "not accounted for" on the Adjutant General's rolls.

Quite a different state of things existed in South Carolina; rumors were early afloat, when recruiting began, that the government officers were gathering up the negroes to ship away to Cuba, Africa and the West Indies. These reports for a long time hindered the enlistment very much. Then there was no large city for contrabands to congregate in; besides they had no way of traveling from island to island except on government vessels. Before the Proclamation of freedom was issued, the city of Washington, with Virginia and Maryland as additional territory to recruit from, afforded an officer a better field to operate in than any other point except New Orleans. The conduct of the Government in revoking Gen. Fremont's Proclamation, and of McClellan's with the Army of the Potomac, in catching and returning escaped slaves, also had a tendency for some time to keep back even the free negroes of Virginia and Maryland. But this class of people never enlisted to any great numbers, either before or after 1863, and there finally came to be a general want of spirit with them, while with the slave class there was a ready enthusiasm to enlist. Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, was Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs, and reported from that committee on the 8th of July 1862, a bill authorizing the arming of negroes as a part of the army. The bill finally passed both houses and received the approval of the President on the 17th of July, 1862. The battle for its success is as worthy of record as any fought by the Phalanx. The debate was characterized by eloquence and deep feeling on both sides. Says an account of the proceedings in Henry Wilson's "Anti-slavery Measures of Congress:

"Mr. Sherman (Rep.) of Ohio said, "The question arises, whether the people of the United States, struggling for national existence, should not employ these blacks for the maintenance of the Government. The policy heretofore pursued by the officers of the United States has been to repel this class of people from our lines, to refuse their services. They would have made the best spies; and yet they have been driven from our lines."—"I tell the President," said Mr. Fessenden (Rep.) of Maine, "from my place here as a senator, I tell the generals of our army, they must reverse their practices and their course of proceeding on this subject. * * * I advise it here from my place,—treat your enemies as enemies, as the worst of enemies, and avail yourselves like men of every power which God has placed in your hands to accomplish your purpose within the rules of civilized warfare." Mr. Rice, (war Dem.) of Minnesota, declared that "not many days can pass before the people of the United States North must decide upon one of two questions: we have either to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy as a free and independent nation, and that speedily; or we have as speedily to resolve to use all the means given us by the Almighty to prosecute this war to a successful termination. The necessity for action has arisen. To hesitate is worse than criminal. Mr. Wilson said, "The senator from Delaware, as he is accustomed to do, speaks boldly and decidedly against the proposition. He asks if American soldiers will fight if we organize colored men for military purposes. Did not American soldiers fight at Bunker Hill with negroes in the ranks, one of whom shot down Major Pitcairn as he mounted the works? Did not American soldiers fight at Red Bank with a black regiment from your own State, sir? (Mr. Anthony in the chair.) Did they not fight on the battle-field of Rhode Island with that black regiment, one of the best and bravest that ever trod the soil of this continent? Did not American soldiers fight at Fort Griswold with black men? Did they not fight with black men in almost every battle-field of the Revolution? Did not the men of Kentucky and Tennessee, standing on the lines of New Orleans, under the eye of Andrew Jackson, fight with colored battalions whom he had summoned to the field, and whom he thanked publicly for their gallantry in hurling back a British foe? It is all talk, idle talk, to say that the volunteers who are fighting the battles of this country are governed by any such narrow prejudice or bigotry. These prejudices are the results of the teachings of demagogues and politicians, who have for years undertaken to delude and deceive the American people, and to demean and degrade them."

Mr. Grimes had expressed his views a few weeks before, and desired a vote separately on each of these sections. Mr. Davis declared that he was utterly opposed, and should ever be opposed, to placing arms in the hands of negroes, and putting them into the army. Mr. Rice wished "to know if Gen. Washington did not put arms into the hands of negroes, and if Gen. Jackson did not, and if the senator has ever condemned either of those patriots for doing so." "I deny," replied Mr. Davis, "that, in the Revolutionary War, there ever was any considerable organization of negroes. I deny, that, in the war of 1812, there was ever any organization of negro slaves. * * * In my own State, I have no doubt that there are from eighty to a hundred thousand slaves that belong to disloyal men. You propose to place arms in the hands of the men and boys, or such of them as are able to handle arms, and to manumit the whole mass, men, women, and children, and leave them among us. Do you expect us to give our sanction and our approval to these things? No, no! We would regard their authors as our worst enemies; and there is no foreign despotism that could come to our rescue, that we would not joyously embrace, before we would submit to any such condition of things as that. But, before we had invoked this foreign despotism, we would arm every man and boy that we have in the land, and we would meet you in a death-struggle, to overthrow together such an oppression and our oppressors." Mr. Rice remarked in reply to Mr. Davis, "The rebels hesitate at nothing. There are no means that God or the Devil has given them that they do not use. The honorable senator said that the negroes might be useful in loading and swabbing and firing cannon. If that be the case, may not some of them be useful in loading, swabbing, and firing the musket?"

On the 10th of February, 1864, Mr. Stevens (Republican) of Pennsylvania, in the House of Representatives, moved an amendment to the Enrollment Act. Says the same authority before quoted: