after issuing his order of general Emancipation throughout his department. We make the following extract from a letter written by General Hunter to Mr. Wickliffe, relative to the enlistment of colored troops; "The experiment of arming the Negroes, so far as I have made it, has been a complete and even marvelous success. They are sober, docile, attentive and enthusiastic; displaying great natural capacities for acquiring the duties of the soldier. They are eager beyond all things to take the field and be led into action, and it is the unanimous opinion of the officers who have had charge of them, that in the peculiarities of this climate and country, they will prove invaluable auxiliaries-fully equal to the similar regiments so long and successfully used by the British authorities in the West India Islands.

"In conclusion, I would say it is my hope-there appearing no possibility of other re-enforcements, owing to the exigencies in the Peninsula, to have organized by the end of next Fall, and to be able to present to the Government, from 48,000 to 50,000 of these hardy and devoted soldiers."

Meantime, Brigadier-General Phelps, commanding under General Butler at Carrollton, Louisiana, found his camp con tinually beset by fugitives from slavery on the adjacent plantations, but especially from that of Mr. B. La Blanche, a wealthy and eminent sugar planter just above New Orleanswho, it appears, being vexed by military interference with the police of his plantation, had driven off all his Negroes, telling them to go to their friends, the Yankees.

General Phelps in his report to General Butler as to the necessity of adopting a decided Anti-Slavery policy, says: "The enfranchisement of the people of Europe has been, and is still going on, through the instrumentality of military service; and by this means the slaves of the South might be raised in the scale of civilization and prepared for freedom. Fifty regiments might be raised among them at once, which could be employed in this climate to preserve order, and thus prevent the necessity of retrenching our liberties, as we should do by a large army exclusively of whites. For it is evident

that a considerable army of whites would give stringency to our Government; while an army partly of Negroes would naturally operate in favor of freedom and against these influences which at present most endanger our liberties. At the end of five years, they could be sent to Africa, and their places filled with new enlistments."

On the reception at Richmond of tidings of General Hunter's and General Phelps' proceedings with reference to the enlistment of Negro soldiers for the Union Armies, Jefferson Davis issued an order directing that said Generals be no longer regarded as public enemies of the Confederacy, but as outlaws; and that, in the event of the capture of either of them, or of any other commissioned officer employed in organizing, drilling or instructing slaves, he should not be treated as a prisoner of war, but held in close confinement for execution as a felon, at such time and place as he (Davis) should order. It is not recorded that any one was ever actually hung under this order.

So long as the ranks of the Union Armies were satisfactorily filled by volunteering alone, and whites stood ready to answer promptly every requisition for more men, Negroes or mulattoes were not accepted as soldiers; though they were, as they had ever been, freely enlisted and extensively employed in the Navy with the same pay and allowances as whites. At no time during the war was a colored person, if known as such, accepted-as many had been throughout our own Revolutionary war-for service in a regiment or other organization preponderantly white. But no sooner had McClellan's campaign. against Richmond culminated in disaster, and a requisition been made upon the loyal States for 600,000 more recruits to our Armies, rendering conscription in some localities. unavoidable, than the barriers of caste began to give way, and Negro soldiers were accepted.

By a section of the Act of 1862, persons of "African descent" were to be paid ten dollars per month, three dollars of it in clothing; while the pay of the white soldiers was thirteen dollars per month, beside clothing. Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, on his solicitation, was authorized by Secre

tary Stanton to raise of three years' men "volunteer companies of artillery for duty in the forts of Massachusetts and elsewhere, and such companies of infantry for the volunteer military service as he may find convenient, and may include persons of African descent, organized into separate corps." Under this order Governor Andrew proceeded to raise two full regiments of Blacks, known as the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts, which in due time were mustered without objection into the service of the Union, and there won honorable distinction. When, at length, the paymaster made his usually welcome appearance at their camp and offered them ten dollars per month, they refused to accept that or anything less than the regular pay of the soldiers of the United States, and a tender of the State to make good the difference between what they were offered and what they demanded, they declined; going wholly without pay for more than a year in order to establish their right to be regarded, not especially as Negroes,

but as men.

Those who, being hopelessly disabled by wounds or by disease, received honorable discharges from the service, did accept what was offered them by the Federal paymaster, and the resi due of their full pay from Major Sturgis, agent of the State. At last, after repeated and most urgent representations to the War Department by Governor Andrew, and upon the opinion of Attorney General Bates, that they were legally entitled to it, they received from the United States the full pay they had persistently claimed, and Reverend Samuel Harrison, the colored Chaplain of the Fifty-fourth, being refused by the United States paymaster the regular pay of a Chaplain because of his color, or because of that of his regiment, appealed to Governor Andrew; on whose representation and advocacy, backed likewise by Judge Bates' opinion as Attorney General, he was ultimately paid in full. And finally it was by Congress enacted, "That all persons of color who were free on the 19th day of April, 1861, and who have been enlisted and mustered into the military service of the United States, shall from the time of their enlistment, be entitled to receive the pay, bounty, and

clothing allowed to such persons by the laws existing at the time of their enlistment."

When the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts were ready, in May 1863, to proceed to the seat of war in South Carolina, application was made in their behalf to the Chief of Police of New York for advice as to the propriety of taking that city in their route, and marching down Broadway. He responded that they could not be protected from insult and probably assault if they did so. They thereupon proceeded wholly by water to their destination. Within seven or eight months thereafter, two New York regiments of colored soldiers, raised by volunteer efforts mainly by the Loyal League, though discountenanced by Governor Seymour, marched proudly down Broadway and embarked for the seat of War, amid the cheers of enthusiastic thousands and without eliciting one discordant hiss.

The use of Negroes, both free and slave, for belligerent purposes, on the side of the Rebellion, dates from a period anterior to the outbreak of actual hostilities. So early as January 1, 1861, a dispatch from Mr. Riordan, at Charleston, to Hon. Percy Walker, at Mobile, exultingly proclaimed that, "Large gangs of Negroes from plantations are at work on the redoubts, which are substantially made of sand bags and coated with sheet iron."

A Washington dispatch to the New York Evening Post, about this time, set forth that-"A gentleman from Charleston says that everything there betokens active preparations for fight. The thousand negroes busy in building batteries, so far from inclining to insurrection, were grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of shooting the Yankees."

The Charleston Mercury of January 3d, said: "We learn that 150 able bodied free colored men, of Charleston, yesterday offered their services gratuitously to the Governor, to hasten forward the important work of throwing up redoubts wherever needed along our coast."

The Legislature of Tennessee, that negotiated that State out of the Union, by secret treaty with the Confederate executive, passed an act authorizing the Governor, Mr. Harris, "to

receive into the military service of the State all male free persons of color, between the ages of 15 and 20."

These colored soldiers were to receive eight dollars per month, with clothing and rations. The Sheriff of each County was required, under the penalties of misdemeanor, to collect and report the names of all such persons; and it was further enacted, "That, in the event that a sufficient number of free persons of color to meet the wants of the State, shall not tender their services, the Governor is empowered through the Sheriffs of the different Counties to press such persons until the requisite number is obtained."

The Memphis Avalanche joyously proclaimed that, "A procession of several hundred stout Negro men, members of the 'domestic institution,' marched through our streets yesterday in military order, under command of Confederate officers. They were all armed and equipped with shovels, axes, blankets, etc. A merrier set were never seen. They were brimful of patriotism, shouting for Jeff. Davis and singing war songs." And four days later it again said: "Upward of one thousand Negroes, armed with spades and pickaxes, have passed through the city within the past few days. Their destination is unknown; but it is supposed that they are on their way to the other side of Jordan." The drafting of colored men, and especially of slaves, by thousands to work on Confederate fortifications, was, in general, rather ostentatiously paraded through the earlier stages of the war. A paper published at Lynchburg, Virginia, had as early as April, chronicled the volunteered enrollment of seventy of the free Negroes of that place to fight in defense of their State; closing with, "Three cheers for the patriotic free Negroes of Lynchburg."

The next recorded organization of Negroes, especially as Confederate soldiers, was at Mobile, towards Autumn, and two or three months later, the following telegram was flashed over the length and breadth of the rejoicing Confederacy:

"NEW ORLEANS, November 23, 1861.-Over 28,000 troops were reviewed to-day by Governor Moore, General Lovell and