Volume II Part 33 (1/2)

European governments were growing impatient at the dilatory policy of our nation; and every day we were losing sympathy and friends. Our armies were being repulsed and routed; and Columbia's war eagles were wearily flapping their pinions in the blood-dampened dust of a nerveless nation. But the Negro was still on the outside,--it was ”a white man's war.”

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Rebellion Recs., vol. i. Doc., p. 63.

[76] Albany Atlas and Argus, May 27, 1861.

[77] Greeley, vol. ii. p. 240.

[78] Rebellion Records, vol. iii. Doc. p. 376.

[79] I have quite a large number of such orders, but the above will suffice.

[80] Greeley, vol. ii. p. 246.

[81] Greeley, vol. ii. p. 238.

[82] New York Times.

[83] Greeley, vol. ii. pp. 249, 250.

[84] Greeley, vol. ii. p. 250.

[85] Greeley, vol. i. p. 585.

[86] Greeley, vol. ii. pp. 239, 240.

[87] Greeley, vol. ii. p. 246.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NEGRO ON FATIGUE DUTY.

NEGROES EMPLOYED AS TEAMSTERS AND IN THE QUARTERMASTER'S DEPARTMENT.--GENERAL MERCER'S ORDER TO THE SLAVE-HOLDERS ISSUED FROM SAVANNAH.--HE RECEIVES ORDERS FROM THE SECRETARY OF WAR TO IMPRESS A NUMBER OF NEGROES TO BUILD FORTIFICATIONS.--THE NEGRO PROVES HIMSELF INDUSTRIOUS AND EARNS PROMOTION.

The light began to break through the dark cloud of prejudice in the minds of the friends of the Union. If a Negro were useful in building rebel fortifications, why not in casting up defences for the Union army? Succeeding Gen. Butler in command at Fortress Monroe, on the 14th of October, 1861, Major-Gen. Wool issued an order, directing that ”all colored persons called contrabands,” employed by officers or others within his command, must be furnished with subsistence by their employers, and paid, if males, not less than four dollars per month, and that ”all able-bodied colored persons, not employed as aforesaid,”

will be immediately put to work in the Engineer's or the Quartermaster's Department. On the 1st of November, Gen. Wool directed that the compensation of ”contrabands” working for the government should be five to ten dollars per month, with soldier's rations. These Negroes rendered valuable service in the sphere they were called upon to fill.

In the Western army, Gen. James B. Steedman was the first man to suggest the idea of employing Negroes as teamsters. He saw that every Negro who drove a team of mules gave to the army one more white soldier with a musket in his hands; and so with the sympathy and approval of the gallant Gen. Geo. H. Thomas, Gen. Steedman put eighty Negroes into uniforms, and turned them over to an experienced white ”wagon-master.” The Negroes made excellent teamsters, and the plan was adopted quite generally.

In September, 1862, an order from Was.h.i.+ngton directed the employment of fifty thousand Negro laborers in the Quartermaster's Department, under Generals Hunter and Saxton! This showed that the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton had begun to get their eyes open on this question. ”And while speaking of the negroes,” wrote a ”Times” correspondent, in 1862, from Hilton Head, ”let me present a few statistics obtained from an official source, respecting the success which has crowned the experiment of employing them as free paid laborers upon the plantations. The population of the Division (including Port Royal, St.

Helena and Ladies' islands, with the smaller ones thereto adjacent, but excluding Hilton Head and its surroundings) is as follows:

”Effective 3,817 ”Non-effective 3,110 ----- ”Total 6,927

”The number of acres under cultivation on the same islands, is: