Part 56 (2/2)
”But let it not be supposed for a moment that only officers and men of another race were engaged in this n.o.ble work of school-teaching in our colored army. Not a few of the best workers were colored chaplains, who wisely divided their time between preaching, administering to the sick by reason of wounds or otherwise, and to teaching the old 'young idea how to shoot;' while many non-commissioned officers and private soldiers cheerfully rendered effective service in the same direction. Nor must we close without expressing warm admiration for those earnest, ambitious soldier pupils who, when finding themselves grown to man's estate, having been debarred by the terrible system of slavery from securing an education, yielded not to what would have been considered only a natural discouragement, but, instead, followed the advice and instruction of their comrade teachers, and, bending themselves to most a.s.siduous study, gained in some cases great proficiency, and in all much that fitted them for usefulness and the proper enjoyment of their well-earned liberty. And so we say, all honor to teachers and taught in the Grand Army that made a free republic, whose safe foundation and perpetuity lies in the general education of its citizens.”
FOOTNOTES:
[47] Now Registrar at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.
CHAPTER II.
BENEVOLENCE AND FRUGALITY.
The negro troops gave striking evidence of both benevolence and frugality with the money they received. They needed but to be shown an opportunity to contribute to some object, when they quickly responded.
Frequently, too, they fell easy victims to the crafty camp b.u.mmers and speculators, who were ever collecting means for some charitable object for the benefit of the negro race. However, here it will be a pleasing duty to name some of the more conspicuous instances where their charity was well and n.o.bly bestowed. At the same time they deposited a vast aggregate sum of savings in different banks established for this purpose.
The 62nd Regiment contributed to a commendable project gotten up by its officers, who gave, themselves, $1,034.60, the regiment giving $3,966.50. With this money the founding of a school was commenced, which eventually became a college known as the Lincoln Inst.i.tute, situated at Jefferson City, Mo. To this sum of $5,001.10, the 65th Regiment contributed $1,379.50, through the efforts of their officers. The sum was soon increased to $20,000, and the Inst.i.tute stands to-day a monument to the 62nd and 65th Phalanx Regiments.
Professor Foster, in his history of this Inst.i.tute, gives these interesting details:
[Ill.u.s.tration: U.S. PAYMASTERS PAYING OFF PHALANX SOLDIERS.]
”Dr. Allen, a man of high character and influence, gave the scheme standing ground by declaring that he would give $100.
Both our field officers, Colonel Barrett and Lieutenant-Colonel Branson, though neither was with us at the time, afterwards subscribed a like amount. Others responded in the same spirit. Officers and men entered into the work with enthusiasm. The lieutenants gave $50 each; officers of higher rank, $100. First Sergeant Brown, Co D, gave $75; Sergeants Curd, Bergamire, Alexander and Moore each gave $50, while the number who gave 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 dollars apiece is too great for me to recall their names on this occasion, but they are all preserved in our records.
The total result in the 62nd Regiment was $1,034.60, contributed by the officers, and $3,966.50 by the colored soldiers. The soldiers of the 65th Regiment afterwards added $1,379.50. One of them, Samuel s.e.xton, gave $100 from his earnings as a private soldier at $13 per month, an example of liberality that may well challenge comparison with the acts of those rich men who, from their surplus, give thousands to found colleges.”
Colonel David Branson, late of the 62nd Regiment, in his dedicatory speech, said:
”MY FRIENDS:--This, with one exception, has been the happiest 4th of July in my life. That exception was in 1863, when I saw the rebel flag go down at Vicksburg. I felt the exultation of victory then, and I feel it to-day as I look upon this splendid building. Looking in the faces of my old comrades of the 62nd Regiment here to-day, memory goes back to the past, when hundreds of you came to me at Benton Barracks, ragged, starving, and freezing--some did freeze to death--and emotions fill me that no language can express. I cannot sit down and think of those scenes of suffering without almost shedding tears. But happily those days are pa.s.sed. No more marching with sluggish step and plantation gait through the streets of St. Louis, Mo., amid the jeers of your enemies; no more crossing the Mississippi on ice; no more sinking steamers, and consequent exposure on the cold, muddy banks of the river; no more killing labor on fortifications at Port Hudson, Baton Rouge and Morganza; no more voyages over the Gulf of Mexico, packed like cattle in the hold of a vessel; no mere weary marches in the burning climate of Texas; no more death by the bullet, and no more afternoons on the banks of the Rio Grande, deliberating on the future education of yourselves when discharged from the army; but peace and prosperity here with the result of those deliberations before us. Our enemies predicted, that upon the disbanding of our volunteer army--particularly the colored portion of it--it would turn to bands of marauding murderers and idle vagabonds, and this Inst.i.tute was our answer.”
When Colonel Shaw, of the 54th Regiment, fell at Fort Wagner, the brave soldiers of that regiment gladly contributed to a fund for a monument to his memory, but which, upon reflection, was appropriated to building the Shaw School at Charleston, S. C. And yet all these sums sink into insignificance when compared to that contributed by the negro soldiers to the erection of a monument to the memory of President Lincoln, at the capitol of the nation; seventeen hundred of them gave _ten thousand dollars_. But let the record speak for itself, for it is only a people's patriotism that can do such things:
CORRESPONDENCE AND STATEMENTS OF JAMES E. YEATMAN,
PRESIDENT OF THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION, RELATIVE TO THE EMANc.i.p.aTION MONUMENT.
”ST. LOUIS, April 26th, 1865.
”_James E. Yeatman, Esq._:
”MY DEAR SIR; A poor negro woman, of Marietta, Ohio, one of those made free by President Lincoln's proclamation, proposes that a monument to their dead friend be erected by the colored people of the United States. She has handed to a person in Marietta five dollars as her contribution for the purpose. Such a monument would have a history more grand and touching than any of which we have account. Would it not be well to take up this suggestion and make it known to the freedmen?
”Yours truly, T. C. H. SMITH.”
Mr. Yeatman says:
”In compliance with General Smith's suggestion I published his letter, with a card, stating that any desiring to contribute to a fund for such a purpose, that the Western Sanitary Commission would receive the same and see that it was judiciously appropriated as intended. In response to his communication liberal contributions were received from colored soldiers under the command of General J. W.
Davidson, headquarters at Natchez, Miss., amounting in all to $12,150. This was subsequently increased from other sources to $16,242.”
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