recruiting officers. But is the Government itself an
irresponsible recruiting officer? and if men have volunteered in good
faith on the written assurances of the Secretary of War, is not Congress
bound, in all decency, either to fulfill those pledges or to disband the
regiments?

Mr. Senator Doolittle argued in the same debate that white soldiers
should receive higher pay than black ones, because the families of the
latter were often supported by Government What an astounding statement
of fact is this! In the white regiment in which I was formerly an
officer (the Massachusetts Fifty-First) nine tenths of the soldiers'
families, in addition to the pay and bounties, drew regularly their
"State aid." Among my black soldiers, with half-pay and no bounty, not
a family receives any aid. Is there to be no limit, no end to the
injustice we heap upon this unfortunate people? Cannot even the fact
of their being in arms for the nation, liable to die any day in its
defence, secure them ordinary justice? Is the nation so poor, and so
utterly demoralized by its pauperism, that after it has had the lives
of these men, it must turn round to filch six dollars of the monthly pay
which the Secretary of War promised to their widows? It is even so, if
the excuses of Mr. Fressenden and Mr. Doolittle are to be accepted by
Congress and by the people.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T, W. HIGGINSON, Colonel commanding 1st S. C. Volunteers.

NEW VICTORIES AND OLD WRONGS To the Editors of the Evening Post:

On the 2d of July, at James Island, S. C., a battery was taken by three
regiments, under the following circumstances:

The regiments were the One Hundred and Third New York (white), the
Thirty-Third United States (formerly First South Carolina Volunteers),
and the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts, the two last being colored. They
marched at one A. M., by the flank, in the above order, hoping to
surprise the battery. As usual the rebels were prepared for them, and
opened upon them as they were deep in one of those almost impassable
Southern marshes. The One Hundred and Third New York, which had
previously been in twenty battles, was thrown into confusion; the
Thirty-Third United States did better, being behind; the Fifty-Fifth
Massachusetts being in the rear, did better still. All three formed in
line, when Colonel Hartwell, commanding the brigade, gave the order to
retreat. The officer commanding the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts, eithe