was in December, 1863, when Major John C.
Calhoun, a grandson of the South Carolina statesman of that name, bore
a flag of truce, which was received by Major Trowbridge of the First
South Carolina Colored Regiment. The first regiment to enter
Petersburg was composed of Negroes; while the first troops to enter
the Confederate capital at Richmond were Gen. Godfry Weitzel's two
divisions of Negroes. The last guns fired at Lee's army at Appomattox
were in the hands of Negro soldiers. And when the last expiring effort
of treason had, through foul conspiracy, laid our beloved President
low in death, a Negro regiment guarded his remains, and marched in the
stately procession which bore the illustrious dead from the White
House. And on the 15th of May, 1865, at Palmetto Ranch, Texas, the 62d
Regiment of Colored Troops fired the last volley of the war!

Several attempts have been made to define the racial characteristics
of the Negro, but they have not been attended with success.

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has written more and written better about
the American Negro than any other person during the present century.
She has given laboriously and minutely wrought pictures of plantation
life. She has held up to the gaze of the world portraitures comic and
serio-comic, which for the gorgeousness and awfulness of their drapery
will perish only with the language in which they are painted.

But Mrs. Stowe's great characters are marred by some glaring
imperfections. "Uncle Tom" is too goodish, too lamb-like, too
obsequious. He is a child of full growth, yet lacks the elements of an
enlarged manhood. His mind is feeble, body strong--too strong for the
conspicuous absence of spirit and passion.

"Dred" is the divinest character of the times--is prophet, preacher,
and saint. He is _so_ grand. He is eloquent beyond compare, and as
familiar with the Bible as if he were its author. And every hero Mrs.
Stowe takes in charge must make up his mind to get religion, lots of
it too, and then prepare to die. There is a terrible fatality among
her leading characters.

Mrs. Stowe has given but one side of Negro character, and that side is
terribly exaggerated. But all strong natures like hers are given to
exaggeration. Wendell Phillips never tells the truth, and yet he
always tells the truth. He is a man of strong convictions, and always
pronounces his conviction strongly. He has a poetical nature, is a
word-painter, and, therefore, indulges in