a destructive fire from batteries and muskets. But
they rallied and charged the enemy again and again until nightfall;
exhausted and reduced in numbers, they fell back into the friendly
darkness to rest. The Union loss was 4,400 killed, wounded, and
captured. Again the Negro had honored his country and covered himself
with glory. Managed differently, with the Black Division as the
charging force, Petersburg would have fallen, the war would have ended
before the autumn, and thousands of lives would have been saved. But a
great sacrifice had to be laid upon the cruel altar of race prejudice.

In the battles around Nashville about 8,000 or 10,000 Colored Troops
took part, and rendered efficient aid. Here the Colored Troops, all of
them recruited from slave States, stormed fortified positions of the
enemy with the bayonet through open fields, and behaved like veterans
under the most destructive fire. In his report of the battle of
Nashville, Major-Gen. James B. Steedman said:

"The larger portion of these losses, amounting in the aggregate
to fully twenty-five per cent. of the men under my command who
were taken into action, it will be observed, fell upon the
Colored Troops. The severe loss of this part of my troops was in
the brilliant charge on the enemy's works on Overton Hill on
Friday afternoon. I was unable to discover that _color_ made any
difference in the fighting of my troops. All, white and black,
nobly did their duty as soldiers, and evinced cheerfulness and
resolution, such as I have never seen excelled in any campaign of
the war in which I have borne a part."[106]

The following table shows the losses in this action:

-------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-----------------
| Killed.|Wounded.|Missing.| Total. |
|--------+--------+--------+--------+
|Officers|Officers|Officers|Officers|
| | Men | | Men| | Men| | Men |
-------------------+--+-----+---+----+---+----+--+-----+-----------------
Fourteenth U. S. | | | | | | | | |}Organized as the
Colored Infantry | | 4 | | 41| | 20| | 65 |}First Colored
Forty-fourth U. S. | | | | | | | | |}Brigade,
Colored Infantry | 1| 2 | | 27| 2| 49| 3| 78 |}Colonel T. J.
Sixteenth U. S. | | | | | | | | |}Morgan,
Colored Infantry