o be no further national
responsibility for the great crime against civilisation. The management
of the contrabands, who were from week to week making their way into the
lines of the Northern armies, was simplified. There was no further
question of holding coloured men subject to the possible claim of a
possibly loyal master. The work of organising coloured troops, which had
begun in Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, was now pressed
forward with some measure of efficiency. Boston sent to the front the
54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of coloured troops and
led by such men as Shaw and Hallowell. The first South Carolina coloured
regiment was raised and placed under the command of Colonel Higginson.

I had myself some experience in Louisiana with the work of moulding
plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the
promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into the
camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to
secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out
of which to make a soldier. He did not know how to hold himself upright
or to look the other man in the face. His gait was shambly, his
perceptions dull. It was difficult for him either to hear clearly, or to
understand when heard, the word of instruction or command. When,
however, the plantation rags had been disposed of and (possibly after a
souse in the Mississippi) the contraband had been put into the blue
uniform and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, he developed at once
from a "chattel" to a man. He was still, for a time at least, clumsy and
shambly. The understanding of the word of command did not come at once
and his individual action, if by any chance he should be left to act
alone, was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended upon, than
that of the white man. But he stood up straight in the garb of manhood,
looked you fairly in the face, showed by his expression that he was
anxious for the privilege of fighting for freedom and for citizenship,
and in Louisiana, and throughout the whole territory of the War, every
black regiment that came into engagement showed that it could be
depended upon. Before the War was closed, some two hundred thousand
negroes had been brought into the ranks of the Federal army and their
service constituted a very valuable factor in the final outcome of the
campaigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend,