ida, had applied
often, and in vain, to the authorities at Washington for
reinforcements. All the troops that could be gathered in the
North were less than sufficient for the continuous drain of
General McClellan's great operations against the enemy's
capital; and the reiterated answer of the War Department
was: 'You must get along as best you can. Not a man from the
North can be spared.'

"On the mainland of three States nominally forming the
Department of the South, the flag of the Union had no
permanent foothold, save at Fernandina, St. Augustine, and
some few unimportant points along the Florida coast. It was
on the Sea-islands of Georgia and South Carolina that our
troops were stationed, and continually engaged in
fortifying,--the enemy being everywhere visible, and in
force, across the narrow creeks dividing us from the
mainland; and in various raids they came across to our
islands, and we drove them back to the mainland, and up
their creeks, with a few gunboats to help us--being the
order of the day; yea, and yet oftener, of the night.

"No reinforcements to be had from the North; vast fatigue
duties in throwing up earthworks imposed on our insufficient
garrison; the enemy continually increasing both in insolence
and numbers; our only success the capture of Fort Pulaski,
sealing up of Savannah; and this victory offset, if not
fully counter-balanced, by many minor gains of the enemy;
this was about the condition of affairs as seen from the
headquarters fronting Port Royal bay, when General Hunter
one fine morning, with twirling glasses, puckered lips, and
dilated nostrils, (he had just received another
'don't-bother-us-for-reinforcements' dispatch from
Washington) announced his intention of 'forming a negro
regiment, and compelling every able-bodied black man in the
department to fight for the freedom which could not but be
the issue of our war.'

"This resolution being taken, was immediately acted upon
with vigor, the General causing all the necessary orders to
be issued, and taking upon himself, as his private burden,
the responsibility for all the irregular issues of arms,
clothing, equipments, and rations involved in collecting and
organizing the first experimental negro regiment. The men he
intended t