South; and
strangers visiting the department, crowded out eagerly to
see its evening parades and Sunday-morning inspection. By a
strange coincidence, its camp was pitched on the lawn and
around the mansion of Gen. Drayton, who commanded the rebel
works guarding Hilton Head, Port Royal and Beaufort, when
the same were first captured by the joint naval and military
operations under Admiral DuPont and General Timothy W.
Sherman,--General Drayton's brother, Captain Drayton of our
navy, having command of one of the best vessels in the
attacking squadron; as he subsequently took part in the
first iron-clad attack on Fort Sumpter.

"Meantime, however, the War Department gave no sign, and the
oracles of the Adjutant-General's office were dumb as the
statue of the Sphynx. Reports of the organization of the
First South Carolina infantry were duly forwarded to army
headquarters; but evoked no comment, either of approval or
rebuke. Letters detailing what had been done, and the reason
for doing it; asking instructions, and to have commissions
duly issued to the officers selected; appeals that the
department paymaster should be instructed to pay these negro
troops like other soldiers; demands that the Government
should either shoulder the responsibility of sustaining the
organization, or give such orders as would absolve Gen.
Hunter from the responsibility of backing out from an
experiment which he believed to be essential to the
salvation of the country,--all these appeals to Washington
proved in vain; for the oracles still remained profoundly
silent, probably waiting to see how public opinion and the
politicians would receive this daring innovation.

[Illustration: FORTIFICATIONS AT HILTON HEAD.

Gen'l. Hunter's black regiment in the distance.]

"At length one evening a special dispatch steamer plowed her
way over the bar, and a perspiring messenger delivered into
Gen. Hunter's hands a special despatch from the War
Department, 'requiring immediate answer.' The General was
just about mounting his horse for his evening ride along the
picket-line, when this portentous missive was brought under
his notice. Hastily opening it, he first looked grave, then
began to smile, and finally burst into peals of
irrepressible laughter, such as were rarel