s
different from the time of relieving the troops. This
difference enabled the engineer officers to carry the work
through the period of relieving the fatigue details.

"One engineer officer, having from two to four different
kinds or jobs of work to superintend, was found to work
advantageously in the night, with the help of
non-commissioned officers of engineers, from one hundred to
two hundred men.

"The working parties of engineers and black infantry seldom
carried their arms into the trenches, while the white
infantry fatigue parties usually did."

FOOTNOTES:

[27] NOTE.--Boykin's Mill, a few miles from Camden, S. C, was the scene
of one of the bloodiest skirmishes that the 54th Regt. ever participated
in. We had literally fought every step of the way from Georgetown to
Camden, and the enemy made a last desperate stand at this place. No
better position could be found for a defense, as the only approach to
it, was by a narrow embankment about 200 yards long, where only one
could walk at a time. The planks of the bridge over the mill-race were
torn up, compelling the troops to cross on the timbers and cross-ties,
under a galling fire which swept the bridge and embankment, rendering it
a fearful 'way of death.' The heroes of Wagner and Olustee did not
shrink from the trial, but actually charged in single file. The first to
step upon the fatal path, went down like grass before the scythe, but
over their prostrate bodies came their comrades, until the enemy,
panic-stricken by such determined daring, abandoned their position and
fled.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND.

Important services were rendered by the Phalanx in the West. The
operations in Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky, afforded an excellent
opportunity to the commanders of the Union forces to raise negro troops
in such portions of the territory as they held; but in consequence of
the bitterness against such action by the semi-Unionists and Copperheads
in the Department of the Ohio and Cumberland, it was not until the fall
of 1863 that the organizing of such troops in these Departments fairly
began. The Mississippi was well-nigh guarded by Phalanx regiments
enlisted along that river, numbering about fifty thousand men. They
garrisoned the fortifications, and occupied the captured towns. Later
on, however, when the confederate General Bragg began preparations for
the recovery of