enemy struck about them with a pitiless vigor, that was
almost fearful.' Another soldier said to me, 'These negroes
never shrink, nor hold back, no matter what the order.
Through scorching heat and pelting storms, if the order
comes, they march with prompt, ready feet.' Such praise is
great praise, and it is deserved. The negroes here who have
been slaves, are loyal, to a man, and on our occupation of
Fredericksburg, pointed out the prominent secessionists, who
were at once seized by our cavalry and put in safe quarters.
In a talk with a group of faithful fellows, I discovered in
them all a perfect understanding of the issues of the
conflict, and a grand determination to prove themselves
worthy of the place and privileges to which they are to be
exalted."

The ice was thus broken, and then each war correspondent found it his
duty to write in deservedly glowing terms of the Phalanx.

The newspaper reports of the engagements stirred the blood of the
Englishman, and he eschewed his professed love for the freedom of
mankind, and particularly that of the American negro. The London
_Times_, in the following article, lashed the North for arming the
negroes to shoot the confederates, forgetting, perhaps, that England
employed negroes against the colonist in 1775, and at New Orleans, in
1814, had her black regiments to shoot down the fathers of the men whom
it now sought to uphold, in rebellion against the government of the
United States:

"THE NEGRO UNION SOLDIERS.

"Six months have now passed from the time Mr. Lincoln issued
his proclamation abolishing slavery in the States of the
Southern Confederacy. To many it may seem that this measure
has failed of the intended effect and this is doubtless in
some respects the case. It was intended to frighten the
Southern whites into submission, and it has only made them
more fierce and resolute than ever. It was intended to raise
a servile war, or produce such signs of it as should compel
the Confederates to lay down their arms through fear for
their wives and families; and it has only caused desertion
from some of the border plantations and some disorders along
the coast. But in other respects the consequences of this
measure are becoming important enough. The negro race has
been too much attached to the whites, or too ignorant or too