lored men which afterwards became the First Louisiana
National Guards of General Weitzel's brigade and the first colored
regiment in the Federal Army), the feeling against negro troops was
insurmountable until the last days of the struggle. Then no straw
could be overlooked. When, in December, 1863, Major-General Patrick R.
Cleburne, who commanded a division of Hardee's Corps of the Confederate
Army of the Tennessee, sent in a paper in which the employment of the
slaves as soldiers of the South was vigorously advocated, Jefferson
Davis indorsed it with the statement, "I deem it inexpedient at
this time to give publicity to this paper, and request that it be
suppressed." General Cleburne urged that "freedom within a reasonable
time" be granted to every slave remaining true to the Confederacy, and
was moved to this action by the valor of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts,
saying, "If they [the negroes] can be made to face and fight bravely
against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with
the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would
submit to discipline and face dangers?"

With the ending of the civil war the regular army of the United States
was reorganized upon a peace footing by an act of Congress dated July
28, 1866. In just recognition of the bravery of the colored volunteers
six regiments, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Thirty-eighth,
Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forth-first Infantry, were designated
as colored regiments. When the army was again reduced in 1869, the
Thirty-eighth and Forty-first became the Twenty-fourth Infantry, and
the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth became the Twenty-fifth. This left four
colored regiments in the regular army as it was constituted from 1870
until 1901. There has never been a colored artillery organization in the
regular service.

To these new regiments came a motley mixture of veterans of volunteer
organizations, newly released slaves, and some freedmen of several
years' standing but without military experience. They were eager to
learn, and soon showed the same traits which distinguish the black
regiments to-day,--loyalty to their officers and to their colors,
sobriety and courage, and a notable pride in the efficiency of their
corps. But if ever officers had to "father and mother" their soldiers
they were the company officers of these regiments. The captains in
particular had to be bankers, secretaries, advisers, and judges for
their m