some black men who can remember that with
silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet
they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." There was,
however, prejudice at first among many Northern officers against negro
enlistment. The greatest of the few great American artists, St.
Gaudens, commemorated in sculpture (as the donor of the new playing
fields at Harvard commemorated by his gift) the action of a brilliant
and popular Massachusetts officer, Robert Gould Shaw, who set the
example of leaving his own beloved regiment to take command of a
coloured regiment, at the head of which he died, gallantly leading them
and gallantly followed by them in a desperate fight.

It was easier to raise and train these negro soldiers than to arrange
for the control, shelter, and employment of the other refugees who
crowded especially to the protection of Grant's army in the West. The
efforts made for their benefit cannot be related here, but the
recollections of Army Chaplain John Eaton, whom Grant selected to take
charge of them in the West, throw a little more light on Lincoln and on
the spirit of his dealing with "the nigger question." When Eaton after
some time had to come to Washington, upon the business of his charge
and to visit the President, he received that impression, of versatile
power and of easy mastery over many details as well as over broad
issues, which many who worked under Lincoln have described, but he was
above all struck with the fact that from a very slight experience in
early life Lincoln had gained a knowledge of negro character such as
very few indeed in the North possessed. He was subjected to many
seemingly trivial questions, of which he was quick enough to see the
grave purpose, about all sorts of persons and things in the West, but
he was also examined closely, in a way which commanded his fullest
respect as an expert, about the ideas, understanding, and expectations
of the ordinary negroes under his care, and more particularly as to the
past history and the attainments of the few negroes who had become
prominent men, and who therefore best illustrated the real capacities
of their race. Later visits to the capital and to Lincoln deepened
this impression, and convinced Eaton, though by trifling signs, of the
rare quality of Lincoln's sympathy. Once, after Eaton's difficult
business had been disposed of, the President turned to relating his own
recent worries abou