Volunteers, a regiment of slaves, organized late in 1862. The
Color-Sergeant was provost-Sergeant also, and had entire charge of the
prisoners and of the daily policing of the camp.

"He is a man of distinguished appearance and in old times was the
crack coachman of Beaufort. * * * They tell me that he was once
allowed to present a petition to the Governor of South Carolina in
behalf of slaves, for the redress of certain grievances, and that a
placard, offering two thousand dollars for his re-capture is still to
be seen by the wayside between here and Charleston. He was a sergeant
in the old 'Hunter Regiment,' and was taken by General Hunter to New
York last spring, where the chevrons on his arm brought a mob upon him
in Broadway, whom he kept off till the police interfered. There is not
a white officer in this regiment who has more administrative ability,
or more absolute authority over the men; they do not love him, but his
mere presence has controlling power over them. He writes well enough
to prepare for me a daily report of his duties in the camp; if his
education reached a higher point I see no reason why he should not
command the Army of the Potomac. He is jet-black, or rather, I should
say, wine-black, his complexion, like that of others of my darkest
men, having a sort of rich, clear depth, without a trace of sootiness,
and to my eye very handsome. His features are tolerably regular, and
full of command, and his figure superior to that of any of our white
officers, being six feet high, perfectly proportioned, and of
apparently inexhaustable strength and activity. His gait is like a
panther's; I never saw such a tread. No anti-slavery novel has
described a man of such marked ability. He makes Toussaint perfectly
intelligible, and if there should ever be a black monarchy in South
Carolina he will be its king."[28]

Excepting the Louisiana Native Guards, the First South Carolina
Volunteers was the first regiment of colored troops to be mustered
into the service in the Civil War. The regiment was made up entirely
of slaves, with scarcely a mulatto among them. The first day of
freedom for these men was passed in uniform and with a gun. Among
these Negroes, just wrested from slavery, their scholarly commander,
Colonel Higginson, could find many whom he judged well fitted by
nature to command.

"Afterwards I had excellent battalion drills," he writes, "without a
single white officer, by way of experiment, putting e