Joseph T. Wilson

“ Did not American soldiers fight at Fort Griswold with black men? Did they not fight with black men in almost every battle-field of the Revolution? Did not the men of Kentucky and Tennessee, standing on the lines of New Orleans, under the eye of Andrew Jackson, fight with colored battalions whom he had summoned to the field, and whom he thanked publicly for their gallantry in hurling back a British foe? It is all talk, idle talk, to say that the volunteers who are fighting the battles of this country are governed by any such narrow prejudice or bigotry. ”

“ Had we at an earlier day commenced to call things by their right names, and to look at the hideous features of slavery with our ordinary eyesight and common sense, instead of through the rose-colored glasses of supposed political expediency, there would be three hundred thousand more men alive to-day on American soil; and our country would never for a moment have forfeited her proud position as the highest exampler of the blessings—morals, intellectual and material—to be derived from a free form of government. ”

“ Not a breach of discipline marred the negro soldier's record; not one cowardly act tarnished their fame. Grant pronounced them gallant and reliable, and Weitzel was willing to command them.
In New York City, where negroes had been hung to lamp posts, and where a colored orphan asylum had been sacked and burned, crowds gathered in Broadway and cheered Phalanx regiments on their way to the front. General Logan, author of the Illinois Black Code, greeted them as comrades, and Jefferson Davis finally accorded to them the rights due captured soldiers as prisoners of war. ”

“ While the Indian perished in the struggle for the preservation of his home, his hunting grounds and his freedom, the negro entered into slavery as soon as he was born, in fact was often purchased in the womb, and was born to know, first, that he was a slave. If one became free, he found freedom harder to bear than slavery; half civilized, deprived of nearly all rights, in contact with his superiors in wealth and knowledge, exposed to the rigor of a tyrannical prejudice moulded into laws, he contented himself to be allowed to live. ”

“ The dread in which the colonists held the negro was equal to that with which they regarded the Indians. The incendiary torch, massacre, pillage, and revolt, was ever presenting a gloomy and disastrous picture to the colonists at the South. Their dreams at night; their thoughts by day; in the field and in the legislature hall, were how to keep the negro down. If one should be seen in a village with a gun, a half score of white men would rush and take it from him, while women in the street would take shelter in the nearest house. ”

“ Death is the creature of a poltroon's brains; 'tis immortality to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of our country. We fear not death. That gloomy night, the pale-face moon, and the affrighted stars that hurried through the sky, can witness that we fear not death. Our hearts, which, at the recollection, glow with rage that four revolving years have scarcely taught us to restrain, can witness that we fear not death; and happy it is for those who dared to insult us, that their naked bones are not now piled up an ever-lasting monument of Massachusetts bravery. ”

“ We have seen that they will rather find arguments for crime than seek measures for abolishing or modifying slavery. But there is one principle which is fully recognized as a necessity in conditions like ours, and that is that the public safety is the supreme law of the State, and that amid the clash of arms the laws of peace are silent. It is then for our president, the commander-in-chief of our armies, to declare the abolition of slavery, leaving it to the wisdom of congress to adopt measures to meet the consequences. ”

“ You have succeeded in throwing back civilization for many years; and have made of the country that was the freest, happiest, proudest, richest, and most progressive but two short years ago, a vast temple of mourning, doubt, anxiety and privation; our manufactories of all but war material nearly paralyzed; the inventive spirit which was forever developing new resources destroyed, and our flag, that carried respect everywhere, now mocked by enemies who think its glory tarnished, and that its power is soon to become a mere tradition of the past. ”

“ If we are right in passing this measure, we are wrong in denying to the old government the right to interfere with slavery and to emancipate slaves. If we offer the slaves their freedom as a boon we confess that we are insincere and hypocritical in saying slavery was the best state for the negroes themselves. I believe that the arming and emancipating the slaves will be an abandonment of the contest. To arm the negroes is to give them freedom. When they come out scarred from the conflict they must be free. ”

“ It not only enfranchised four millions of American slaves of African descent, but made slavery forever impossible in the great Republic, and gave a new impulse to the cause of human freedom. Its influence upon American slaves was immediate and startlingly revolutionary, lifting them from the condition of despised chattels, bought and sold like sheep in the market, with no rights which the white man was bound to respect,—to the exalted plane of American citizenship; made them free men, the peers in every civil and political right, of their late masters. ”

“ There was also an intuitive force that led them, and they unhesitatingly followed, feeling that though they took up arms against the National Government, freedom was the ultimatum. Many of those who enlisted feared to do otherwise than fight for slavery, for to refuse would have invited, perchance, torture if not massacre; to avert which many of the free blacks, as well as some of the slaves, gave an apparent acquiescence to the fervor of their lesser informed comrades, who regarded any remove from the monotony of plantation life a respite. ”

“ It was with breathless interest I watched that noble army climb the hill with a steady resolve which nothing but death itself could check. When at length the assaulting column sprang upon the earthworks, and the enemy seeing that further resistance was madness, gave way and began a precipitous retreat, our hearts swelled as only the hearts of soldiers can, and scarcely stopping to cheer or to await orders, we pushed forward and joined in the pursuit, until the darkness and the rain forced a halt. ”

“ Your committee, believing that the freeborn sons of America are worthy to enjoy the liberty which their fathers purchased at the price of much blood and treasure, and seeing by the measures adopted by Great Britain, a course commenced and persisted in, which might lead to a loss of national character and independence, feel no hesitation in advising resistance by force, in which the Americans of the present day will prove to the enemy and the world, that we have not only inherited that liberty which our fathers gave us, but also the will and power to maintain it. ”

“ Moving about from place to place; often on scant rations, and always without transportation, save what could be pressed into service; sleeping in barns, out-houses, public buildings,—wherever shelter could be found, and meeting from the people everywhere opposition and dislike. To have been an officer of colored troops was of itself sufficient to ostracize, and when, in addition, one had to take from them their slaves, dislike became absolute hatred. ”

“ Then the cross-fire of grape shot swept through their ranks, causing the glittering bayonets to go down rapidly. "Steady men, steady," cried bold Cailloux; his sword uplifted, his face the color of the sulphureous smoke that enveloped him and his followers, as they felt the deadly hail which came apparently from all sides. Captain Cailloux [23] was killed with the colors in his hands; the column seemed to melt away like snow in sunshine, before the enemy's murderous fire; the pride, the flower of the Phalanx, had fallen. ”

“ Again the axemen fell, but strong hands and willing hearts seized the heavy sharpened trees and dragged them away, and the column rushed forward and with a shout that rang out above the roar of artillery went over the redoubt like a flash, and the enemy did not stop running within four miles, leaving the Phalanx in possession of their deemed impregnable work, cannons and small arms. The autocrats of the regular army could croak no longer about the negro soldiers not fighting. ”

“ He recognized the fact that the general education of the white men who composed the Union army in contra-distinction to so many of those of the confederate army, gave them great prestige over the enemy. The ingenuity of the Yankee he attributed to his education, and he readily decided that he lacked only the Yankee's education to be his equal in genius. Great was the incentive given him by example, arousing his latent hope to be something more than a free man; if not that, his children might rise from the cornfield to the higher walks of life. ”

“ In 1821, in the convention which revised the constitution of New York, Mr. Clark, speaking in favor of allowing negroes to vote, said in the course of his remarks:
"My honorable colleague has told us, that, as the colored people are not required to contribute to the protection or defence of the State, they are not entitled to an equal participation in the privileges of its citizens. But, Sir, whose fault is this? Have they ever refused to do military duty when called upon? It is haughtily asked, Who will stand in the ranks shoulder to shoulder with a negro? ”

“ It is nearly a hundred years since our people first declared to the nations of the world that all men are born free; and still we have not made our declaration good. Highly revolutionary measures have since then been adopted by the admission of Missouri and the annexation of Texas in favor of slavery by the barest majorities of votes, while the highly conservative vote of two-thirds has at length been attained against slavery, and still slavery exists—even, moreover, although two-thirds of the blood in the veins of our slaves is fast becoming from our own race. ”

“ That our soldiers, when in the hands of the rebels, are starved to death, cannot be denied. Every return of the flag-of-truce boat from City Point brings us too many living and dying witnesses to admit of a doubt of this terrible fact. I am informed that the authorities at Richmond admit the fact, but excuse it on the plea that they give the prisoners the same rations they give their own men. But can this be so? Can an army keep the field, and be active and efficient, on the same fare that kills prisoners of war at a frightful percentage? ”

“ It had been thwarted by Sherman, and thus far baffled by Thomas, and Hood felt that he must strike a bold blow to compensate for the dreadful loss of prestige occasioned by Sherman's march to the sea. His men were scantily clothed and poorly fed; if he could gain Nashville, our great depot of supplies, he could furnish his troops with abundance of food, clothing and war material; encourage the confederacy, terrify the people of the North, regain a vast territory taken from the South at such great cost to us, recruit his army from Kentucky, and perhaps invade the North. ”

“ The war you and your fellow conspirators have been waging against the United States must be regarded either as a war of justifiable defence, carried on for the integrity of the boundaries of a sovereign Confederation of States against foreign aggression, or as the most wicked, enormous, and deliberately planned conspiracy against human liberty and for the triumph of treason and slavery, of which the records of the world's history contain any note. ”

“ The 19th Army Corps sent one brigade. General Gillmore brought a brigade from the Tenth Army Corps. At least ten thousand of them were veterans, and had driven many confederates out of their breastworks.
The world never saw such a spectacle as America presented in the winter and early spring of 1864. The attempt to capture Richmond and Petersburg had failed. The Army of the Potomac lay like a weary lion under cover, watching its opponent. Bruised, but spirited and defiant, it had driven, and in turn had been driven time and again, by its equally valient foe. ”

“ If he could take his place side by side with the white soldier; endure the same hardships on the campaign, face the same enemy, storm the same works, resist the same assaults, evince the same soldierly qualities, he would compel that respect which the world has always accorded to heroism, and win for himself the same laurels which brave soldiers have always won. ”

“ There is no practical evidence against the effects of immediate abolition, even if there is not in its favor. I have witnessed the sudden abolition of flogging at will in the army, and of legalized flogging in the navy, against the prejudice-warped judgments of both, and, from the beneficial effects there, I have nothing to fear from the immediate abolition of slavery. I fear, rather, the violent consequences from a continuance of the evil. ”

“ For three years the army had been fighting under the smart of defeats, with an occasional signal victory, but now the tide was about to be turned against the English. The colonists had witnessed the heroism of the negro in Virginia at Great Bridge, and at Norfolk; in Massachusetts at Boston and Bunker Hill, fighting, in the former, for freedom under the British flag, in the latter for liberty, under the banner of the colonies. The echoing shouts of the whites fell heavily upon the ears of the black people ”

“ There are now in the service of the United States near two hundred thousand able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring Union territory. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery. The black men who now assist Union prisoners to escape, they are to be converted into our enemies in the vain hope of gaining the good will of their masters. We shall have to fight two nations instead of one. You cannot conciliate the South if you guarantee to them ultimate success ”