White troops

“ Everybody knows that they were used in the Revolution, and in the last war with Great Britain fought side by side with white troops, and won equal praises from Washington and Jackson. It is shown also that black sailors are on equal terms with their white comrades. If on the sea, why not on the land? No officer who has commanded black troops has yet reported against them. They are tried in the most unfavorable and difficult circumstances, but never fail. When shall we learn to use the full strength of the formidable ally who is only waiting for a summons to rally under the flag of the Union? ”

“ It was given out that he was not to be employed in the open field with white troops, under the inspiration of doing battle and winning victories for the Union cause, and in the face and teeth of his old masters, but that he should be made to garrison forts in yellow-fever and otherwise unhealthy localities of the South, to save the health of white soldiers; and, in order to keep up the distinction further, the black soldiers were to have only half the wages of the white soldiers, and were to be commanded entirely by white commissioned officers. ”

“ Only the fire-eaters based their hope of success against the North,—the National Government,—upon the stubborn [Pg 483] energies of the white soldiery; the deliberate men rested their hopes,—based their expectations, more upon the docility of the negro, than upon the audacity of their white troops. ”

“ Nor have I yet discovered the slightest ground of inferiority to white troops.
"'So far is it from being true that the blacks as material soldiers are inferior to white, that they are in some respects manifestly superior; especially in aptness for drill, because of their imitativeness and love of music; docility in discipline, when their confidence is once acquired; and enthusiasm for the cause. They at least know what they are fighting for. ”

“ They were thought to be better adapted to that service than white troops. White troops trained to war, brave and daring, were to take fortifications, and the blacks were to hold them from falling again into the hands of the rebels. ”

“ There was one circumstance, however, or rather course of similar circumstances that struck those of us at home who closely followed the war as detailed by private letters and dispatches in the public newspapers, which was that on many memorable occasions the colored regiments saved the defeated and flying white troops from complete destruction. And white men were thankful enough to be saved by our men, and who could blame them? ”

“ The presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes labor, both by their advice and by furnishing in their camps a resort for the freedmen for long distances around. White troops generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small number of them can maintain order in a given district. Colored troops must be kept in bodies sufficient to defend themselves. ”

“ Here under a clear Virginia sky, in full view of the Union white troops, the Black brigade swept across the field in magnificent line. The rebels received them with siege gun, musket, and bayonet, but they never wavered. In a short time they had carried a line of rifle-pits, [Pg 337] driven the enemy out in confusion, and captured two large guns. It was a supreme moment; all that was needed was the order, "On to Petersburg," and the city could have been taken by the force there was in reserve for the Black brigade. But he who doubts is damned, and he who dallies is a dastard. ”

“ They were of course very raw material, but their habits of obedience and temperance were equivalent to the usual quickness and independence of the white troops. They were proud of their new position and enthusiastic in learning the manual of arms, even rising at four o'clock in the morning to begin their drill, which they practised incessantly through the day. The brightest among them were made sergeants and corporals, while young officers from the white regiments around Washington were detailed to serve as captains and lieutenants. ”

“ Below at the corral the white soldiers waited ready, and heard him chanting his war song through the silence of the day. He turned in a long curve, and came in near the watching troops and through the agency, and then, made bolder by their motionless figures and guns held idle, he turned again and flew, singing, along close to the line, so they saw his eyes; and a few that had been talking low as they stood side by side fell silent at the spectacle. They could not shoot until some Indian should shoot. They watched him and the gray pony pass and return to the hostiles on the hill. ”

“ The moment you resort to Negro soldiers, your white soldiers will be lost to you, and one secret of the favor with which the proposition is received in portions of the army is the hope when Negroes go into the army, they (the whites) will be permitted to retire. It is simply a proposition to fight the balance of the war with Negro troops. You can't keep white and black troops together and you can't trust Negroes by themselves.... Use all the Negroes you can get for all purposes for which you need them but don't arm them. ”

“ On every pleasant day our parades were witnessed by officers, soldiers and citizens from the North, and it was not uncommon to have two thousand spectators. Some came to make sport, some from curiosity, some because it was the fashion, and others from a genuine desire to see for themselves what sort of looking soldiers negroes would make.
"At the time that the work of organizing colored troops began in the West, there was a great deal of bitter prejudice against the movement, and white troops threatened to desert, if the plan should be really carried out. ”

“ They have proved a most important addition [Pg 345] to our forces, enabling the Generals in active operations to take a large force of white troops into the field; and now brigades of blacks are placed with the whites. The forts erected at the important points on the river are nearly all garrisoned by blacks—artillery regiments raised for the purpose,—say at Paducah and Columbus, Kentucky, Memphis, Tennessee, Vicksburg and Natchez, Mississippi and most of the works around New Orleans.
"Experience proves that they manage heavy guns very well. ”

“ White himself was naturally much better qualified for the stirring and active life of a partisan, whose parade ground is the enemy’s picket line and wagon camp, than to command the choicest body of troops behind the army lines; and experience gives as a rule, that as the Colonel is, so is the regiment, and it is one that holds good under all the circumstances of the camp, the march and the battle-field. ”

“ And this horror of theirs holds good not only with regard to the colored troops themselves, but it is even more bitter if possible when directed against the white officers who trained them in the art of war, and who led them on the battle-field. It is true that we have officers chosen from among ourselves, but then we are all one army, and we must go shares hand in hand with the rest in the general conflict. ”

“ They have also a pride as soldiers, which is not often found in our white regiments, where every private is only too apt to think himself specially qualified to supersede his officers. They are above all things faithful and trustworthy on duty from the start. In the best white regiments it has been found impossible to trust newly-enlisted troops with the countersign—they invariably betray it to their comrades. There has been but one such instance in this black regiment, and that was in the case of a mere boy, whose want of fidelity excited the greatest indignation among his comrades. ”

“ The employment of native troops against Germany will be a hard blow on the prestige of the white man. ==
These emotionalists urge the Imperialists against the use of black warriors for the simple reason that it would give them (the emotionalists) "a shock". So that the agony of British troops and the anxiety of British wives and mothers is not to be lessened, nor the perils of non-combatants greatly minimized, or the war hastened by a decisive concentration of the Empire's forces on the battlefield, because of the "shock" it would give the emotionalists for black to fight against white. ”

“ But they must not be overlooked, because they create a fearful discount on the usefulness of our troops, when tried by the standard of regular armies. I do not now refer to the niceties of dress-parade or the courtesies of salutation: it has long since been tacitly admitted that a white American soldier will not present arms to any number of rows of buttons, if he can by any ingenuity evade it; and to shoulder arms on passing an officer is something to which only Ethiopia or the regular army can attain. ”

“ Hardly any one in America, black or white, believed that 700 Negroes would be commissioned in the army of the United States to receive positions of honor not only beside her other troops, but on the field of battle with the flower of French and English between veteran soldiery. ”

“ The colored troops were commanded to halt and line up for action in front of the woods. Again the thought came to me, although [Pg 54] this is called the white man’s country, they need us in war as in peace, to make and to keep the country. And why is not this fact fully realized by the white people? We are more than ten million strong and are ready at any time to lay down our lives for the nation and to give our lives in service, in times of peace, in all lines of activity. This we are doing. The progress which the Negro race has made since the war is an enviable one. ”

“ Negroes—plantation negroes, at least—will never make soldiers in one generation. Five white men could put a regiment to flight; but they may be very useful in preventing sickness and death among our troops by relieving them of part of their work, and they may acquire a certain self-respect and independence which more than anything else they need to feel, if they are soon to stand by their own strength. ”

“ The opposition to the employment of negroes as soldiers, by the persistency of its advocates and the bravery of those who were then serving in white regiments, was finally overcome, so that their enlistment became general and regulated by law. Companies, battalions and regiments of negro troops soon entered the field and the struggle for independence and liberty, giving to the cause the reality of freedmen's fight. ”

“ The increased allotment of black troops entering the corps and the commandant's call for replacing all white noncommissioned officers with blacks as quickly as they could be sufficiently trained caused problems for the black combat units. ”

“ The Yankees were driven over the field and about a hundred yards into the woods, where they met fresh troops coming up, and White’s people were in turn compelled to retire, but rallying at the edge of the woods, they again charged upon the overwhelming forces of the enemy, and not only checked their advance, which was all the Colonel hoped to do, but completely routed them and drove their demoralized line for half a mile through the pines. ”

“ The Army Ground Forces considered the problem of finding and training field grade officers particularly acute since black units employing black officers, at least in the case of infantry, had proved ineffective. Yet white officers put in command of black troops felt they were being punished, and their presence added to the frustration of the blacks. ”

“ For men with no experience under heavy fire, who were not long ago working in the cotton fields and on the levees of the South, this was a trying assignment, which would have tested veterans. Never before had colored men under colored officers gone against a powerful trench system. All the British and French colored troops had white officers, and our other colored division, the 93rd, which was attached to the French Army through the summer and fall of 1918, had white officers. ”

“ The states which gave colored troops to the service made special arrangements for recruiting them, for the simple reason that necessarily a great part of them had to come from other places than the state which organized them. The provisions made for recruiting white soldiers could not be successfully applied in the case of the colored. ”

“ Better soldiers never shouldered a musket. They learned to handle arms and to march more readily than white men.”
How little thought and justice has been given to the fact that, when enlistments began, and as the demand for Confederate troops became more imperative, even old men and boys were drafted into the Southern army,—​for light duty perhaps. In some cases there was not a white man within many miles, and to the care and honor of these negroes, plantations of hundreds of acres were left that they might continue to raise food and supplies for their army. ”

“ The following sketches from his pen, published during the war, give an account of matters connected with the recruiting and organizing of negro troops in South Carolina, and are quoted here as interesting historical facts connected with the subject:
"Black troops are now an established success, and hereafter—while the race can furnish enough able-bodied males—the probability would seem that one-half the permanent naval and military forces of the United States will be drawn from this material, under the guidance and control of the white officers. ”

“ Before 1914, as we have seen, imperialistic trafficking with common race-interests usually roused wide-spread criticism, while even more, the use of colored troops in white quarrels always roused bitter popular condemnation. In the darkest hours of the Boer War, English public opinion had refused to sanction the use of either black African or brown Indian troops against the white foe, while French plans for raising black armies of African savages for use in Europe were almost universally reprobated. ”