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Army Life in a Black Regiment

T >> Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> Army Life in a Black Regiment




Before the work at the yard was over the pickets reported mounted men in
the woods near by, as had previously been the report at Woodstock. This
admonished us to lose no time; and as we left the wharf, immediate
arrangements were made to have the gun crews all in readiness, and to
keep the rest of the men below, since their musketry would be of little
use now, and I did not propose to risk a life unnecessarily. The chief
obstacle to this was their own eagerness; penned down on one side, they
popped up on the other; their officers, too, were eager to see what was
going on, and were almost as hard to cork down as the men. Add to this,
that the vessel was now very crowded, and that I had to be chiefly on
the hurricane-deck with the pilots. Captain Clifton, master of the
vessel, was brave to excess, and as much excited as the men; he could no
more be kept in the little pilot-house than they below; and when we had
passed one or two bluffs, with no sign of an enemy, he grew more and
more irrepressible, and exposed himself conspicuously on the upper deck.
Perhaps we all were a little lulled by apparent safety; for myself, I
lay down for a moment on a settee in a state-room, having been on my
feet, almost without cessation, for twenty-four hours.

Suddenly there swept down from a bluff above us, on the Georgia side,
a mingling of shout and roar and rattle as of a tornado let loose; and
as a storm of bullets came pelting against the sides of the vessel,
and through a window, there went up a shrill answering shout from our
own men. It took but an instant for me to reach the gun-deck. After
all my efforts the men had swarmed once more from below, and already,
crowding at both ends of the boat, were loading and firing with
inconceivable rapidity, shouting to each other, "Nebber gib it up!"
and of course having no steady aim, as the vessel glided and whirled
in the swift current. Meanwhile the officers in charge of the large
guns had their crews in order, and our shells began to fly over the
bluffs, which, as we now saw, should have been shelled in advance,
only that we had to economize ammunition. The other soldiers I drove
below, almost by main force, with the aid of their officers, who
behaved exceedingly well, giving the men leave to fire from the open
port-holes which lined the lower deck, almost at the water's level. In
the very midst of the _melee_ Major Strong came from the upper deck,
with a face of horror, and whispered to me, "Captain Clifton was
killed at the first shot by my side."

If he had said that the vessel was on fire the shock would hardly have
been greater. Of course, the military commander on board a steamer is
almost as helpless as an unarmed man, so far as the risks of water go. A
seaman must command there. In the hazardous voyage of last night, I had
learned, though unjustly, to distrust every official on board the
steamboat except this excitable, brave, warm-hearted sailor; and now,
among these added dangers, to lose him! The responsibility for his life
also thrilled me; he was not among my soldiers, and yet he was killed. I
thought of his wife and children, of whom he had spoken; but one learns
to think rapidly in war, and, cautioning the Major to silence, I went up
to the hurricane-deck and drew in the helpless body, that it should be
safe from further desecration, and then looked to see where we were.

We were now gliding past a safe reach of marsh, while our assailants
were riding by cross-paths to attack us at the next bluff. It was Reed's
Bluff where we were first attacked, and Scrubby Bluff, I think, was
next. They were shelled in advance, but swarmed manfully to the banks
again as we swept round one of the sharp angles of the stream beneath
their fire. My men were now pretty well imprisoned below in the hot and
crowded hold, and actually fought each other, the officers afterwards
said, for places at the open port-holes, from which to aim. Others
implored to be landed, exclaiming that they "supposed de Cunnel knew
best," but it was "mighty mean" to be shut up down below, when they
might be "fightin' de Secesh _in de clar field_." This clear field, and
no favor, was what they thenceforward sighed for. But in such difficult
navigation it would have been madness to think of landing, although one
daring Rebel actually sprang upon the large boat which we towed astern,
where he was shot down by one of our sergeants. This boat was soon after
swamped and abandoned, then taken and repaired by the Rebels at a
later date, and finally, by a piece of dramatic completeness, was seized
by a party of fugitive slaves, who escaped in it to our lines, and some
of whom enlisted in my own regiment.

It has always been rather a mystery to me why the Rebels did not fell a
few trees across the stream at some of the many sharp angles where we
might so easily have been thus imprisoned. This, however, they did not
attempt, and with the skilful pilotage of our trusty
Corporal,--philosophic as Socrates through all the din, and occasionally
relieving his mind by taking a shot with his rifle through the high
portholes of the pilot-house,--we glided safely on. The steamer did not
ground once on the descent, and the mate in command, Mr. Smith, did his
duty very well. The plank sheathing of the pilot-house was penetrated by
few bullets, though struck by so many outside that it was visited as a
curiosity after our return; and even among the gun-crews, though they
had no protection, not a man was hurt. As we approached some wooded
bluff, usually on the Georgia side, we could see galloping along the
hillside what seemed a regiment of mounted riflemen, and could see our
shell scatter them ere we approached. Shelling did not, however, prevent
a rather fierce fusilade from our old friends of Captain dark's company
at Waterman's Bluff, near Township Landing; but even this did no serious
damage, and this was the last.

It was of course impossible, while thus running the gauntlet, to put
our hostages ashore, and I could only explain to them that they must
thank their own friends for their inevitable detention. I was by no
means proud of their forlorn appearance, and besought Colonel Hawley
to take them off my hands; but he was sending no flags of truce at
that time, and liked their looks no better than I did. So I took them
to Port Royal, where they were afterwards sent safely across the
lines. Our men were pleased at taking them back with us, as they had
already said, regretfully, "S'pose we leave dem Secesh at Fernandina,
General Saxby won't see 'em,"--as if they were some new natural
curiosity, which indeed they were. One soldier further suggested the
expediency of keeping them permanently in camp, to be used as marks
for the guns of the relieved guard every morning. But this was rather
an ebullition of fancy than a sober proposition.

Against these levities I must put a piece of more tragic eloquence,
which I took down by night on the steamer's deck from the thrilling
harangue of Corporal Adam Allston, one of our most gifted prophets,
whose influence over the men was unbounded. "When I heard," he said, "de
bombshell a-screamin' troo de woods like de Judgment Day, I said to
myself, 'If my head was took off to-night, dey couldn't put my soul in
de torments, perceps [except] God was my enemy!' And when de
rifle-bullets came whizzin' across de deck, I cried aloud, 'God help my
congregation! Boys, load and fire!'"

I must pass briefly over the few remaining days of our cruise. At
Fernandina we met the Planter, which had been successful on her separate
expedition, and had destroyed extensive salt-works at Crooked River,
under charge of the energetic Captain Trowbridge, efficiently aided by
Captain Rogers. Our commodities being in part delivered at Fernandina,
our decks being full, coal nearly out, and time up, we called once more
at St. Simon's Sound, bringing away the remainder of our railroad-iron,
with some which the naval officers had previously disinterred, and then
steamed back to Beaufort. Arriving there at sunrise (February 2, 1863),
I made my way with Dr. Rogers to General Saxton's bedroom, and laid
before him the keys and shackles of the slave-prison, with my report of
the good conduct of the men,--as Dr. Rogers remarked, a message from
heaven and another from hell.

Slight as this expedition now seems among the vast events of the war,
the future student of the newspapers of that day will find that it
occupied no little space in their columns, so intense was the interest
which then attached to the novel experiment of employing black troops.
So obvious, too, was the value, during this raid, of their local
knowledge and their enthusiasm, that it was impossible not to find in
its successes new suggestions for the war. Certainly I would not have
consented to repeat the enterprise with the bravest white troops,
leaving Corporal Sutton and his mates behind, for I should have
expected to fail. For a year after our raid the Upper St. Mary's
remained unvisited, till in 1864 the large force with which we held
Florida secured peace upon its banks; then Mrs. A. took the oath of
allegiance, the Government bought her remaining lumber, and the John
Adams again ascended with a detachment of my men under Lieutenant
Parker, and brought a portion of it to Fernandina. By a strange turn
of fortune, Corporal Sutton (now Sergeant) was at this time in jail at
Hilton Head, under sentence of court-martial for an alleged act of
mutiny,--an affair in which the general voice of our officers
sustained him and condemned his accusers, so that he soon received a
full pardon, and was restored in honor to his place in the regiment,
which he has ever since held.

Nothing can ever exaggerate the fascinations of war, whether on the
largest or smallest scale. When we settled down into camp-life again,
it seemed like a butterfly's folding its wings to re-enter the
chrysalis. None of us could listen to the crack of a gun without
recalling instantly the sharp shots that spilled down from the bluffs
of the St. Mary's, or hear a sudden trampling of horsemen by night
without recalling the sounds which startled us on the Field of the
Hundred Pines. The memory of our raid was preserved in the camp by
many legends of adventure, growing vaster and more incredible as time
wore on,--and by the morning appeals to the surgeon of some veteran
invalids, who could now cut off all reproofs and suspicions with
"Doctor, I's been a sickly pusson eber since de _expeditious_." But to
me the most vivid remembrancer was the flock of sheep which we had
"lifted." The Post Quartermaster discreetly gave us the charge of
them, and they rilled a gap in the landscape and in the larder,--
which last had before presented one unvaried round of impenetrable
beef. Mr. Obabiah Oldbuck, when he decided to adopt a pastoral life,
and assumed the provisional name of Thyrsis, never looked upon his
flocks and herds with more unalloyed contentment than I upon that
fleecy family. I had been familiar, in Kansas, with the metaphor by
which the sentiments of an owner were credited to his property, and
had heard of a proslavery colt and an antislavery cow. The fact that
these sheep were but recently converted from "Se-cesh" sentiments was
their crowning charm. Methought they frisked and fattened in the joy
of their deliverance from the shadow of Mrs. A.'s slave-jail, and
gladly contemplated translation into mutton-broth for sick or wounded
soldiers. The very slaves who once, perchance, were sold at auction
with yon aged patriarch of the flock, had now asserted their humanity,
and would devour him as hospital rations. Meanwhile our shepherd bore
a sharp bayonet without a crook, and I felt myself a peer of Ulysses
and Rob Roy,--those sheep-stealers of less elevated aims,--when I met
in my daily rides these wandering trophies of our wider wanderings.



Chapter 4
Up the St. John's


There was not much stirring in the Department of the South early in
1863, and the St. Mary's expedition had afforded a new sensation. Of
course the few officers of colored troops, and a larger number who
wished to become such, were urgent for further experiments in the same
line; and the Florida tax-commissioners were urgent likewise. I well
remember the morning when, after some preliminary correspondence, I
steamed down from Beaufort, S. C., to Hilton Head, with General Saxton,
Judge S., and one or two others, to have an interview on the matter with
Major-General Hunter, then commanding the Department.

Hilton Head, in those days, seemed always like some foreign military
station in the tropics. The long, low, white buildings, with piazzas
and verandas on the water-side; the general impression of heat and
lassitude, existence appearing to pulsate only with the sea-breeze;
the sandy, almost impassable streets; and the firm, level beach, on
which everybody walked who could get there: all these suggested
Jamaica or the East Indies. Then the head-quarters at the end of the
beach, the Zouave sentinels, the successive anterooms, the lounging
aids, the good-natured and easy General,--easy by habit and energetic
by impulse,--all had a certain air of Southern languor, rather
picturesque, but perhaps not altogether bracing. General Hunter
received us, that day, with his usual kindliness; there was a good
deal of pleasant chat; Miles O'Reilly was called in to read his latest
verses; and then we came to the matter in hand.

Jacksonville, on the St. John's River, in Florida, had been already
twice taken and twice evacuated; having been occupied by
Brigadier-General Wright, in March, 1862, and by Brigadier-General
Brannan, in October of the same year. The second evacuation was by
Major-General Hunter's own order, on the avowed ground that a garrison
of five thousand was needed to hold the place, and that this force could
not be spared. The present proposition was to take and hold it with a
brigade of less than a thousand men, carrying, however, arms and uniforms
for twice that number, and a month's rations. The claim was, that there
were fewer rebel troops in the Department than formerly, and that the
St. Mary's expedition had shown the advantage possessed by colored
troops, in local knowledge, and in the confidence of the loyal blacks.
It was also urged, that it was worth while to risk something, in the
effort to hold Florida, and perhaps bring it back into the Union.

My chief aim in the negotiation was to get the men into action, and
that of the Florida Commissioners to get them into Florida. Thus far
coinciding, we could heartily co-operate; and though General Hunter
made some reasonable objections, they were yielded more readily than I
had feared; and finally, before half our logical ammunition was
exhausted, the desired permission was given, and the thing might be
considered as done.

We were now to leave, as we supposed forever, the camp which had thus
far been our home. Our vast amount of surplus baggage made a heavy job
in the loading, inasmuch as we had no wharf, and everything had to be
put on board by means of flat-boats. It was completed by twenty-four
hours of steady work; and after some of the usual uncomfortable delays
which wait on military expeditions, we were at last afloat.

I had tried to keep the plan as secret as possible, and had requested to
have no definite orders, until we should be on board ship. But this
larger expedition was less within my own hands than was the St. Mary's
affair, and the great reliance for concealment was on certain counter
reports, ingeniously set afloat by some of the Florida men. These
reports rapidly swelled into the most enormous tales, and by the time
they reached the New York newspapers, the expedition was "a great
volcano about bursting, whose lava will burn, flow, and destroy," "the
sudden appearance in arms of no less than five thousand negroes," "a
liberating host," "not the phantom, but the reality, of servile
insurrection." What the undertaking actually was may be best seen in the
instructions which guided it.*

* HEAD-QUARTERS, BEAUFORT, S. C.,

March 5, 1863.

COLONEL,--You will please proceed with your command, the First and Second
Regiments South Carolina Volunteers, which are now embarked upon the
steamers John Adams, Boston, and Burn-side, to Fernandina, Florida.

Relying upon your military skill and judgment. I shall give you no
special directions as to your procedure after you leave Fernandina. I
expect, however, that you will occupy Jacksonville, Florida, and
intrench yourselves there.

The main objects of your expedition are to carry the proclamation of
freedom to the enslaved; to call all loyal men into the service of the
United States; to occupy as much of the State of Florida as possible
with the forces under your command; and to neglect no means consistent
with the usages of civilized warfare to weaken, harass, and annoy those
who are in rebellion against the Government of the United States.

Trusting that the blessing of our Heavenly Father will rest upon your
noble enterprise,

I am yours, sincerely,

R. SAXTON,

Brig.-Gen., Mil. Gov. Dept. of the South. Colonel Higginson, Comdg.
Expeditionary Corps.


In due time, after touching at Fernandina, we reached the difficult
bar of the St. John's, and were piloted safely over. Admiral Dupont
had furnished a courteous letter of introduction.* and we were
cordially received by Commander Duncan of the Norwich, and Lieutenant
Watson, commanding the Uncas. Like all officers on blockade duty, they
were impatient of their enforced inaction, and gladly seized the
opportunity for a different service. It was some time since they had
ascended as high as Jacksonville, for their orders were strict, one
vessel's coal was low, the other was in infirm condition, and there
were rumors of cotton-clads and torpedoes. But they gladly agreed to
escort us up the river, so soon as our own armed gunboat, the John
Adams, should arrive,--she being unaccountably delayed.

FLAG SHIP WABASH,

PORT ROYAL HARBOR, S. C., March 6, 1863. SIR,--I am informed by
Major-General Hunter that he is sending Colonel Higginson on an
important mission in the southerly part of his Department.

I have not been made acquainted with the objects of this mission, but
any assistance that you can offer Colonel Higginson, which will not
interfere with your other duties, you are authorized to give.

Respectfully your obedient servant,

S. F. DUPONT,
Rear-Adm. Comdg. S. Atl. Block. Squad.

To the Senior Officer at the different Blockading Stations on the Coast
of Georgia and Florida.


We waited twenty-four hours for her, at the sultry mouth of that glassy
river, watching the great pelicans which floated lazily on its tide, or
sometimes shooting one, to admire the great pouch, into which one of the
soldiers could insert his foot, as into a boot. "He hold one quart,"
said the admiring experimentalist. "Hi! boy," retorted another quickly,
"neber you bring dat quart measure in _my_ peck o' corn." The protest
came very promptly, and was certainly fair; for the strange receptacle
would have held nearly a gallon.

We went on shore, too, and were shown a rather pathetic little garden,
which the naval officers had laid out, indulging a dream of vegetables.
They lingered over the little microscopic sprouts, pointing them out
tenderly, as if they were cradled babies. I have often noticed this
touching weakness, in gentlemen of that profession, on lonely stations.

We wandered among the bluffs, too, in the little deserted
hamlet called "Pilot Town." The ever-shifting sand had in some cases
almost buried the small houses, and had swept around others a circular
drift, at a few yards' distance, overtopping then: eaves, and leaving
each the untouched citadel of this natural redoubt. There was also a
dismantled lighthouse, an object which always seems the most dreary
symbol of the barbarism of war, when one considers the national
beneficence which reared and kindled it. Despite the service rendered by
this once brilliant light, there were many wrecks which had been strown
upon the beach, victims of the most formidable of the Southern
river-bars. As I stood with my foot on the half-buried ribs of one of
these vessels,--so distinctly traced that one might almost fancy them
human,--the old pilot, my companion, told me the story of the wreck. The
vessel had formerly been in the Cuba trade; and her owner, an American
merchant residing in Havana, had christened her for his young daughter.
I asked the name, and was startled to recognize that of a favorite young
cousin of mine, besides the bones of whose representative I was thus
strangely standing, upon this lonely shore.

It was well to have something to relieve the anxiety naturally felt at
the delay of the John Adams,--anxiety both for her safety and for the
success of our enterprise, The Rebels had repeatedly threatened to burn
the whole of Jacksonville, in case of another attack, as they had
previously burned its mills and its great hotel. It seemed as if the
news of our arrival must surely have travelled thirty miles by this
time. All day we watched every smoke that rose among the wooded hills,
and consulted the compass and the map, to see if that sign announced the
doom of our expected home. At the very last moment of the tide, just in
time to cross the bar that day, the missing vessel arrived; all
anxieties vanished; I transferred my quarters on board, and at two the
next morning we steamed up the river.

Again there was the dreamy delight of ascending an unknown stream,
beneath a sinking moon, into a region where peril made fascination.
Since the time of the first explorers, I suppose that those Southern
waters have known no sensations so dreamy and so bewitching as those
which this war has brought forth. I recall, in this case, the faintest
sensations of our voyage, as Ponce de Leon may have recalled those of
his wandering search, in the same soft zone, for the secret of the
mystic fountain. I remember how, during that night, I looked for the
first time through a powerful night-glass. It had always seemed a
thing wholly inconceivable, that a mere lens could change darkness
into light; and as I turned the instrument on the preceding gunboat,
and actually discerned the man at the wheel and the others standing
about him,--all relapsing into vague gloom again at the withdrawal of
the glass,--it gave a feeling of childish delight. Yet it seemed only
in keeping with the whole enchantment of the scene; and had I been
some Aladdin, convoyed by genii or giants, I could hardly have felt
more wholly a denizen of some world of romance.

But the river was of difficult navigation; and we began to feel
sometimes, beneath the keel, that ominous, sliding, grating, treacherous
arrest of motion which makes the heart shudder, as the vessel does.
There was some solicitude about torpedoes, also,--a peril which became a
formidable thing, one year later, in the very channel where we found
none. Soon one of our consorts grounded, then another, every vessel
taking its turn, I believe, and then in turn getting off, until the
Norwich lay hopelessly stranded, for that tide at least, a few miles
below Jacksonville, and out of sight of the city, so that she could not
even add to our dignity by her visible presence from afar.

This was rather a serious matter, as the Norwich was our main naval
reliance, the Uncas being a small steamer of less than two hundred
tons, and in such poor condition that Commander Duncan, on finding
himself aground, at first quite declined to trust his consort any
farther alone. But, having got thus far, it was plainly my duty to
risk the remainder with or without naval assistance; and this being
so, the courageous officer did not long object, but allowed his
dashing subordinate to steam up with us to the city. This left us one
naval and one army gunboat; and, fortunately, the Burn-side, being a
black propeller, always passed for an armed vessel among the Rebels,
and we rather encouraged that pleasing illusion.

We had aimed to reach Jacksonville at daybreak; but these mishaps
delayed us, and we had several hours of fresh, early sunshine,
lighting up the green shores of that lovely river, wooded to the
water's edge, with sometimes an emerald meadow, opening a vista to
some picturesque house,--all utterly unlike anything we had yet seen
in the South, and suggesting rather the Penobscot or Kennebec. Here
and there we glided by the ruins of some saw-mill burned by the Rebels
on General Wright's approach; but nothing else spoke of war, except,
perhaps, the silence. It was a delicious day, and a scene of
fascination. Our Florida men were wild with delight; and when we
rounded the point below the city, and saw from afar its long streets,
its brick warehouses, its white cottages, and its overshadowing
trees,--all peaceful and undisturbed by flames,--it seemed, in the
men's favorite phrase, "too much good," and all discipline was merged,
for the moment, in a buzz of ecstasy.

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