The Negro as a Soldier - Written by Christian A. Fleetwood, Sergeant-Major 4th U.S. Colored Troops, for the Negro Congress at the Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, Ga., November 11 to November 23, 1895 "It seems a little singular that in the tremendous struggle between the States in 1861-1865, the south should have been the first to take steps toward the enlistment of Negroes. Yet such is the fact. Two weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter, the "Charleston Mercury" records the passing through Augusta of several companies of the 3rd and 4th Georgia Regt., and of sixteen well-drilled companies and one Negro company from Nashville, Tenn. "The Memphis Avalanche" and "The Memphis Appeal" of May 9, 10, and 11, 1861, give notice of the appointment by the "Committee of Safety" of a committee of three persons "to organize a volunteer company composed of our patriotic freemen of color of the city of Memphis, for the service of our common defense." A telegram from New Orleans dated November 23, 1861, notes the review by Gov. Moore of over 28,000 troops, and that one regiment comprised "1,400 colored men." The New Orleans Picayune, referring to a review held February 9, 1862, says: "We must also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very well drilled and comfortably equipped." It is not in the line of this paper to speculate upon what would have been the result of the war had the South kept up this policy, enlisted the freemen, and emancipated the enlisting slaves and their families. The immense addition to their fighting force, the quick recognition of them by Great Britain, to which slavery was the greatest bar, and the fact that the heart of the Negro was with the South but for slavery (ed. emphasis), and the case stands clear. But the primary successes of the South closed its eyes to its only chance of salvation, while at the same time the eyes of the North were opened. In 1865, the South saw, and endeavored to remedy its error. On March 9, 1865, the Confederate Congress passed a bill, recommended by Gen. Lee, authorizing the enlistment of 200,000 Negroes; but it was then too late.

INTO THE FIGHT - Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg; John Michael Priest, White Mane Books, 1998 - pp 128: "Color Corporal George B. Powell (14th Tennessee) went down during the advance. Boney Smith, a Black man attached to the regiment, took the colors and carried them forward." pp 130-131: "The colors of the 14th Tennessee got within fifty feet of the east wall before Boney Smith hit the dirt ---wounded. Jabbing the flagstaff in the ground, he momentarily urged the regiment forward until the intense pressure forced the men to lie down to save their lives."

A Woman's Wartime Journal: an Account of the Passage over Georgia's Plantation of Sherman's Army on the March to the Sea, as Recorded in the Diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt (Mrs. Thomas Burge). New York: The Century Co., 1918. p 24-26. "Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, - a lame boy he was, - but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said: "Stay in my room." But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield. James Arnold, in trying to escape from a back window, was captured and marched off. Henry, too, was taken; I know not how or when, but probably when he and Bob went after the mules. I had not believed they would force from their homes the poor, doomed negroes, but such has been the fact here, cursing them and saying that "Jeff Davis wanted to put them in his army, but that they should not fight for him, but for the Union." No! Indeed no! They are not friends to the slave...it is strange, passing strange, that the all-powerful Yankee nation with the whole world to back them, their ports open, their armies filled with soldiers from all nations, should at last take the poor negro to help them out against this little Confederacy which was to have been brought back into the Union in sixty days' time!" p 26-27. "Their [the slaves] cabins are rifled of every valuable, the soldiers swearing that their Sunday clothes were the white people's, and that they never had money to get such things as they had. Poor Frank's chest was broken open, his money and tobacco taken. He has always been a money-making and saving boy; not infrequently has his crop brought him five hundred dollars and more. All of his clothes and Rachel's clothes, which dear Lou gave before her death and which she had packed away, were stolen from her. Ovens, skillets, coffee-mills, of which we had three, coffee-pots - not one have I left. Sifters all gone!"

The Story of a Confederate Boy in the Civil War By David E. Johnston of the 7th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Copyright, 1914, by David E. Johnston, Published by Glass & Prudhomme Company, Portland, OR "Two members of our company, Samuel B. and Joseph C. Shannon, sons of Thomas Shannon, had with them a negro servant, Bob, as their cook. Bob was noted for his propensity for laughing, and when in a good glee he could be heard half a mile. He was very patriotic, and declared his purpose to go into battle with his young masters; that he could and would fight as well as we, and shoot as many Yankees. In this Bob was in earnest..."

A JOURNAL, KEPT BY EMMA FLORENCE LeCONTE, FROM DEC. 31, 1864 TO AUG. 6, 1865, WRITTEN IN HER SEVENTEENTH YEAR AND CONTAINING A DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA, BY ONE WHO WAS AN EYEWITNESS. Transcript prepared by the Historical Records Survey of the Works Progress Administration, May, 1938, p. 1: "...Sherman the brute avows his intention of converting South Carolina into a wilderness. Not one house, he says, shall be left standing, and his licentious troops - whites and negroes - shall be turned loose to ravage and violate." p 30-31 "The drunken devils roamed about setting fire to every house the flames seemed likely to spare. They were fully equipped for the noble work they had in hand. Each soldier was furnished with combustibles compactly put up. They would enter houses and in the presence of helpless women and children, pour turpentine on the beds and set them on fire. Guards were rarely of any assistance - most generally they assisted in the pillaging and firing. The wretched people rushing from their burning homes were not allowed to keep even the few necessaries they gathered up in their flight - even blankets and food were taken from them and destroyed. p. 37 "Some soldiers were pillaging the house of a lady. One asked her if they had not humbled her pride now - "No indeed" she said, "Nor can you ever". "You fear us anyway" - "No" she said. "By G-, but you shall fear me", and he cocked his pistol and put it to her head - "Are you afraid now?" She folded her arms and looking him steadily in the eye said contemptuously, "no."

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