The Black Phalanx Part 24

"As soon as this was done I gave the order to cease firing and fix bayonets, and followed that immediately with the order to charge the battery.

"These orders were executed with a courage and daring seldom equaled by even older troops, and never excelled by a volunteer regiment.

"In less than two minutes from the time the charge was ordered, the rebel battery was in our possession, and out of thirty-six horses used in the battery, but two were left standing when we pa.s.sed the guns.

"Most of the artillery-men lay dead and wounded around the battery while the line of infantry support in the rear of battery, fell back in disorder before our bayonets; not, however, until many of them had for the first time felt the effects of cold steel.

"The charge, though b.l.o.o.d.y on both sides, was pre-eminently successful, and my regiment, "the 2nd Iron Clads," as it was called, brought away the battery so captured.

"In the charge, the regiment lost in killed and wounded, some forty odd men and officers. All of our horses, field and staff, were shot and most of them killed. The color bearer Harrison Young, a hero among men, was wounded and fell, raised to his feet and was again twice wounded. A comrade then took the flag and was wounded, and a third man brought it off the field.

"A wounded lieutenant of the battery was brought to me, as a prisoner;[25] but in view of the ma.s.sacre of colored troops by the rebels at Fort Pillow and other places, I sent the Lieutenant immediately back through the lines, pointing him to the regiment that had made the charge, and telling him that since the rebel authorities had concluded to take no prisoners, belonging to colored regiments, it would hardly be proper for me to hold him as a prisoner; that they had established the precedent, and that in so far as I was concerned, they could 'lay on MacDuff.' The Lieutenant rejoined his command a sadder if not a wiser man.

"After the charge I moved with my regiment to the centre, where the battle was then raging hottest. Here it remained in the thickest of the fight until an advance was ordered all along the line, which was made, the enemy falling back slowly before our troops, and finally retired from the field, leaving us in full possession, with a complete victory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHALANX SOLDIERS BRINGING IN A CAPTURED BATTERY]

"Only infantry was engaged on either side except the rebel battery, which my regiment captured.

"Our cavalry, some five thousand strong, and artillery, about forty pieces, as already stated, were on the North side of the river, and could not be brought into action, to advantage, on account of the dense forest and swampy nature of the ground. We had about fifteen thousand men engaged, while the enemy had the armies of Price and Kirby Smith, from which our _gallant_ commander, Steele, had for many days been fleeing, as from the wrath to come. During the entire battle Steele remained on the north side of the river, beyond the reach of the enemy's guns, and at a point from which he could continue his flight with safety in case of defeat. But the victory was ours, so the march from Saline river to Little Rock was made in peace.

"During this battle my regiment lost in killed and wounded about eighty men, but we were richly rewarded by the achievements of the day. We, perhaps, had as much to do with bringing on the battle as any other one regiment. I went into action in the morning without orders. In fact I disobeyed an order to cross the river at daylight, and instead, I formed my regiment and faced the enemy. The regiment charged the battery by my orders, and against an order from a superior officer, to hold back and wait for orders.

"My regiment, though among the first in action, and having suffered a greater loss than that of any other, was the last to leave the field.

"From this time forward until the close of the war, in so far as the Western army was concerned, we heard no more of the question, 'Will they fight?'

"The reputation of at least one colored regiment was established, and it stands to-day, in the estimation of men who served in the Western army, as the equal of any other volunteer regiment.

"After the Saline river battle the regiment moved back to Little Rock and thence to Fort Smith, in western Arkansas.

"In July 1864, with the 2nd and other troops, I conducted an expedition through the Choctaw Nation in the Indian Territory, against, or rather in pursuit of a brigade of rebel forces, driving them out of that country. During this campaign several light engagements were fought, in each of which the 2nd took a prominent part, and in each of which the 2nd was invariably successful.

"In the fall of 1864[26], I resigned my position as Colonel to a.s.sume other duties.

"What took place from then until the regiment was mustered out of service, I only know from heresay, but it is safe to say that the regiment maintained its reputation as one of the best infantry regiments in the 7th Army Corps.

"A short time before I left the regiment, General Marcy, then Inspector General of the U.S. Army, inspected the Kansas Division, to which my regiment belonged, and his report, which is now on file in the War Department, if I am not mistaken, shows that the 2nd Colored in point of drill, discipline and military appearance, stood first of all the regiments in that Division.

"Yours truly,

"SAMUEL J. CRAWFORD.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gilpatrick, promoted from Major, took command of the regiment succeeding Colonel Crawford, and in December made a forced march to Hudson's crossing on the Neosho river, by way of Fort Gibson, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, on quarter rations, and returned as escort to a large supply train. It was then, with all the Phalanx regiments at Fort Smith, ordered to Little Rock, where it arrived with a very large train of refugees under charge, on the 4th of February, after a march of seventeen days.

Colonel Gilpatrick says:

"The men suffered severely on the march by exposure to wet and cold and for the want of proper and sufficient food, clothing and shelter. Many of them were barefooted, almost naked, and without blankets."

The regiment remained at Little Rock until the spring of 1865, when it formed part of an expedition which proceeded some distance south of Little Rock, and operated against a band of guerillas on the Saline river, which they succeeded in driving out and partly capturing. On the 25th of July the regiment broke camp and proceeded to Camden, Arkansas, and was mustered out of the United States service, and proceeding by way of Pine Bluff, Ark., Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis, Mo., reached Leavenworth, Kansas, where the men were finally paid and discharged on the 27th of November, 1865. These brave men immediately returned to their homes to enjoy the blessings of a free government.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WOODEN HORSE.

A mode of punishment for slight offences.]

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Not less than 70,000 negroes--5,000 at least of which fought for the Union.--have been driven by persecution into Kansas from the Southern States, and the exodus still continues.

[25] "Colonel Crawford ordered the prisoners to be taken to the rear without insult or injury, which conduct on his part is in striking contrast to the treatment bestowed upon our colored troops at Poison Springs. He also told a rebel lieutenant and other prisoners to inform their commanding General that colored troops had captured them, and that he must from necessity leave some of his wounded men in hospitals by the way, and that he should expect the same kind treatment shown to them that he showed to those falling into his hands; but that just such treatment as his wounded men received at their hands, whether kindness or death, should from this time forward, be meted out to all rebel falling into his hands. That if they wished to treat as prisoners of war our colored soldiers, to be exchanged for theirs, the decision was their own; but if they could afford to murder our colored prisoners to gratify their fiendish dispositions and pa.s.sions, the responsibility of commensurate retaliation, to bring them to a sense of justice, was also their own. But, notwithstanding the kindness shown to their prisoners, so soon as our command left, a Texas soldier, in the presence of one of their officers, killed, in the hospital, nine of the wounded men belonging to the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry."--_McAfee's Military History of Kansas._

[26] About the middle of October, Colonel Crawford received information of his nomination for the office of Governor, and came from Fort Smith to Kansas, arriving about the 20th instant, just in time to be an active partic.i.p.ant in the expulsion of General Price and his army from the border of the State.

CHAPTER VII.

DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH.

The appearance of the negro in the Union army altered the state of affairs very much. The policy of the general Government was changed, and the one question which Mr. Lincoln had tried to avoid became _the_ question of the war. General Butler, first at Fortress Monroe and then at New Orleans, had defined the status of the slave, "contraband" and then "soldiers," in advance of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. General Hunter, in command at the South, as stated in a previous chapter, had taken an early opportunity to strike the rebellion in its most vital part, by arming negroes in his Department, after declaring them free.

Notwithstanding the President revoked Hunter's order, a considerable force was organized and equipped as early as December, 1862; in fact a regiment of blacks was under arms when the President issued the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. This regiment, the 1st South Carolina, was in command of Colonel T. W. Higginson, who with a portion of his command ascended the St. Mary's river on transports, visited Florida and Georgia, and had several engagements with the enemy. After an absence of ten or more days, the expedition returned to South Carolina without the loss of a man.

Had there been but one army in the field, and the fighting confined to one locality, the Phalanx would have been mobilized, but as there were several armies it was distributed among the several forces, and its conduct in battle, camp, march and bivouac, was spoken of by the commanders of the various armies in terms which any cla.s.s of soldiers, of any race, might well be proud of.

General Grant, on the 24th of July, following the capture of Vicksburg, wrote to the Adjutant-General:

"The negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among than are our white troops, and I doubt not will prove equally good for garrison duty. All that have been tried have fought bravely."

This was six days after the unsurpa.s.sed bravery of the 54th Regiment Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteers--representing the North in the black Phalanx--had planted its bloodstained banner on the ramparts of Fort Wagner. It was the Southern negroes, who, up to this time, had reddened the waters of the Mississippi. It was the freedman's blood that had moistened the soil, and if ignorance could be so intrepid still greater daring might be expected on the part of the more intelligent men of the race.

The a.s.sault on Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, was one of the most heroic of the whole four years' war. A very graphic account of the entire movement is given in the following article:

"At daylight, on the morning of the 12th of July a strong column of our troops advanced swiftly to the attack of Fort Wagner. The rebels were well prepared, and swept with their guns every foot of the approach to the fort, but our soldiers pressed on, and gained a foothold on the parapet; but, not being supported by other troops, nor aided by the guns of the fleet, which quietly looked on, they were forced to retreat, leaving many of their comrades in the hands of the enemy.

"It is the opinion of many that if the fleet had moved up at the same time, and raked the fort with their guns, our troops would have succeeded in taking it; but the naval captains said in their defence that they knew nothing of the movement, and would have gladly a.s.sisted in the attack had they been notified.

"This, unfortunately, was not the only instance of a want of harmony or co-operation between the land and naval forces operating against Charleston. Had they been under the control of one mind, the sacrifice of life in the siege of Forts Wagner and Sumter would have been far less. We will not a.s.sume to say which side was at fault, but by far the greater majority lay the blame upon the naval officers.

Warfare kindles up the latent germs of jealousy in the human breast, and the late rebellion furnished many cruel examples of its effects, both among the rebels and among the patriots. We have had the misfortune to witness them in more than one campaign, and upon more than one b.l.o.o.d.y and disastrous field.

"By the failure of this attack, it was evident that the guns of Wagner must be silenced before a successful a.s.sault with infantry could be made; and, in order to accomplish this, a siege of greater or less duration was required. Therefore earthworks were immediately thrown up at the distance of about a thousand yards from the fort, and the guns and mortars from Folly Island brought over to be placed in position.

"This Morris Island is nothing but a narrow bed of sand, about three miles in length, with a breadth variable from a few hundred yards to a few feet. Along the central portion of the lower end a ridge of white sand hills appear, washed on one side by the tidal waves, and sloping on the other into broad marshes, more than two miles in width, and intersected by numerous deep creeks. Upon the extreme northern end, Battery Gregg, which the rebels used in reducing Fort Sumter in 1861, had been strengthened, and mounted with five heavy guns, which threw their shot more than half way down the island. A few hundred yards farther down the island, and at its narrowest portion, a strong fort had been erected, and armed with seventeen guns and mortars.

This was the famous Fort Wagner; and, as its cannon prevented any farther progress up the island, it was necessary to reduce it before our forces could approach nearer to Fort Sumter.

"It was thought by our engineers that a continuous bombardment of a few days by our siege batteries and the fleet might dismount the rebel cannon, and demoralize the garrison, so that our brave boys, by a sudden rush, might gain possession of the works. Accordingly our siege train was brought over from Folly Island, and a parallel commenced about a thousand yards from Wagner. Our men worked with such energy that nearly thirty cannon and mortars were in position on the 17th of July. On the 18th of July the bombardment commenced. The land batteries poured a tempest of shot into the south side of Wagner, while the fleet moved up to within short range, and battered the east side with their great guns. In the mean time the rebels were not silent, but gallantly stood to their guns, returning shot for shot with great precision. But, after a few hours, their fire slackened; gun after gun became silent, as the men were disabled, and, when the clock struck four in the afternoon, Wagner no longer responded to the furious cannonade of the Federal forces. Even the men had taken shelter beneath the bomb-proofs, and no sign of life was visible about the grim and battered fortress.