Some
of
the
ordinary
problems
of
army
discipline
seemed to
be
non-existent.
Desertion
was
utterly
unknown,
and
there was
very
little
drunkenness.
The
men
especially
enjoyed practice
on
the
target
range.
When
one
made
a
good
shot there
would
be
a
gleeful
chorus
of
"Ki!
Old
man!"
and
if
an unskilled
recruit
fired
his
piece
into
the
dirt
there
would
be "such
infinite
guffawing
and
delight,
such
rolling
over
and over
on
the
grass,
such
dances
of
ecstasy"
that
the
colonel would
remember
it
and
put
it
in
his
memoirs.
27
There
were
a
few
little
subsidiary
problems
connected with
the
use
of
colored
troops.
The
colonel
of
the
36th
U.S. Colored
Infantry
told
how
a
detachment
from
his
regiment in
the
spring
of
1864
was
sent
across
from
Point
Lookout to
the
Rappahannock
River
area
to
destroy
certain
Rebel installations.
One
group,
commanded
by
colored
non-coms and
with
no
white
officers
present,
had
a
fight
with
some Confederates
and
did
very
well,
capturing
certain
prisoners; and
the
problem
was
that
the
men
wanted
to
kill
all
of
the prisoners
forthwith,
being
restrained
only
by
their
sergeant. On
the
other
side
of
the
ledger
there
was
the
example
of Fort
Pillow,
a
Mississippi
River
post
held
by
colored
troops, which
had
been
stormed
in
recent
months
by
Bedford
Forrest's
command.
After
the
surrender
some
of
Forrest's
tough troopers
got
out
of
hand
and
turned
the
occasion
into
something
like
a
lynching
bee.
The
colored
troops
with
the
Army of
the
Potomac
could
read
no
newspapers
and
got
their
information
of
far-off
events
Heaven
knows
how,
but
every
one of
them
knew
about
Fort
Pillow.
General
Hinks,
with
colored
men
in
his
command,
urged
that
all
of
them
be
armed with
repeating
rifles
in
place
of
the
regulation
muzzle-loaders.
His
men,
he
said,
"cannot
afford
to
be
beaten
and
will not
be
taken,"
and
ought
to
have
the
best
arms
the
country could
provide.
His
request
was
ignored,
but
the
making
of
it was
significant.
28
As
a
general
thing
the
Negro
soldiers
seemed
to
hold
very little
personal
animus
against
their
former
masters.
A
white officer
discovered,
rather
to
his
surprise,
that
they
had
neither hatred
nor
affection
for
the
men
who
used
to
own
them. They
never
mentioned
their
masters
except
as
natural
enemies,
yet
it
was
the
class
they
hated,
not
the
individuals
in the
class.
They
saw
slavery,
said
this
man,
as
"a
wrong
which no
special
kindnesses
could
right."
29
When
Ferrero's
troops
were
brought
up
the
Confederates in
the
Petersburg
line
quickly
learned
about
it,
and
they
despised
the
whole
IX
Corps
because
of
it.
On
Burnside's
front the
fighting
became
vicious.
There
were
no
picket-line
truces and
no
lulls
in
the
fighting.
Off
to
the
left,
where
Warren's men
held
the
line,
tolerant
Southerners
might
call,
"Down, Yank!"
before
opening
fire,
but
there
was
no
more
of
that in
Burnside's
sector.
Sharpshooters
kept
their
pieces
trained on
the
firing
slit
and
they
were
shooting
to
kill.
80
The
men
in
Ferrero's
division,
meanwhile,
were
im
mensely
proud
of
their
new
assignment.
As
they
sat
about their
campfires
in
the
evening
they
made
up
a
new
song:
We
looks
like
men
a-marching
on;
We
looks
like
men
o'war—
and
they
sang
it
on
every
possible
occasion.
Ferrero
drilled them
in
the
maneuvers
that
would
be
expected
of
them.
After
the
mine
was
exploded,
they
were
to
charge
straight ahead.
White
divisions
would
follow
them,
wheeling
to
right and
left
to
protect
their
flanks,
but
they
were
to
go
straight on
and
seize
the
long
ridge
that
overlooked
Petersburg.
That would
come
very
close
to
ending
the
war,
and
for
these
colored
men
it
would
be
a
new
beginning,
and
the
soldiers were
buoyant
and
worked
hard
on
their
behind-the-lines
rehearsals.
81
Yet
there
was
a
doom
over
the
men,
and
an
extra
sense seemed
to
tell
them
that
things
were
not
going
to
be
simple. A
prodigious
thing
was
happening,
and
it
could
not
happen easily.
Here
were
men
who
had
been
held
on
a
level
with the
mule
and
the
ox,
animated
property
with
no
rights
which anyone
was
bound
to
respect,
and
now
they
were
becoming men,
and
the
very
word
"American"
was
taking
on
a
new meaning.
The
war
had
changed.
The
soldiers
were
different and
the
country
was
different,
and
only
the
dream
that
had possessed
them
would
go
on.
It
was
a
dream
that
nobody could
ever
quite
put
into
words,
but
it
was
growing
as
men died
for
it,
and
now
it
appeared
that
colored
men
could
share in
it.