Creative Books

I had one excellent opportunity to note this change. On the
6th of April, Colonel Higginson's regiment was assigned to picket-duty
on Port Royal Island,--the first active duty it had performed on the Sea
Islands,--and was to relieve the Pennsylvania Fifty-Fifth. When, after a
march of ten miles, it reached the advanced picket-station, there were
about two hundred soldiers of the Pennsylvania Fifty-Fifth awaiting
orders to proceed to Beaufort. I said, in a careless tone, to one of the
Pennsylvania soldiers, who was looking at Higginson's regiment as it
stood in line,--
"Isn't this rather new, to be relieved by a negro regiment?"
"All right," said he. "They've as much right to fight for themselves as
I have to fight for them."
A squad of half a dozen men stood by, making no dissent, and accepting
him as their spokesman. Moving in another direction, I said to a
soldier,--
"What do you think of that regiment?"
The answer was,--
"All right. I'd rather they'd shoot the Rebels than have the Rebels
shoot me"; and none of the by-standers dissented.


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