Creative Books

On the day
previous, May 27th, a far different scene transpired on the banks of the
Mississippi. Two black regiments, enlisted some months before in
Louisiana under the order of Major-General Butler, both with line and
one with field officers of their own lineage, made charge after charge
on the batteries of Port Hudson, and were mown down like summer's grass,
the survivors, many with mutilated limbs, closing up the thinned ranks
and pressing on again, careless of life, and mindful only of honor and
duty, with a sublimity of courage unsurpassed in the annals of war, and
leaving there to all mankind an immortal record for themselves and their
race.
I cannot here forbear a momentary tribute to Wentworth Higginson.
Devoting himself heroically to his great work, absorbed in its duties,
and bearing his oppressive responsibility as the leader of a regiment in
which to a great extent are now involved the fortunes of a race, he adds
another honorable name to the true chivalry of our time.


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