This Hallowed Ground - Bruce Catton [147]
Shortly before the new policy was adopted a Union force came back to its base at Corinth, Mississippi, after some foray deeper into the state, and when it marched in it was followed by hundreds upon hundreds of fugitive slaves. The army command at Corinth did not want these people — had, in fact, very little idea what it could do with or about them — but it could not send them back, and it fenced off a big camp, put the ex-slaves into it, detailed a couple of infantry regiments to guard it, and plucked a chaplain from the 27th Ohio and told him he was in charge. The soldiers objected bitterly to guard duty, declaring that they had come down to Dixie to fight Rebels and not to be policemen for a lot of runaway slaves, and the chaplain came up with an idea. Let him (he urged) form a few infantry companies from among the men in the contraband camp; with a little drill and the proper direction they ought to be able to stand guard over their own people.
The commanding officer agreed that this was a good idea. He had no legal authority to do anything of the kind, but he dug up rifles and uniforms, detailed a few line sergeants to act as officers, and before long here was a detachment of illegal but effective Negro troops, pleased as could be with their uniforms and their responsibility, and the Corinth contraband camp was in effect taking care of itself.9
These contraband camps were not usually very inspiring places to look at. There was a huge one on a levee not far from Vicksburg, crammed with fugitives who huddled without shelter, subsisted on army rations, got no real care from anyone, and died by the dozen from bad sanitation, exposure, overcrowding, and general homesick bewilderment. Yet the faith that had brought them here — a faith that freedom was good and that the road to it somehow led through the camps of the Union army — did not seem to leave them, even when their camp became a shambles. A Wisconsin soldier who was detailed for duty around this camp looked on in silent wonder at the prayer meetings that were held every night. There were no lights; none was needed, he thought, since the leaders of the meeting had no Bibles or hymnals and could not have read from them if they had them; there was just a great crowd of men and women, dimly seen, bowed to the ground, swaying rhythmically as they prayed that God would set His people free and would send His blessing down on Massa Lincoln, Massa Grant, and all of Massa Lincoln’s soldiers.
Before and after the prayers the air would be tremulous with music, which was of a kind the Wisconsin boy had never heard before. “I beg you,” he wrote, “not to think of it as being like the jargon of the burnt-cork minstrels who sing for money. I cannot describe the pathos of the melody nor the sweet tenderness of the words as they arose on the night air.”10
Almost to a man the male contrabands were eager to enlist when the chance was offered. Yet disillusionment usually came soon afterward. It was hard for generals to think of them as combat troops; for the most part the Negro was looked upon as a sort of servant to the white soldiers, he got much more than his share of fatigue duty, and in some camps he was excused from drill altogether so that he might dig ditches, raise fortifications, and perform other pick-and-shovel work. When they were kept at this non-military work, it was noted, most colored soldiers became restive, sullen, sometimes insubordinate.11
In the main, though, the newly enlisted Negro was intensely proud of his status as soldier. His pride could be surprising at times, because it seemed to go deeper than mere pride in a musket and a uniform and became pride in a new status as a human being. When Governor Andrew of Massachusetts induced the legislature to appropriate money to equalize the pay for the state’s two colored regiments, he and the legislators