"Are we to understand that in this age a captain cannot afford to equal a negro in politeness?" was the provoking question of the correspondent.
"Do you want to be buried with a nigger, and have your bones touch his in the grave?"
"As to that I have no feeling whatever. I do not suppose that it will make much difference to the bones of either party."
"Well, when I die I want twenty niggers packed all around me," shouted the captain, excitedly, turning to the crowd to see the effect of his sarcasm.
"I presume, sir, you can be accommodated if you can get the consent of the twenty negroes."
The captain saw that he was losing his argument by losing his temper, and in calmer tones said: "I want to see the negro kept in his proper place. I am perfectly willing he should use the shovel, but it is an outrage upon the white man,—an insult to have him carry a musket."
"I would just as soon see a negro shot as to get shot myself. I am perfectly willing that all the negroes should help put down the Rebellion," said the correspondent.
"I am not willing to have them act as soldiers. Put them in the ditches, where they belong. They are an inferior race."
A second correspondent broke in. "Who are you, sir?" said he; "you who condemn the government? You forget that you as a soldier have nothing to say about the orders of the President or the laws of Congress. You say that the negro is an inferior being; what do you say of Frederick Douglass, who has raised himself from slavery to a high position? Your straps were placed on your shoulders, not because you had done anything to merit them, but because you had friends to intercede for you,—using their political influence,—or because you had money, and could purchase your commission. You hate the negro, and you want to keep him in slavery, and you allow your prejudice to carry you to the verge of disloyalty to the government which pays you for unworthily wearing your shoulder-straps."
The captain and the entire company listened in silence while another correspondent took up the question.