"It isn't possible. Oh, what a shame!" exclaimed Lillie.
The Doctor said nothing, but leaned forward with marked interest.
"There is no secret about it," continued Carter. "The thing is decided on, and will be made public immediately. But it is a disagreeable affair to handle. It will make an awful outcry, here and every where. It wouldn't be wise to identify the Government too closely with it until it is sure to be a success. Consequently the darkies will be enrolled as militia—State troops, you see—just as your rebel friend Lovell, Miss Ravenel, enrolled them. Moreover, to give the arrangement a further local character it is thought best to have at least one of the regiments commanded by some well known citizen of New Orleans. I proposed this idea to the General, and he doesn't think badly of it. Now who will sacrifice himself for his country? Who will make the niggers in uniform respectable? Doctor, will you do it?"
"Papa, you shall do no such thing," cried Lillie, thoroughly provoked. Then, reproachfully, "Oh, Colonel Carter!" The Colonel laughed with immovable good humor, and surveyed her pretty wrath with calm admiration.
"Be quiet, my child," pronounced the Doctor with an unusual tone of authority. "Colonel, I am interested, exceedingly interested in what you tell me. The idea is admirable. It will be a lasting honor to the man who conceived it."
"Oh, papa!" protested Lillie. She was slightly unionized, but not in the least abolitionized.
"I am delighted that General Butler has resolved to take the responsibility of it," continued the Doctor. "Our free negroes are really a respectable class. Many of them are wealthy and well educated. In the whole south General Butler could not have found another so favorable a place to try this experiment as New Orleans."
"I am glad you think so," answered the Colonel; but he said it with an air of no great enthusiasm. In fact how could an old army officer, a West Point military Brahmin and a Virginian gentleman look with favor at first sight on the plan of raising nigger regiments?
"But as for the colonelcy," continued the Doctor. "Are you positively serious in making me that proposition?"
"Positively."