[24] Not less than 70,000 negroes—5,000 at least of which fought for the Union.—have been driven by persecution into Kansas from the Southern States, and the exodus still continues.
[25] "Colonel Crawford ordered the prisoners to be taken to the rear without insult or injury, which conduct on his part is in striking contrast to the treatment bestowed upon our colored troops at Poison Springs. He also told a rebel lieutenant and other prisoners to inform their commanding General that colored troops had captured them, and that he must from necessity leave some of his wounded men in hospitals by the way, and that he should expect the same kind treatment shown to them that he showed to those falling into his hands; but that just such treatment as his wounded men received at their hands, whether kindness or death, should from this time forward, be meted out to all rebel falling into his hands. That if they wished to treat as prisoners of war our colored soldiers, to be exchanged for theirs, the decision was their own; but if they could afford to murder our colored prisoners to gratify their fiendish dispositions and passions, the responsibility of commensurate retaliation, to bring them to a sense of justice, was also their own. But, notwithstanding the kindness shown to their prisoners, so soon as our command left, a Texas soldier, in the presence of one of their officers, killed, in the hospital, nine of the wounded men belonging to the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry."—McAfee's Military History of Kansas.
[26] About the middle of October, Colonel Crawford received information of his nomination for the office of Governor, and came from Fort Smith to Kansas, arriving about the 20th instant, just in time to be an active participant in the expulsion of General Price and his army from the border of the State.
CHAPTER VII.
DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH.
The appearance of the negro in the Union army altered the state of affairs very much. The policy of the general Government was changed, and the one question which Mr. Lincoln had tried to avoid became the question of the war. General Butler, first at Fortress Monroe and then at New Orleans, had defined the status of the slave, "contraband" and then "soldiers," in advance of the Emancipation Proclamation. General Hunter, in command at the South, as stated in a previous chapter, had taken an early opportunity to strike the rebellion in its most vital part, by arming negroes in his Department, after declaring them free.
Notwithstanding the President revoked Hunter's order, a considerable force was organized and equipped as early as December, 1862; in fact a regiment of blacks was under arms when the President issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This regiment, the 1st South Carolina, was in command of Colonel T. W. Higginson, who with a portion of his command ascended the St. Mary's river on transports, visited Florida and Georgia, and had several engagements with the enemy. After an absence of ten or more days, the expedition returned to South Carolina without the loss of a man.
Had there been but one army in the field, and the fighting confined to one locality, the Phalanx would have been mobilized, but as there were several armies it was distributed among the several forces, and its conduct in battle, camp, march and bivouac, was spoken of by the commanders of the various armies in terms which any class of soldiers, of any race, might well be proud of.