General Morgan, by request furnishes the following highly interesting and historical statement of his services with the Phalanx Brigade:
"The American Civil War of 1861-5 marks an epoch not only in the history of the United States, but in that of democracy, and of civilization. Its issue has vitally affected the course of human progress. To the student of history it ranks along with the conquests of Alexander; the incursions of the Barbarians; the Crusades; the discovery of America and the American Revolution. It settled the question of our National unity with all the consequences attaching thereto. It exhibited in a very striking manner the power of a free people to preserve their form of government against its most dangerous foe, Civil War. It not only enfranchised four millions of American slaves of African descent, but made slavery forever impossible in the great Republic, and gave a new impulse to the cause of human freedom. Its influence upon American slaves was immediate and startlingly revolutionary, lifting them from the condition of despised chattels, bought and sold like sheep in the market, with no rights which the white man was bound to respect,—to the exalted plane of American citizenship; made them free men, the peers in every civil and political right, of their late masters. Within about a decade after the close of the war, negroes, lately slaves, were legislators, state officers, members of Congress, and for a brief time one presided over the Senate of the United States, where only a few years before, Toombs had boasted that he would yet call the roll of his slaves in the shade of Bunker Hill.
"To-day slavery finds no advocate, and the colored race in America is making steady progress in all the elements of civilization. The conduct of the American slave during, and since the war, has wrought an extraordinary change in public sentiment, regarding the capabilities of the race.
"The manly qualities of the negro soldiers, evinced in camp, on the march and in battle, won for them golden opinions, made their freedom a necessity and their citizenship a certainty.
"Those of us who assisted in organizing, disciplining and leading negro troops in battle, may, perhaps, be pardoned for feeling a good degree of pride in our share of the thrilling events of the great war.
"When Sumter was fired upon, April, 1861, I was 21; a member of the Senior Class in Franklin College, Indiana. I enlisted in the 7th Indiana Volunteer infantry and served as a private soldier for three months in West Virginia, under Gen. McClellan,—'the young Napoleon,' as he was even then known. I participated in the battle of Carricks Ford, where Gen. Garnett was killed and his army defeated. In August, 1862, I re-enlisted as a First Lieutenant in the 70th Indiana, (Col. Benjamin Harrison) and saw service in Kentucky and Tennessee.
"In January 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Emancipation, and incorporated in it the policy of arming the negro for special service in the Union army. Thus the question was fairly up, and I entered into its discussion with the deepest interest, as I saw that upon its settlement hung great issues.
"On the one hand the opponents of the policy maintained that to make soldiers of the negroes would be to put them on the same level with white soldiers, and so be an insult to every man who wore the blue. It was contended, too, that the negro was not fit for a soldier because he belonged to a degraded, inferior race, wanting in soldierly qualities; that his long bondage had crushed out whatever of manliness he might naturally possess; that he was too grossly ignorant to perform, intelligently, the duties of the soldier; that his provocation had been so great as a slave, that when once armed, and conscious of his power as a soldier, he would abuse it by acts of revenge and wanton cruelty.
"It was urged, on the other hand, that in its fearful struggle for existence, the Republic needed the help of the able-bodied negroes; that with their natural instincts of self-preservation, desire for liberty, habit of obedience, power of imitation, love of pomp and parade, acquaintance with the southern country and adaptation to its climate, they had elements which peculiarly fitted them for soldiers. It was further urged that the negro had more at stake than the white man, and that he should have a chance to strike a blow for himself. It was particularly insisted upon that he needed just the opportunity which army service afforded to develop and exhibit whatever of manliness he possessed. As the war progressed, and each great battle-field was piled with heaps of the killed and wounded of our best citizens, men looked at each other seriously, and asked if a black man would not stop a bullet as well as a white man? Miles O'Reilly at length voiced a popular sentiment when he said,