"Sir: The colored soldiers of this district, Brevet Major-General Davidson commanding, feeling the great obligations they are under to our late president, Mr. Lincoln, and desiring to perpetuate his memory, have contributed to the erection of a monument at the national capital, as follows:
| 73th. United States Colored Infantry, Colonel W. C. Earle | $2,949.50 |
| Three Companies 63d U. S. Colored Infantry—A, C, and E— | |
| Lieutenant-Colonel Mitchell | 263.00 |
| Freedmen of Natchez | 312.38 |
| ———— | |
| Total | $3,529.85 |
"Added to this Major John P. Coleman, of the 6th United States Colored Heavy Artillery, (those that Forrest's men did not murder at Fort Pillow), stationed here, has sent you nearly five thousand dollars for the same fund, and the 57th United States Colored Infantry desire me, at the next pay-day, to collect one dollar per man, which will swell the amount to nearly ten thousand dollars. This is a large contribution from not quite seventeen hundred men, and it could have been made larger—many of the men donating over half their pay, and in some instances the whole of it—but it was thought best to limit them.
"Will you please publish this, that the colored soldiers and their friends may know that their money has gone forward, and send me a copy of the paper.
"I am, sir, with regard,
"W. C. LUPTON, Pay-master United States Navy."
"These noble contributions are a striking evidence of the favor with which this movement is regarded by the colored people, and especially the brave soldiers (the Phalanx who fought to maintain their freedom) of this oppressed race who have been fighting to carry out the proclamation of their benefactor, securing them their liberty."
There is still another evidence of the appreciation of freedom by the negro soldiers in their frugality. After the enlistment of colored troops became general, and they began to receive pay and bounties, the officers commanding them readily discovered the necessity of providing a better place for keeping the money paid them than in their pocket-books and in the soldier's knapsack. Every payday these soldiers would carry sums of money to their officers for safe keeping, until thousands of dollars were thus deposited, which were often lost in battle. In August, 1864, General Rufus Saxton, military governor of South Carolina, after mature deliberation as to the best means to be adopted for the safe keeping of these soldiers' monies, established a bank in his department. General Butler established a similar one at Norfolk, Va., about the same time. At the organization of the Freedmen's Savings and Trust company, chartered by act of Congress, these institutions transferred to the Freedmen's Bank all the monies on deposit in them, as the war had ceased, and the troops and officers were being mustered out of the United States service. The Butler Bank at Norfolk in July, 1865, transferred $7,890. In December the Saxton Bank at Beaufort transferred $170,000. Thus the sum of $177,890, belonging to soldiers in two departments only, was placed to their credit, subject to their order, in the new national bank, called into existence by like motives. This bank had branches at these places. Had similar banks been established in the other departments an enormous sum would have been collected. The Freedmen's bank, however, took the place of these military banks, and had the confidence of the soldiers who continued to deposit in its various branches throughout the south. When that institution collapsed in 1874, of the many millions of dollars deposited in it, it is estimated that two-thirds of the amount was the savings of the Phalanx. There is now in the vaults of the national government more than a quarter of a million of dollars belonging to the Phalanx, held as unclaimed bounty and pay—an ample sum from which to erect a suitable monument to commemorate the heroic devotion and patriotic endeavor of those who fell in Freedom's cause. This money doubtless belongs to those who on the battle-fields and in hospitals died for the country's honor. These are some of the lessons taught by the history of the Black Phalanx.