The taste with which the negro soldiers arranged their quarters often prompted officers of white regiments to borrow a detail to clean and beautify the quarters of their commands. An occurrence of this kind came very near causing trouble on Morris Island, S.C. The matter was brought to the commanding General's attention and he immediately issued this order:
| DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, Headquarters in the Field. | ||
| General Orders, | } | Morris Island, S.C., Sept. 17th, 1863. |
| No. 77. | } | |
1. It has come to the knowledge of the Brig. Gen. Commanding that detachments of colored troops, detailed for fatigue duty, have been employed in one instance at least, to prepare camps and perform menial duty for white troops. Such use of these details is unauthorized and improper, and is hereafter expressly prohibited. Commanding Officers of colored regiments are directed to report promptly, to the Headquarters, any violations of this order which may come to their knowledge.
| By Order of Gen. Q. A. GILLMORE, | |
| Official: | Ed. W. Smith, Asst. Adjt. Gen'l. |
| ISRAEL Z. SEALEY, Capt. 47th N.Y. Vols., | |
| Act. Asst. Adjt. General. | |
The Southern troops generally made no objection to cleaning the quarters of their white allies, but when a detail from the 54th Mass. Reg't., on its way to the front, was re-detailed for that purpose, they refused to obey. The detail was placed under arrest. When this information reached the regiment it was only by releasing the prisoners that a turbulent spirit was quieted. There were about ten thousand negro troops in and about Morris Island at that time, and they quickly sneezed at the 54th's snuff. The negro barbers in this department had been refusing to shave and to cut the hair of negro soldiers in common with the whites. Corporal Kelley of the 54th Mass. Regiment, who had been refused a shave at a shop located near one of the brigade Headquarters, went there one evening accompanied by a number of the members of Company C. The men gathered around the barber's place of business, which rested upon posts a little up from the ground; the negro barbers were seated in their chairs resting from their labors and listening to the concert, which it was customary for a band to give each evening. As the last strains of music were being delivered, one side of the barber shop was lifted high and then suddenly dropped; it came down with a crash making a wreck of the building and its contents, except the barbers, who escaped unhurt, but who never made their appearance again. The episode resulted in the issuing of an order forbidding discrimination on account of color.
The Washington authorities established recruiting stations throughout the South. Of the difficulties under which recruiting officers labored some idea may be formed by reading the following, written by the historian of the 7th Regiment:
"The position of recruiting officer for colored troops was by no means a sinecure; on the contrary, it was attended with hardships, annoyances and difficulties without number. Moving about from place to place; often on scant rations, and always without transportation, save what could be pressed into service; sleeping in barns, out-houses, public buildings,—wherever shelter could be found, and meeting from the people everywhere opposition and dislike. To have been an officer of colored troops was of itself sufficient to ostracize, and when, in addition, one had to take from them their slaves, dislike became absolute hatred. There were, of course, exceptions, and doubtless every officer engaged on this disagreeable duty can bear testimony to receiving at times a hospitality as generous as it was unexpected, even from people whom duty compelled them to despoil. But this was always from "union men," for it must be confessed that a large proportion of the property-holders on both the eastern and western shores of the Chesapeake were as deeply in sympathy with the rebellion as their brethren over the Virginia border.
"Perhaps the most disagreeable feature of this recruiting duty was that Gen. Birney (Supt. of recruiting of negro troops in Maryland) seldom saw fit to give his subordinates anything but verbal instructions. Officers were ordered to open recruiting stations; to raid through the country, carrying off slaves from under the eyes of their masters; to press horses for their own use and that of their men, and teams and vehicles for purposes of transportation; to take forage when needed; to occupy buildings and appropriate fuel; in short, to do a hundred things they had really no legal right to do, and had they been called upon, as was likely to happen at any time, for the authority under which they were acting, they would have had nothing to show but their commissions; and if, in carrying out these verbal instructions from their chief, they had become involved in serious difficulty, they had little reason to suppose that they would be sustained by him.
"When it is remembered that slavery was at that time still a recognized institution, and that the duty of a recruiting officer often required him to literally strip a plantation of its field hands, and that, too, at a time of the year when the crops were being gathered, it is perhaps to be wondered that the bitter feelings of the slave-owners did not often find vent in open resistence and actual violence. That this delicate and disagreeable duty was performed in a manner to avoid serious difficulty certainly speaks well for the prudence and good judgment of the officers and men engaged in it.