"I would particularly call the attention of the department to Major F.E. Dumas, Capt. Villeverd and Lieuts. Jones and Martin, who were constantly in the thickest of the fight, and by their unflinching bravery and admirable handling of their commands, contributed to the success of the attack, and reflected great honor upon the flag for which they so nobly struggled."[33]
The battle which settled for all time the bravery of black troops, and ought as well to silence all question about the capacity of colored officers, was the storming of Port Hudson, May 27, 1863. For months the Confederates had had uninterrupted opportunity to strengthen their works at Port Hudson at a time when an abundance of slave labor was at their disposal. They had constructed defenses of remarkable strength. On a bluff, eighty feet above the river, was a series of batteries mounting in all twenty siege guns. For land defenses they had a continuous line of parapet of strong profile, beginning at a point on the river a mile from Port Hudson and extending in a semi-circle for three or four miles over a country for the most part rough and broken, and ending again at the river, a half mile north of Port Hudson. At appropriate positions along this line four bastion works were constructed and thirty pieces of field artillery were posted. The average thickness of the parapet was twenty feet, and the depth of the ditch below the top of the parapet was fifteen feet. The ground beh ind the parapet was well adapted for the prompt movement of troops.[34]
On the 24th of May General Banks reached the immediate vicinity of Port Hudson, and proceeded at once to invest the place.
On the 27th the assault was ordered. Two colored regiments of Louisiana Native Guards, the First Regiment with all line officers colored, and the Third with white officers throughout, were put under command of Colonel John A. Nelson, of the Third Regiment, and assigned to position on the right of the line, where the assault was begun. The right began the assault in the morning; for some reason the left did not assault until late in the afternoon. Six companies of the First Louisiana and nine companies of the Third, in all 1080 men, were formed in column of attack. Even now, one cannot contemplate unmoved the desperate valor of these black troops and the terrible slaughter among them as they were sent to their impossible task that day in May. Moving forward in double quick time the column emerged from the woods, and passing over the plain strewn with felled trees and entangled brushwood, plunged into a fury of shot and shell as they charged for the batteries on the rebel left. Again and again that unsupported column of black troops held to their hopeless mission by the unrelenting order of the brigade commander, hurled itself literally into the jaws of death, many meeting horrible destruction actually at the cannon's mouth.
It was a day prodigal with deeds of fanatical bravery. The colors of the First Louisiana, torn and shivered in that fearful hail of fire, were still borne forward in front of the works by the color-sergeant, until a shell from the enemy cut the flag in two and gave the sergeant his mortal wound. He fell spattering the flag with blood and brains and hugged it to his bosom as he lay in the grasp of death. Two corporals sprang forward to seize the colors, contending in generous rivalry until a rebel sharpshooter felled one of them across the sergeant's lifeless body. The other dashed proudly forward with the flag. Sixteen men fell that day defending the colors.
Black officers and white officers commanded side by side, moving among the men to prompt their valor by word and example, revealing no difference in their equal contempt of death. Captain Quinn, of the Third Regiment, with forty reckless followers, bearing their rifles and cartridge boxes above their heads, swam the ditch and leaped among the guns, when they were ordered back to escape a regiment of rebels hastening for their rear. Six of them re-crossed alive, and of these only two were unhurt, the brave Quinn and a Lieutenant. The gallant Captain Andre Cailloux, who commanded the color company of the First Louisiana, a man black as night, but a leader by birth and education, moved in eager zeal among his men, cheering them on by words and his own noble example, with his left arm already shattered, proudly refusing to leave the field. In a last effort of heroism, he sprang to the front of his company, commanded his men to follow him, and in the face of that murderous fire, gallantly led them forward until a shell smote him to death but fifty yards from the works.
Cailloux, a pure Negro in blood, was born a freeman and numbered generations of freemen among his ancestry. He had fine presence, was a man of culture and possessed wealth. He had raised his company by his own efforts, and attached them to him, not only by his ardent pride of race, which made him boast his blackness, but also by his undoubted talents for command. His heroic death was mo urned by thousands of his race who had known him. His body, recovered after the surrender, was given a soldier's burial in his own native city of New Orleans.
When the day was spent, the bleeding and shattered column was at length recalled. The black troops did not take the guns, but the day's work had won for them a fame that cannot die. The nation, which had received them into the service half-heartedly, and out of necessity, was that day made to witness a monotony of gallantry and heroism that compelled everywhere awe and admiration. Black soldiers, and led by black officers as well as white, assigned a task hopeless and impossible at the start, had plunged into that withering storm of shot and shell, poured fourth by artillery and infantry, charging over a field strewn with obstacles, and in madness of bravery had more than once thrown the thin head of their column to the very edge of the guns. They recoiled only to reform their broken lines and to start again their desperate work. When the day was gone, and they were called back, the shattered remnant of the column which had gone forth in the morning still burned with passion. With that day's work of black soldiers under black officers, a part forever of the military glory of the Republic, there are those who yet dare to declare that Negroes cannot command.
The assault on Port Hudson had been unsuccessful all along the line. A second assault was ordered June 13. It, too, was unsuccessful. The fall of Vicksburg brought the garrison to terms. The surrender took place July 9, 1863. In the report of the general commanding, the colored soldiers were given unstinted praise. General Banks declared that "no troops could be more determined or more daring."[35] The Northern press described glowingly their part in the fight. The prowess of the black soldiers had conquered military prejudice, and won for them a place in the army of the Union. And the brave black officers who led these black soldiers, they were, all of them, ordered forthwith before an examining board with the purpose of driving them from the service, and every one of them in self-respect was made to resign. In such manner was their bravery rewarded.
In the four regiments of colored troops made a part of the Regular Army since the Civil War, colored soldiers, to say nothing of the three colored graduates from West Point, referred to earlier in this chapter, have repeatedly given evidence of their capacity to command. An earlier chapter has already set forth the gallant manner in which colored non-commissioned officers, left in command by the killing or wounding of their officers, commanded their companies at La Guasima, El Caney and in the charge at San Juan. On numerous occasions, with none of the heroic setting of the Santiago campaign, have colored soldiers time and again command detachments and companies on dangerous scouting expeditions, and in skirmishes and fights with hostile Indians and marauders. The entire Western country is a witness of their prowess. This meritorious work, done in remote regions, has seldom come to public notice; the medal which the soldier wears, and the official entry in company and regimental record are in most cases the sole chronicle. A typical instance is furnished in the career of Sergeant Richard Anderson, late of the Ninth Cavalry. The sergeant has long ago completed his thirty years of service. He passed through all non-commissioned grades in his troop and regiment, and was retired as Post Commissary-Sergeant. The stor y of the engagements in which he commanded give ample proof of his ability and bravery. It would be no service to the sergeant to disturb his own frank and formal narrative.