"Color-guard: Protect, defend, die for, but do not surrender, these colors." The gallant flag-sergeant, Plancianos, taking them replied: "Colonel: I will bring back these colors to you in honor, or report to God the reason why."
Six times with desperate valor they charged over ground where success was hopeless, a deep bayou between them and the works of the enemy at the point of attack rendering it impossible to reach them, yet strange to say, six times they were ordered forward and six times they went to useless death, until swept back by the blazing breath of shot and shell before which nothing living could stand. Here fell the gallant Captain Cailloux, black as the ace of spades. Refusing to leave the field though his arm had been shattered by a bullet, he returned to the charge until killed by a shell.
A soldier limping painfully to the front was halted and asked where he was going. He replied, "I am shot bad in de leg, and dey want me to go to de hospital, but I guess I can give 'em a little more yet."
The colors came back, but crimsoned with the blood of the gallant Plancianos, who reported to God from that bloody field.
Shall we glance from this to Millikens Bend, La., in January, 1863, garrisoned by the 9th and 11th Louisiana and the 1st Mississippi, all Negroes, and about 160 of the 23rd Iowa (white), about 1100 fighting men in all? Attacked by a force of six Confederate regiments, crushed out of their works by sheer weight of numbers, borne down toward the levee, fighting every step of the way, hand to hand—clubbed musket, bayonets, and swords,—from three A. M. to twelve noon, they fought desperately until a Union gun-boat came to the rescue and shelled the desperate foe back to the woods, with a total loss to the defenders of 437 men,—two-fifths of their strength.
Shall we turn with sadness to Fort Wagner, S. C., in July, 1863, when the 54th Massachusetts won its deathless fame, and its grand young commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, passed into the temple of immortality? After a march of all day, under a burning sun, and all night through a tempest of wind and rain, drenched, exhausted, hungry, they wheeled into line, without a murmur for that awful charge, that dance of death, the struggle against hopeless odds, and the shattered remnants were hurled back as from the mouth of hell, leaving the dead bodies of their young commander and his noble followers to be buried in a common grave. Its total loss was about one-third of its strength.
Here it was that the gallant flag-sergeant, Carney, though grievously wounded, bore back his flag to safety, and fell fainting and exhausted with loss of blood, saying, "Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!" Or another glance, at ill-starred Olustee, where the gallant 8th United States Colored Troops lost 87 killed of its effective fighting force, the largest loss in any one colored regiment in any one action of the war. And so on, by Fort Pillow, which let us pass in merciful silence, and to Honey Hill, S. C., perhaps the last desperate fight in the far south, in which the 32nd, 35th, and 102nd United States Colored Troops and the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry won fresh and fadeless laurels for splendid fighting against hopeless odds and insurmountable difficulties, and then to Nashville, Tenn., with its recorded loss of 84 killed in the effectives of the 13th United States Colored Troops.
These were all brilliant actions, and they covered the actors with, and reflected upon the race, a blaze of glory. But it was in the armies of the James and of the Potomac that the true metal of the Negro as a soldier rang out its clearest notes amid the tremendous diapasons that rolled back and forth between the embattled hosts. Here was war indeed, upon its grandest scale and in all its infinite variety: The tireless march under burning sun, chilling frosts, and driven tempests; the lonely vigil of the picket under starless skies, the rush and roar of countless "hosts to battle driven" in the mad charge and the victorious shout that pursued the fleeing foe; the grim determination that held its line of defenses with set teeth, blood-shot eye, and strained muscle, beating back charge after charge of the foe; the patient labor in trench and mine, on hill and in valley, swamp and jungle, with disease adding its horrors to the decimation of shot and shell.
Here the Negro stood in the full glare of the greatest search-light, part and parcel of the grandest armies ever mustered upon this continent, competing side by side with the best and bravest of the Union Army against the flower of the Confederacy, the best and bravest of Lee's army, and losing nothing in the contrast. Never again while time lasts will the doubt arise as in 1861, "Will the Negro fight?" As a problem, it has been solved; as a question, it has been answered; and as a fact, it is as established as the eternal hills. It was the Negroes who rang up the curtain upon the last act of the bloody tragedy at Petersburg, Va., June 15, 1864, and they who rang it down at Clover Hill, Va., April 9, 1865. They were one of the strong fingers upon the mighty hand that grasped the giant's throat at Petersburg and never flexed until the breath went out at Appomattox. In this period it would take page on page to recount their deeds of valor and their glorious victories.
See them on the 15th of June, 1864, carrying the out-post at Baylor's field in early morning, and all that long, hot, summer day advancing, a few yards at a time, then lying down to escape the fire from the works, but still gradually creeping nearer and nearer, until, just as the sun went down, they swept like a tornado over the works and started upon a race for the city, close at the heels of the flying foe, until mistakenly ordered back. Of this day's experience General Badeau writes: "No worse strain on the nerves of troops is possible, for it is harder to remain quiet under cannon fire, even though comparatively harmless, than to advance against a storm of musketry." General W. F. "Baldy" Smith, speaking of their conduct, says: "No nobler effort has been put forth to-day, and no greater success achieved than that of the colored troops."