all this
without any urging or any promised reward, but simply as the most
natural way of doing the thing. The steamboat captain declared that they
unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang
could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the
night, I reproached one whom I found sitting by a campfire, cooking a
surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such
a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin, "O no, Gunnel, da's
no work at all, Gunnel; dat only jess enough for stretch we."

December 2, 1862.

I believe I have not yet enumerated the probable drawbacks to the
success of this regiment, if any. We are exposed to no direct annoyance
from the white regiments, being out of their way; and we have as yet no
discomforts or privations which we do not share with them. I do not as
yet see the slightest obstacle, in the nature of the blacks, to making
them good soldiers, but rather the contrary. They take readily to
drill, and do not object to discipline; they are not especially dull
or inattentive; they seem fully to understand the importance of the
contest, and of their share in it. They show no jealousy or suspicion
towards their officers.

They do show these feelings, however, towards the Government itself; and
no one can wonder. Here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting. Were
this a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, I
am satisfied, ere now. The trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust
bequeathed by the abortive regiment of General Hunter, into which they
were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then
turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department. The
formation of that regiment was, on the whole, a great injury to this
one; and the men who came from it, though the best soldiers we have in
other respects, are the least sanguine and cheerful; while those who
now refuse to enlist have a great influence in deterring others. Our
soldiers are constantly twitted by their families and friends with their
prospect of risking their lives in the service, and being paid nothing;
and it is in vain that we read them the instructions of the Secretary
of War to General Saxton, promising them the full pay of soldiers. They
only half believe it.*

*With what utter humiliation were we, their officers, obliged to confess
to them, eighteen months afterwards, that it was their distrust which