chile?"

"Daddy," said the inquisitive youth, "don't you know mas'r tell us
Yankee hab tail? I don't see no tail, daddy!"

There were many who went to Port Royal during the war, in civil or
military positions, whose previous impressions of the colored race were
about as intelligent as Sam's view of themselves. But, for once, I had
always had so much to do with fugitive slaves, and had studied the whole
subject with such interest, that I found not much to learn or unlearn as
to this one point. Their courage I had before seen tested; their docile
and lovable qualities I had known; and the only real surprise that
experience brought me was in finding them so little demoralized. I had
not allowed for the extreme remoteness and seclusion of their lives,
especially among the Sea Islands. Many of them had literally spent their
whole existence on some lonely island or remote plantation, where the
master never came, and the overseer only once or twice a week. With
these exceptions, such persons had never seen a white face, and of the
excitements or sins of larger communities they had not a conception. My
friend Colonel Hallo-well, of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, told
me that he had among his men some of the worst reprobates of Northern
cities. While I had some men who were unprincipled and troublesome,
there was not one whom I could call a hardened villain. I was constantly
expecting to find male Topsies, with no notions of good and plenty of
evil. But I never found one. Among the most ignorant there was very
often a childlike absence of vices, which was rather to be classed as
inexperience than as innocence, but which had some of the advantages of
both.

Apart from this, they were very much like other men. General Saxton,
examining with some impatience a long list of questions from some
philanthropic Commission at the North, respecting the traits and
habits of the freedmen, bade some staff-officer answer them all in two
words,--"Intensely human." We all admitted that it was a striking and
comprehensive description.

For instance, as to courage. So far as I have seen, the mass of men are
naturally courageous up to a certain point. A man seldom runs away from
danger which he ought to face, unless others run; each is apt to
keep with the mass, and colored soldiers have more than usual of this
gregariousness. In almost every regiment, black or white, there are a
score or two of men who are naturally daring, who really hunger