the War Department issued
to Brigadier-General Saxton, Military Governor, admits to me (under
date of December 4, 1863,) that "the faith of the Government was thereby
pledged to every officer and soldier enlisted under that call."

He goes on to express the generous confidence that "the pledge will be
honorably fulfilled." I observe that every one at the North seems
to feel the same confidence, but that, meanwhile, the pledge is
unfulfilled. Nothing is said in Congress about fulfilling it. I have not
seen even a proposition in Congress to pay the colored soldiers, _from
date of enlistment_, the same pay with white soldiers; and yet anything
short of that is an unequivocal breach of contract, so far as this
regiment is concerned.

Meanwhile, the land sales are beginning, and there is danger of every
foot of land being sold from beneath my soldiers' feet, because they
have not the petty sum which Government first promised, and then refused
to pay.

The officers' pay comes promptly and fully enough, and this makes the
position more embarrassing. For how are we to explain to the men the
mystery that Government can afford us a hundred or two dollars a month,
and yet must keep back six of the poor thirteen which it promised them?
Does it not naturally suggest the most cruel suspicions in regard to us?
And yet nothing but their childlike faith in their officers, and in that
incarnate soul of honor, General Saxton, has sustained their faith, or
kept them patient, thus far.

There is nothing mean or mercenary about these men in general. Convince
them that the Government actually needs their money, and they would
serve it barefooted and on half-rations, and without a dollar--for a
time. But, unfortunately, they see white soldiers beside them, whom they
know to be in no way their superiors for any military service, receiving
hundreds of dollars for re-enlisting for this impoverished Government,
which can only pay seven dollars out of thirteen to its black regiments.
And they see, on the other hand, those colored men who refused to
volunteer as soldiers, and who have found more honest paymasters than
the United States Government, now exulting in well-filled pockets, and
able to buy the little homesteads the soldiers need, and to turn
the soldiers' families into the streets. Is this a school for
self-sacrificing patriotism?

I should not speak thus urgently were it not becoming manifest that
there is to be no promptness of ac