the work
from the beginning, and who was receiving eight dollars per day,
struck, and demanded ten dollars, assuring Mr. M. that the advance
must be granted him, as nobody in America, except himself, could
complete the work. Mr. M. felt that the demand was exorbitant, and
appealed in his dilemma to the slaves who were assisting in the
moulding. "I can do that well," said one of them, an intelligent and
ingenious servant, who had been intimately engaged in the various
processes. The striker was dismissed, and the negro, assisted
occasionally by the finer skill of his master, took the striker's
place as superintendent, and the work went on. The black
master-builder lifted the ponderous, uncouth masses, and bolted them
together, joint by joint, piece by piece, till they blended into the
majestic "Freedom," who to-day lifts her head in the blue clouds above
Washington, invoking a benediction upon the imperilled Republic!

Was there a prophecy in that moment when the slave became the artist,
and with rare poetic justice, reconstructed the beautiful symbol of
freedom for America?[143]

FOOTNOTES:

[143] Washington Correspondent of the New York Tribune, December 2,
1863.

Part 7.

_THE NEGRO IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION._

CHAPTER XIX.

NEGROES AS SOLDIERS.

Gen. Benj. F. Butler commanded a number of Negro Troops at Fort
Harrison on the 29th Sept., 1864. After white troops had been driven
back by the enemy, Gen. Butler ordered his Negro troops to storm the
fortified position of the enemy at the point of the bayonet. The
troops had to charge down a hill, ford a creek, and--preceded by
axemen who had to cut away two lines of _abatis_--then carry the works
held by infantry and artillery. They made one of the most brilliant
charges of the war, with "Remember Fort Pillow" as their battle-cry,
and carried the works in an incredibly short time.

Nearly a decade after this battle, Gen. Butler, then a member of
Congress from Massachusetts, said, in a speech on the Civil Rights
Bill of this affair:

"It became my painful duty to follow in the track of that
charging column, and there, in a space not wider than the clerk's
desk, and three hundred yards long, lay the dead bodies of five
hundred and forty-three of my colored comrades, fallen in defence
of their country, who had offered up their lives to uphold its
flag and its honor, as a willing sacrifice; and as I rode along
among them,