"BATTLE OF PORT HUDSON.

"In an account of the Battle of Port Hudson, the 'Times'
correspondent says: 'Hearing the firing apparently more fierce
and continuous to the right than anywhere else, I hurried in that
direction, past the sugar house of Colonel Chambers, where I had
slept, and advanced to near the pontoon bridge across the Big
Sandy Bayou, which the negro regiments had erected, and where
they were fighting most desperately. I had seen these brave and
hitherto despised fellows the day before as I rode along the
lines, and I had seen General Banks acknowledge their respectful
salute as he would have done that of any white troops; but still
the question was--with too many,--"Will they fight?" The black
race was, on this eventful day, to be put to the test, and the
question to be settled--now and forever,--whether or not they are
entitled to assert their right to manhood. Nobly, indeed, have
they acquitted themselves, and proudly may every colored man
hereafter hold up his head, and point to the record of those who
fell on that bloody field.

"'General Dwight, at least, must have had the idea, not only that
they were men, but something _more than men_, from the terrific
test to which he put their valor. Before any impression had been
made upon the earthworks of the enemy, and in full face of the
batteries belching forth their 62 pounders, these devoted people
rushed forward to encounter grape, canister, shell, and musketry,
with no artillery but two small howitzers--that seemed mere
pop-guns to their adversaries--and no reserve whatever.

"'Their force consisted of the 1st. Louisiana Native Guards (with
colored field-officers) under Lieut.-Colonel Bassett, and the 3d
Louisiana Native Guards, Colonel Nelson (with white
field-officers), the whole under command of the latter officer.

"'On going into action they were 1,080 strong, and formed into
four lines, Lieut.-Colonel Bassett, 1st Louisiana, forming the
first line, and Lieut.-Colonel Henry Finnegas the second. When
ordered to charge up the works, they did so with the skill and
nerve of old veterans, (black people, be it remembered who had
never been in action before,) but the fire from the rebel guns
was so terrible upon the unprotected masses, that the first few