tance in which
it has been placed.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] So indiscriminate were English officers in these outrages, that it
sometimes happened that black men were seized as English seamen. At that
time the public opinion of the world was such, that few statesmen
troubled themselves much about the rights of negroes. But in another
generation, when it proved convenient in the United States to argue that
free negroes had never been citizens, it was remembered that the
cabinets of Jefferson and Madison, in their diplomatic discussions with
Great Britain, had been willing to argue that the impressment of a free
negro was the seizure of an American citizen.--_Bryant's History of the
United States._

[9] "Hammond Golar, a colored man who lived in Lynn for many years, died
a few years since at the age of 80 years. He was born a slave, was a
privateer "powder boy" in the war of 1812, and was taken to Halifax as a
prisoner. The English Government did not exchange colored prisoners
because they would then be returned to slavery, and Golar remained a
prisoner until the close of the war."

[10] See page 50

PART II.

THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.

1861.

[Illustration: UNSHACKLED.]

CHAPTER I.

PUBLIC OPINION.

It seems proper, before attempting to record the achievements of the
negro soldiers in the war of the Rebellion, that we should consider the
state of public opinion regarding the negroes at the outbreak of the
war; also, in connection therewith, to note the rapid change that took
place during the early part of the struggle.

For some cause, unexplained in a general sense, the white people in the
Colonies and in the States, came to entertain against the colored races
therein a prejudice, that showed itself in a hostility to the latter's
enjoying equal civil and political rights with themselves. Various
reasons are alleged for it, but the difficulty of really solving the
problem lies in the fact that the early settlers in this country came
without prejudice against color. The Negro, Egyptian, Arab, and other
colored races known to them, lived in European countries, where no
prejudice, on account of color existed. How very strange then, that a
feeling antagonistic to the negroes should become a prominent feature in
the character of the European emigrants to these shores and their
descendants. It has been held by some writers that the American
prejudice against the negroes was occasioned by their docility