s
were three. Quite early in 1862, while the negroes in New Orleans were
being enrolled in the Confederate service, under Gov. Moore's
proclamation, in separate and distinct organizations from the whites,
the Indians and negroes were enlisting in the Union service, on the
frontier, in the same company and regiments, with white officers to
command them. In the "Kansas Home Guard," comprising two regiments of
Indians, were over 400 negroes, and these troops were under Custer,
Blunt and Herron. They held Fort Gibson twenty months against the
assaults of the enemy. Two thousand five hundred negroes served in the
Federal army from the Indian Nations, and these, in all probability, are
a part of 5,896 "not accounted for" on the Adjutant General's rolls.

Quite a different state of things existed in South Carolina; rumors
were early afloat, when recruiting began, that the government officers
were gathering up the negroes to ship away to Cuba, Africa and the West
Indies. These reports for a long time hindered the enlistment very much.
Then there was no large city for contrabands to congregate in; besides
they had no way of traveling from island to island except on government
vessels. Before the Proclamation of freedom was issued, the city of
Washington, with Virginia and Maryland as additional territory to
recruit from, afforded an officer a better field to operate in than any
other point except New Orleans. The conduct of the Government in
revoking Gen. Fremont's Proclamation, and of McClellan's with the Army
of the Potomac, in catching and returning escaped slaves, also had a
tendency for some time to keep back even the free negroes of Virginia
and Maryland. But this class of people never enlisted to any great
numbers, either before or after 1863, and there finally came to be a
general want of spirit with them, while with the slave class there was a
ready enthusiasm to enlist. Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, was
Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs, and reported from that
committee on the 8th of July 1862, a bill authorizing the arming of
negroes as a part of the army. The bill finally passed both houses and
received the approval of the President on the 17th of July, 1862. The
battle for its success is as worthy of record as any fought by the
Phalanx. The debate was characterized by eloquence and deep feeling on
both sides. Says an account of the proceedings in Henry Wilson's
"Anti-slavery Measures of Congress":