red regiments of Uncle Sam. General Casey's board
of examination cannot keep in session long enough, nor
dismiss incompetent aspirants quick enough, to keep down the
vast throngs of veterans, with and without shoulder-straps,
who are now seeking various grades of command in the colored
brigades of the Union. Over this result all intelligent men
will rejoice,--the privilege of being either killed or
wounded in battle, or stricken down by the disease, toil and
privations incident to the life of a marching soldier, not
belonging to that class of prerogative for the exclusive
enjoyment of which men of sense, and with higher careers
open to them, will long contend. Looking back, however, but
a few years, to the organization of the first regiment of
black troops in the departments of the South, what a change
in public opinion are we compelled to recognize! In sober
verity, war is not only the sternest, but the quickest, of
all teachers; and contrasting the Then and Now of our negro
regiments, as we propose to do in this sketch, the contrast
will forcibly recall Galileo's obdurate assertion that 'the
world still moves.'

"Be it known, then, that the first regiment of black troops
raised in our recent war, was raised in the Spring of 1862
by the commanding general of the department of the South, of
his own motion, and without any direct authority of law,
order, or even sanction from the President, the Secretary of
War, or our House of Congress. It was done by General Hunter
as 'a military necessity' under very peculiar circumstances,
to be detailed hereafter; and although repudiated at first
by the Government as were so many other measures originated
in the same quarter, it was finally adopted as the settled
policy of the country and of our military system; as have
likewise since been adopted, all the other original measures
for which these officers, at the time of their first
announcement, was made to suffer both official rebuke and
the violently vituperative denunciation of more than
one-half the Northern press.

"In the Spring of 1862, General Hunter, finding himself with
less than eleven thousand men under his command, and charged
with the duty of holding the whole tortuous and broken
seacoast of Georgia, South Carolina and Flor