h,
generally. They were officered by the _elite_, such as Col. R. G. Shaw,
of the 54th Massachusetts, a former member of the 7th New York Regiment,
and upon whose battle monument his name is carved. Cols. James C.
Beecher, Wm. Birney and a host of others, whose names can now be found
on the army rolls, with the prefix General, commanded these regiments.
Of those who commanded Southern regiments this is equally true,
especially of those who served in the 9th, 10th, 18th and 19th Corps.
Col. Godfred Weitzel, who in March, 1865, had been promoted to Major
General of Volunteers, commanded the 25th Corps of 30,000 negro
soldiers. The select corps of officers intended to officer Gen. Ullman's
brigade of four regiments to be raised at New Orleans by order of the
War Department, dated January 1863, as well as the battalion, which he
was also ordered to raise for scouting purposes, the following March,
included many men of rank. To command a negro regiment or company was at
this date a coveted prize, for which men of wealth and education
contended. The distinction which they were continually winning for their
officers, frequently overcame the long-cherished prejudice of West
Point, and the graduates of this caste institution now vied for
commissions in negro regiments, in which many of them served during the
Rebellion and since.

[Illustration: CAPT. O. S. B. WALL, U. S. A.]

It was the idea of Gen. Banks when organizing the Corps d'Afrique to
appoint even the non-commissioned officers from the ranks of white
regiments, and he did so in several instances. His hostility to negro
officers was the cause of his removing them from the regiments, which
Major General Butler organized at New Orleans in 1862. In organizing the
Corps d'Afrique, the order, No. 40, reads:

"The Commanding General desires to detail for temporary or
permanent duty, the best officers of the army, for the
organization, instruction, and discipline of this Corps.
With them he is confident that the Corps will render
important service to the Government. It is not established
upon any dogma of equality or other theory, but as a
practical and sensible matter of business. The Government
makes use of mules, horses, uneducated white men in the
defence of its institutions; why should not the negro
contribute whatever is in his power, for the cause in which
he is as deeply interested as other men? We may properly