kguard's round to feel it."

"Well, Given, do you like the darkies well enough to take off your cap
to them?" queried a sergeant standing near.

"What are you driving at now, hey?"

"O, not much; but you'll have to play second fiddle to them to-night.
The General thinks they're as good as the rest of us, and a little bit
better, and has sent over for the Fifty-fourth to lead the charge this
evening. What have you got to say to that?"

"Bull, for them! that's what I've got to say. Any objection?" looking
round him.

"Nary objec!" "They deserve it!" "They fought like tigers over on James
Island!" "I hope they'll pepper the rebs well!"--"It ought to be a free
fight, and no quarter, with them!" "Yes, for they get none if they're
taken!" "Go in, Fifty-fourth!" These and the like exclamations broke
from the men on all sides, with absolute heartiness and good will.

"It seems to me," sneered a dapper little officer who had been looking
and listening, "that the niggers have plenty of advocates here."

Two or three of the men looked at Jim. "You may bet your pile on that,
Major!" said he, with becoming gravity; "we love our friends, and we
hate our enemies, and it's the dark-complected fellows that are the
first down this way."

"Pretty-looking set of friends!"

"Well, they ain't much to look at, that's a fact; but I never heard of
anybody saying you was to turn a cold shoulder on a helper because he
was homely, except,"--this as the Major was walking away, "except a
secesh, or a fool, or one of little Mac's staff officers."

"Homely? what are you gassing about?" objected a little fellow from
Massachusetts; "the Fifty-fourth is as fine-looking a set of men as
shoulder rifles anywhere in the army."

"Jack's sensitive about the credit of his State," chaffed a big Ohioan.
"He wants to crack up these fellows, seeing they're his comrades. I say,
Johnny, are all the white men down your way such little shavers as you?"

"For a fellow that's all legs and no brains, you talk too much,"
answered Johnny. "Have any of you seen the Fifty-fourth?"

"I haven't." "Nor I." "Yes, I saw them at Port Royal." "And I." "And I."

"Well, the Twenty-third was at Beaufort while they were there, and I
used to go over to their camp and talk with them. I never saw fellows so
in earnest; they seemed ready to die on the instant, if they could help
their people, or walk into the slaveholders any, first. They were just
full of it; and yet it see