he
lines. "He hab twenty house-servants, an' two hundred head o' nigger,"
is a still more degrading form of phrase, in which the epithet is
limited to the field-hands, and they estimated like so many cattle. This
want of self-respect of course interferes with the authority of the
non-commissioned officers, which is always difficult to sustain, even in
white regiments. "He needn't try to play de white man ober me," was the
protest of a soldier against his corporal the other day. To counteract
this, I have often to remind them that they do not obey their officers
because they are white, but because they are their officers; and
guard-duty is an admirable school for this, because they readily
understand that the sergeant or corporal of the guard has for the time
more authority than any commissioned officer who is not on duty. It is
necessary also for their superiors to treat the non-commissioned
officers with careful courtesy, and I often caution the line-officers
never to call them "Sam" or "Will," nor omit the proper handle to their
names. The value of the habitual courtesies of the regular army is
exceedingly apparent with these men: an officer of polished manners can
wind them round his finger, while white soldiers seem rather to prefer a
certain roughness. The demeanor of my men to each other is very
courteous, and yet I see none of that sort of upstart conceit which is
sometimes offensive among free negroes at the North, the dandy-barber
strut. This is an agreeable surprise, for I feared that freedom and
regimentals would produce precisely that.

They seem the world's perpetual children, docile, gay, and lovable, in
the midst of this war for freedom on which they have intelligently
entered. Last night, before "taps," there was the greatest noise in camp
that I had ever heard, and I feared some riot. On going out, I found the
most tumultuous sham-fight proceeding in total darkness, two
companies playing like boys, beating tin cups for drums. When some
of them saw me they seemed a little dismayed, and came and said,
beseechingly,--"Cunnel, Sah, you hab no objection to we playin',
Sah?"--which objection I disclaimed; but soon they all subsided, rather
to my regret, and scattered merrily. Afterward I found that some other
officer had told them that I considered the affair too noisy, so that I
felt a mild self-reproach when one said, "Cunnel, wish you had let we
play a little longer, Sah." Still I was not sorry, on the who