, of Maine, who had become
attached to Robert, "what is the use of your saying you're a colored
man, when you are as white as I am, and as brave a man as there is among
us. Why not quit this company, and take your place in the army just the
same as a white man? I know your chances for promotion would be better."

"Captain, you may doubt my word, but to-day I would rather be a
lieutenant in my company than a captain in yours."

"I don't understand you."

"Well, Captain, when a man's been colored all his life it comes a little
hard for him to get white all at once. Were I to try it, I would feel
like a cat in a strange garret. Captain, I think my place is where I am
most needed. You do not need me in your ranks, and my company does.
They are excellent fighters, but they need a leader. To silence a
battery, to capture a flag, to take a fortification, they will rush into
the jaws of death."

"Yes, I have often wondered at their bravery."

"Captain, these battles put them on their mettle. They have been so long
taught that they are nothing and nobody, that they seem glad to prove
they are something and somebody."

"But, Johnson, you do not look like them, you do not talk like them. It
is a burning shame to have held such a man as you in slavery."

"I don't think it was any worse to have held me in slavery than the
blackest man in the South."

"You are right, Johnson. The color of a man's skin has nothing to do
with the possession of his rights."

"Now, there is Tom Anderson," said Robert, "he is just as black as black
can be. He has been bought and sold like a beast, and yet there is not a
braver man in all the company. I know him well. He is a noble-hearted
fellow. True as steel. I love him like a brother. And I believe Tom
would risk his life for me any day. He don't know anything about his
father or mother. He was sold from them before he could remember. He can
read a little. He used to take lessons from a white gardener in
Virginia. He would go between the hours of 9 P.M. and 4 A.M. He got a
book of his own, tore it up, greased the pages, and hid them in his hat.
Then if his master had ever knocked his hat off he would have thought
them greasy papers, and not that Tom was carrying his library on his
head. I had another friend who lived near us. When he was nineteen
years old he did not know how many letters there were in the ABC's. One
night, when his work was done, his boss came into his cabin and saw him
wit