most
zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been for years fighting
with tongue and pen the Abolition battle. So marked is the character of
our soldiers in this respect, that they are now familiarly designated
in the official military despatches of the Confederate States as "The
Abolitionists." Conceive the results, when an army, so empowered by
national law, marches through a slave-territory. One regiment alone has
to our certain knowledge liberated two thousand slaves during the past
year, and this regiment it but one out of hundreds. We beg to lay before
you some details given by an eye-witness of what has recently been done
in this respect in the Department of the South.

"_On Board Steamer from Fortress Monroe to Baltimore_, Nov. 14, 1862.

"Events of no ordinary interest have just occurred in the Department of
the South. The negro troops have been tested, and, to their great joy,
though not contrary to their own expectations, they have triumphed, not
only over enemies armed with muskets and swords, but over what the black
man dreads most, sharp and cruel prejudices.

"General Saxton, on the 28th of October, sent the captured steamer
Darlington, Captain Crandell, down the coast of Georgia, and to
Fernandina, Florida, to obtain recruits for the First Regiment
South-Carolina Volunteers. Lieutenant-Colonel O.T. Beard, of the
Forty-Eighth New-York Volunteers, was given the command of the
expedition. In addition to obtaining recruits, the condition and wants
of the recent refugees from slavery along the coast were to be looked
into, and, if occasion should offer, it was permitted to 'feel the
enemy.' At St. Simond's, Georgia, Captain Trowbridge, with thirty-five
men of the 'Hunter Regiment of First South-Carolina Volunteers,' who had
been stationed there for three months, together with twenty-seven more
men, were received on board. With this company of sixty-two men the
Darlington proceeded to Fernandina.

"On arriving, a meeting of the colored men was called to obtain
enlistments. The large church was crowded. After addresses had been made
by the writer and Colonel Beard, one hundred men volunteered at once,
and the number soon reached about one hundred and twenty-five. Such,
however, were the demands of Fort Clinch and the Quartermaster's
Department for laborers, that Colonel Rich, commanding the
fort, consented to only twenty-five men leaving. This was a sad
disappointment, and one which some determined