half the pay per
month given to white soldiers, the regiment to a man, for eighteen
months refused to receive one cent from the Government. This was a
spectacle that the country could not longer stand. One thousand
volunteers fighting the country's battles without any compensation
rather than submit to a discrimination fatal to their manhood, aroused
such a sentiment that Congress was compelled to put them on the
pay-roll on equal footing with all other soldiers. By them the
question of the black soldier's pay and rations was settled in the
Army of the United States for all time. Every soldier, indeed every
man in the army, except the chaplain, now draws the pay of his grade
without regard to color, hair or race. By the time these lines reach
the public eye it is to be hoped that even the chaplain will be lifted
from his exceptional position and given the pay belonging to his rank
as captain.

(February 2, 1901, the bill became a law giving chaplains the full pay
of their grade.)

More than 185,000 blacks, all told, served in the army of the Union
during the War of the Rebellion, and the losses from their ranks of
men killed in battle were as heavy as from the white troops. Their
bravery was everywhere recognized, and in the short time in which they
were employed, several rose to commissions.

Perhaps the most notable act performed by a colored American during
the war was the capture and delivery to the United States forces of
the rebel steamer Planter, by Robert Smalls, of Charleston. Smalls was
employed as pilot on the Planter, a rebel transport, and was entirely
familiar with the harbors and inlets, of which there are many, on the
South Atlantic coast. On May 13, 1862, the Planter came to her wharf
in Charleston, and at night all the white officers went ashore,
leaving a colored crew of eight men on board in charge of Smalls.
Smalls hastily got his wife and three children on board, and at 2
o'clock on the morning of the 14th steamed out into the harbor,
passing the Confederate forts by giving the proper signals, and when
fairly out of reach, as daylight came, he ran up the Stars and Stripes
and headed his course directly toward the Union fleet, into whose
hands he soon surrendered himself and his ship. The act caused much
favorable comment and Robert Smalls became quite a hero. His
subsequent career has been in keeping with the high promise indicated
by this bold dash for liberty, and his name has received additi