There is not
a white officer in this regiment who has more administrative ability,
or more absolute authority over the men; they do not love him, but his
mere presence has controlling power over them. He writes well enough
to prepare for me a daily report of his duties in the camp; if his
education reached a higher point I see no reason why he should not
command the Army of the Potomac. He is jet-black, or rather, I should
say, wine-black, his complexion, like that of others of my darkest
men, having a sort of rich, clear depth, without a trace of sootiness,
and to my eye very handsome. His features are tolerably regular, and
full of command, and his figure superior to that of any of our white
officers, being six feet high, perfectly proportioned, and of
apparently inexhaustable strength and activity. His gait is like a
panther's; I never saw such a tread. No anti-slavery novel has
described a man of such marked ability. He makes Toussaint perfectly
intelligible, and if there should ever be a black monarchy in South
Carolina he will be its king."[28]
Excepting the Louisiana Native Guards, the First South Carolina
Volunteers was the first regiment of colored troops to be mustered
into the service in the Civil War. The regiment was made up entirely
of slaves, with scarcely a mulatto among them.
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