Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/364

 CHAPTER XLV.

BLACKS ENLISTED, AND IN BATTLE.

Attorney-General Bates had already given his opinion with regard to the citizenship of the negro, and that opinion was in the black man's favor. The Emancipation Proclamation was only a prelude to calling on the colored men to take up arms, and the one soon followed the other; for the word "Emancipation" had scarcely gone over the wires, ere Adjutant-General Thomas made his appearance in the valley of the Mississippi. At Lake Providence, Louisiana, he met a large wing of the army, composed of volunteers from all parts of the country, and proclaimed to them the new policy of the administration.

The Northern regiments stationed at the South, or doing duty in that section, had met with so many reverses on the field of battle, and had been so inhumanly treated by the rebels, both men and women, that the new policy announced by Adjutant-General Thomas at Lake Providence and other places, was received with great favor, especially when the white soldiers heard from their immediate commanders that the freedmen when enlisted would be employed in doing fatigue-duty,