Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/127

Rh long before the results of using Negro troops began to be reported and we find the Times saying editorially on the 31st of July: “Negro soldiers have now been in battle at Port Hudson and at Milliken’s Bend in Louisiana; at Helena in Arkansas, at Morris Island in South Carolina, and at or near Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory. In two of these instances they assaulted fortified positions and led the assault; in two they fought on the defensive, and in one they attacked rebel infantry. In all of them they acted in conjunction with white troops and under command of white officers. In some instances they acted with distinguished bravery, and in all they acted as well as could be expected of raw troops.”

On the 11th of February, 1863, the news columns of the Times were still more enthusiastic. “It will not need many such reports as this—and there have been several before it—to shake our inveterate Saxon prejudice against the capacity and courage of Negro troops. Everybody knows that they were used in the Revolution, and in the last war with Great Britain fought side by side with white troops, and won equal praises from Washington and Jackson. It is shown also that black sailors are on equal terms with their white comrades. If on the sea, why not on the