These pages record some of the adventures of the First South Carolina
Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the
United States during the late civil war. It was, indeed, the first
colored regiment of any kind so mustered, except a portion of the troops
raised by Major-General Butler at New Orleans. These scarcely belonged
to the same class, however, being recruited from the free colored
population of that city, a comparatively self-reliant and educated race.
"The darkest of them," said General Butler, "were about the complexion
of the late Mr. Webster."

The First South Carolina, on the other hand, contained scarcely a
freeman, had not one mulatto in ten, and a far smaller proportion who
could read or write when enlisted. The only contemporary regiment of a
similar character was the "First Kansas Colored," which began
recruiting a little earlier, though it was not mustered in the usual
basis of military seniority till later. [_See Appendix_] These were
the only colored regiments recruited during the year 1862. The Second
South Carolina and the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts followed early in
1863.

This is the way in which I came to the command of this
regiment. One day in November, 1862, I was sitting at dinner with my
lieutenants, John Goodell and Luther Bigelow, in the barracks of the
Fifty-First Massachusetts, Colonel Sprague, when the following letter
was put into my hands:

BEAUFORT, S. C.,
November 5, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR.