Michael_Schaffner
Sergeant
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2010
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
Last week my reading brought me to this interesting passage -- it's the last line that really got me...
"Upwards of fifty volunteers of the best and most courageous [of the Negro refugees] were kept constantly employed on the perilous but important duty of spies, scouts, and guides. In this work they were invaluable and almost indispensable. They frequently went from thirty to three hundred miles within the enemy's lines; visiting his principal camps and most important posts, and bringing us back important and reliable information... often on these errands barely escaping with their lives... two or three of them were taken prisoners; one of these was known to have been shot, and the fate of the others was not ascertained. The pay they received for this work was small but satisfactory... they considered the work as a religious duty...."
From "Report of the Services rendered by the Freed People to the United States Army in North Carolina" (NY, 1864)
Quoted in Herbert Aptheker's "Negro Casualties in the Civil War" (Washington, DC 1945)
"Upwards of fifty volunteers of the best and most courageous [of the Negro refugees] were kept constantly employed on the perilous but important duty of spies, scouts, and guides. In this work they were invaluable and almost indispensable. They frequently went from thirty to three hundred miles within the enemy's lines; visiting his principal camps and most important posts, and bringing us back important and reliable information... often on these errands barely escaping with their lives... two or three of them were taken prisoners; one of these was known to have been shot, and the fate of the others was not ascertained. The pay they received for this work was small but satisfactory... they considered the work as a religious duty...."
From "Report of the Services rendered by the Freed People to the United States Army in North Carolina" (NY, 1864)
Quoted in Herbert Aptheker's "Negro Casualties in the Civil War" (Washington, DC 1945)
Bringing the