honestly seeks to place some of that glory upon the deserving brow of a race then enslaved and despised.  The book is unpretentious and aims to relate the facts in a straight-forward way, unaccompanied by any of the charms of tasteful presentation.  Its author, however, is deserving our thanks, and the book marks an important stage in the development of the colored American.  His mind was turning toward the creation of the soldier—­the formation of armies.

There are other evidences that the mind of the colored man was at this time turning towards arms.  In 1852 Doctor Pennington, one of the most learned colored men of his times, having received his Degree in Divinity from Heidelberg, delivered an address before a mass convention of colored citizens of Ohio, held in Cleveland, in which he spoke principally of the colored soldier.  During the convention the “Cleveland Light Artillery” fired a salute, and on the platform were seated several veteran colored men, some of them, particularly Mr. John Julius, of Pittsburg, Pa., taking part in the speech-making.  Mr. Nell says:  “Within recent period several companies of colored men in New York city have enrolled themselves a la militaire,” and quotes from the New York Tribune of August, 1852, as follows: 

“Colored soldiers.—­Among the many parades within a few days we noticed yesterday a soldierly-looking company of colored men, on their way homeward from a target or parade drill.  They looked like men, handled their arms like men, and should occasion demand, we presume they would fight like men.”

In Boston, New Haven, New Bedford and other places efforts were made during the decade from 1850 to 1860 to manifest this rising military spirit by appropriate organization, but the efforts were not always successful.  In some cases the prejudices of the whites put every possible obstacle in the way of the colored young men who attempted to array themselves as soldiers.

The martial spirit is not foreign to the Negro character, as has been abundantly proved in both ancient and modern times.  Williams, in his admirable history of the Negro as well as in his “Negro Troops in the Rebellion,” has shown at considerable length that the Negro has been a soldier from earliest times, serving in large numbers in the Egyptian army long before the beginning of the Christian era.  We know that without any great modification in character, runaway slaves developed excellent fighting qualities as Maroons, in Trinidad, British Guiana, St. Domingo and in Florida.  But it was in Hayti that the unmixed Negro rose to the full dignity of a modern soldier, creating and leading armies, conducting and carrying on war, treating with enemies and receiving surrenders, complying fully with the rules of civilized warfare, and evolving finally a Toussaint, whose military genius his most bitter enemies were compelled to recognize—­Toussaint, who to the high qualities of the soldier added also