Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Thomas Higginson of Massachusetts, a Unitarian minister, had dedicated himself to the cause of abolition. When the war began, he took command of the nation's first African-American regiment, the 1st South Carolina. The unit first saw action along the St. John's River in northern Florida. After retiring from service in 1864, Colonel Higginson set down his experiences in Army Life in a Black Regiment, including these entries from his wartime diaries.

Camp Saxton, near Beaufort, S.C.,

November 24, 1862.

Yesterday afternoon we were steaming over a summer sea, the deck level as a parlor-floor, no land in sight, no sail, until at last appeared one light-house, said to be Cape Romaine, and then a line of trees and two distant vessels and nothing more. The sunset, a great illuminated...