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Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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334<br />

<strong>Freedom</strong> <strong>by</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Sword</strong>: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867<br />

will in all probability never come back again, . . . I have yet to see <strong>the</strong> first long<br />

face or hear <strong>the</strong> first regret.<br />

Soon after Hinks arrived, Lieutenant Verplanck left <strong>the</strong> 6th <strong>US</strong>CI to join his staff.<br />

One evening, Verplanck remarked to <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r officers that “he felt just as he used<br />

to [as] a boy when his folks were going to take him to <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>ater.” To his mo<strong>the</strong>r,<br />

he wrote: “We are organizing our division as fast as possible . . . and <strong>the</strong>n <strong>the</strong> first<br />

large body of black troops will go in toge<strong>the</strong>r and will make an impression I believe<br />

such as has never been felt before.” 78<br />

78 S. A. Carter to My own darling wife, 1 May 1864 (“Everything is,” “he felt”), S. A. Carter<br />

Papers, MHI; R. N. Verplanck to Dear Mo<strong>the</strong>r, 26 Apr 1864 (“We are”), Verplanck Letters; New<br />

York Tribune, 26 April 1864 (“taken out”). The most exhaustive study of events at Plymouth is<br />

Weymouth T. Jordan Jr. and Gerald W. Thomas, “Massacre at Plymouth: April 20, 1864,” North<br />

Carolina Historical Review 73 (1995): 125–93.

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