Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Virginia, May–October 1864 371
ence or antagonism toward the city’s black residents to hire and send south
the first black war correspondent of a metropolitan newspaper. The fact that
four regiments raised at Philadelphia—the 6th, 8th, 22d, and 43d USCIs—were
serving near Richmond and Petersburg hardly seems like a probable reason
for Chester’s assignment. Although his employer’s motive for sending him remains
unclear, the reporter soon became a familiar figure in the camps of those
and other black regiments—Lieutenant Verplanck, of the 6th USCI and General
Hinks’ staff, called him “our own correspondent”—and he soon caught
the mood of the troops. “Between the negroes and the enemy it is war to the
death,” Chester told his readers. “The colored troops have cheerfully accepted
the conditions of the Confederate Government, that between them no quarter is
to be shown,” he wrote on 22 August.
Those here have not the least idea of living after they fall into the hands of the
enemy, and the rebels act very much as if they entertained similar sentiments
with reference to the blacks. Even deserters fear to come into our lines where
colored troops may be stationed. Not unfrequently have they asked if there
are any black troops near, and if there were the rebs have entreated that they
should not be permitted to harm them. 75
Official proclamations of the Confederate government, and the tendency of
white people nationwide to hold black lives cheap, gave an especially vicious
edge to the war even though both Confederates and Colored Troops continued
to take prisoners at least as often as they killed surrendering enemies. Accounts
by other witnesses indicate that Chester may have arrived in Virginia just as
the spirit in the trenches was changing. The day before he filed his dispatch,
Surgeon Merrill of the 22d USCI told his father: “We have a tacit truce on our
front—neither party disturbing the other.” On 10 September, Chaplain Turner
of the 1st USCI wrote to the Christian Recorder:
Having for some time heard that the colored and rebel pickets were exchanging
words, and that the venom to each other had somewhat ameliorated, I was
led to doubt its truthfulness from a previous knowledge of the uncompromising
hostility they had hitherto cherished toward each other. But a short time
since, my regiment was ordered to the trenches, where their proximity to the
rebels was not more than a hundred yards. Here, to my great surprise, I saw the
rebels and the soldiers of my regiment, talking, laughing, exchanging papers,
tin-cups, tobacco, &c. Some of the rebels deserted and came into our lines,
and cursed the rebellion, and then they had a jolly time with our boys. I learn
that they are now acknowledging our soldiers as prisoners of war. This sudden
75 R. J. M. Blackett, ed., Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His
Dispatches from the Virginia Front (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), pp.
38–39, 102–06, 109–10 (“Between the negroes”); R. N. Verplanck to Dear Mother, 8 Oct 1864,
Verplanck Letters. Sgt. Maj. C. A. Fleetwood, 4th USCI, recorded his encounters with Chester in
Fleetwood Diary, 5, 14, 17, 19, 23, 25, and 29 Oct 1864, and 8, 20, 29 Nov 1864.