GEORGE L. STEARNS

I should be willing to risk all I have upon making, within six months, better troops in this department, than you can find in the United States army…. The value of the negro to us, at this moment, is in his enthusiasm, which far exceeds that of the white; in his cheerfulness, which is to be seen everywhere, North & South, especially under privation; in his capacity to bear hardships, and in his capacity for discipline. You can discipline colored troops in half the time that you can white. The negro gives his whole attention to the work, and takes a pride in it. They want to enlist. They do not feel themselves to be soldiers, until they get the muskets. They never feel sure of it, because they have been told so many times that they were enlisting for soldiers, and found themselves laborers…. two-thirds of them would prefer being soldiers to being laborers.

I should be willing to risk all I have upon making, within six months, better troops in this department, than you can find in the United States army…. The value of the negro to us, at this moment, is in his enthusiasm, which far exceeds that of the white; in his cheerfulness, which is to be seen everywhere, North & South, especially under privation; in his capacity to bear hardships, and in his capacity for discipline. You can discipline colored troops in half the time that you can white. The negro gives his whole attention to the work, and takes a pride in it. They want to enlist. They do not feel themselves to be soldiers, until they get the muskets. They never feel sure of it, because they have been told so many times that they were enlisting for soldiers, and found themselves laborers…. two-thirds of them would prefer being soldiers to being laborers.