From
Lincoln in Caricature by Rufus Rockwell Wilson
The cartoon by Tenniel, “One Good Turn
Deserves Another,” appeared in London Punch on August 9, 1862. It reflects more
humor and less malice than do most of Tenniel’s caricatures of Mr. Lincoln,
who, here garbed as Uncle Sam, hands a musket and cartridge box to Sambo, saying
‘Why, I du declare, it’s my dear old friend Sambo. Lend us a hand, old hoss,
du.”
Nor was this appeal a vain one. Between
1863 and 1865 one hundred and eighty thousand men of African descent enlisted
under the Union flag to prove “brave in action, patient under dangerous and
heavy labors, and cheerful amid hardships and privations.” Mr. Lincoln early
advocated the raising of colored troops, but at first faced determined
opposition to such a measure from some of the members of his cabinet, likewise
from some of his generals; and it was not until after the capture of Vicksburg
and the opening of the Mississippi made the time ripe for action, that colored
enlistments were pushed in a systematic and substantial way.
Then the President had the earnest support
of General Grant who on August 23, 1863, wrote him: “By arming the negro we have
added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers, and taking them from the
enemy weakens him in the same proportion they strengthen us.’’ Events confirmed
this prediction. Not only in and about Vicksburg, and in the capture of Port
Hudson, but all along the Union front east and west the negro soldier fought
bravely, nor did enlistments cease so long as there was need for them.
No doubt the colored regiment that will live
longest in history was the one that was first to go to war. This was the
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers recruited in and about Boston in the
opening weeks of 1863 and which had Robert Gould Shaw of immortal memory for its
colonel. When in an attempt to capture Charleston in the following July, an
assault was made on Fort Wagner Shaw and his men headed the storming column.
They charged with spirit, and, despite a fire that made great gaps in their
ranks, planted their flag on the parapet, Shaw waving his sword and crying,
‘‘Onward, boys!’’ But they could not retain their hold, and were forced to
retreat. Shaw was among the fallen and was buried with his men.
Thirty-four years later there was erected on
Boston Common a monument by St. Gaudens which portrays Shaw and his soldiers
marching to Battery Wharf to take the steamer for the South. Across its base is
inscribed these words of Lincoln: ‘‘And there will be some black men who can
remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and
well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation.’’
that consummation being proof ‘‘that among free men there can he no successful
appeal from the ballot to the bullet.’’
