Meanwhile this constant personal intercourse is out of the question in a well-ordered regiment; and the remedy for it is to introduce by degrees more and more of system, so that their immediate officers will become all-sufficient for the daily routine.
It is perfectly true (as I find everybody takes for granted) that the first essential for an officer of colored troops is to gain their confidence.

But it is equally true, though many persons do not appreciate it, that the admirable methods and proprieties of the regular army are equally available for all troops, and that the sublimest philanthropist, if he does not appreciate this, is unfit to command them.
Another childlike attribute in these men, which is less agreeable, is a sort of blunt insensibility to giving physical pain.

If they are cruel to animals, for instance, it always reminds me of children pulling off flies' legs, in a sort of pitiless, untaught, experimental way.

Yet I should not fear any wanton outrage from them.

After all their wrongs, they are not really revengeful; and I would far rather enter a captured city with them than with white troops, for they would be more subordinate.