His staff was composed of fine-looking, stalwart fellows, evidently gentlemen, who appeared intensely mortified at such treatment.
They had no clothes except their rebel uniforms, and had, as yet, had no time to procure others, but they avoided disturbances and submitted to what they might, with some propriety, and with the general approval of our officers, have resented." The Negro troops, even at their best, were everywhere considered offensive by the native whites.

General Grant, indeed, urged that only white troops be used to garrison the interior.

But the Negro soldier, impudent by reason of his new freedom, his new uniform, and his new gun, was more than Southern temper could tranquilly bear, and race conflicts were frequent.

A New Orleans newspaper thus states the Southern point of view: "Our citizens who had been accustomed to meet and treat the Negroes only as respectful servants, were mortified, pained, and shocked to encounter them...

wearing Federal uniforms and bearing bright muskets and gleaming bayonets....