Harpers Weekly

These are images are extracted from a periodical published in the 1800's.

 

	First and last review of the First Regiment, South Carolina Negro Volunteers, on Hilton Head, S.C. under the Colonel Fessenden, U.S.A. June 25th, 1862 Our correspondents at Hilton Head wrote us: "I witnessed the parade entire, as well as the company drills in the manual of arms, etc., afterward, and I acknowledge my complete surprise at the discipline and even vim evinced by the sable crowd. Dressed in the regulation uniform of the Unites States Army, tall and strong men generally speaking, they, considering that the regiment had not been fully armed but about ten days, spoke well for the officers and men." (462K)
	The Federal Army entering Richmond, VA, April 30, 1865-Reception of the Troops in Main Street-from a sketch by our special, artist, Joseph Becker On Monday, April 31, 1865, a portion of the Federal Army, under command of General Weitzel, entered the capital of the defunct Southern Confederacy, and was received by all classes with either loud acclamation or silent satisfaction, for it would appear that even the most rabid secessionists had lost all hope of a successful result of their rash experiment. The colored population was, as might be expected, in a state of jubilant delight, and the gorgeous manner in which they lounged about the grounds of the Capitol, from which they had hitherto been rigidly excluded, was very amusing and highly characteristic of their child-like nature. (498K)
	The New Year's Day Contraband Ball at Vicksburg, Mass. The Negroes preserve all their African fondness for music and dancing, and in the modified form which they have assumed here have given rise to Negro dancing and melodies in our theaters, a form of amusement which has enriched many. But the colored people should be seen in one of their own balls to enjoy the reality. The character of the music and the dance: the strange gradation of colors, from the sooty black of the pure breed to those creatures, fair and beautiful, whose position among their darker brethren shows the brutal cruelty of their male ancestors for generations, who begot them to degrade them, and who had thus for years been putting white blood into slavery. There is in these Negro balls one thing which cannot fail to impress any observer. Coming as they all do from a degraded and oppressed class the negros assume nevertheless, in their intercourse with each other, as far as they can, the manners and language of the best classes in society. There is often a grotesque exaggeration, indeed: but there is an appreciation of refinement and endeavor to attain it which we seldom see in the same class of whites. (486K)
	Siege of Vicksburg. Fight in the crater made by explosion of a mine under a portion of the rebel works. Entered according to the Act of Congress by the American Publishing Co. Dec ?, 1865 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. (430K)