The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1896-12-25

| master But our colorcd soldiers had no
| friends at home to send them these tokens
| Of love and remembrance Their frieAds,
| when not still in bondage, were poor, and
! homes were vet thing of the future. But
! the men had their pay, and suffers were as
numerous as their prices were high. The
officers of the regiment, both field and line,
helped out the festivities of the black men
| in blue both by contributions and by teach
| ing them how and what to buy. The re-
suit was that SD far as creature comforts
were concerned ohe men of &le Forty
fourth, colored, Jared remarkably well on
their first Christmas of freedom and as sol
| diers.
The negro, like the Chinese and Japa-
nese, is initiative; but, unlike them, he is
| musical. AS race the negro possesses II
| positive genius for music both vocal and
instrumental. The men of the Forty
| fourth Colored were not at all behind in
this regard. We had number of string
bands among the men. In fact, every
company had one or moro. They had
some very good performers among them,
some of those on the fiddle and banjo be-
ing remarkably good. They played, of
| course, by ear, knowing nothing Of writ
! ten music. There was one negro who
| played the accordion with marvellous skill.
| He was from Mississippi and had acquired
| this accomplishment at New Orleans,
| where his old master spent his winters,
this man having accompanied the planter
as his body servant The man had brought
with him the instrument his master had
bought him. Under his manipulation the
peculiar whining tone of the accordion
as ordinarily played was lost.
! Then, there were any number of good
singers. One big fellow, the BLACKLIST man,
think, ever saw, had tenor voice that
| would have made the fame and fortune of
white man. 1t was clear and powerful
and as sweet as chime of silver bells.
In ordinary conversation he spoke in dia-
| lect, yet in singing his pronunciation was
correct, while his enunciation was perfect
| ly distinct. He sang all the old favorite
ballads of antebellum days and the war
songs of the time. His favorite song,
though, was one of his own composition.
1t was all about hooking birds and night
| ingales, orange groves and cotton fields,
| running brooks and waveless bayous,
trackless forests and hunted animals. The
| language was crude, yet endowed with the
spirit of poetry, and when he sang it in
that rich voice to n strange air full of
pathos and sentiment it always seemed to
me somehow that the black singer was
inspired by dim recollection of his an
cestral home in some vast African forest
and on the bank of some great stream.
This man was the leader of band Of
choral singers formed by one Of our lieu
tenants, who had musical turn, to sing
Christmas and war songs. And how they
did sing theml Christmas eve was passed
In this way. Sweet and touching were the
Christmas carols they sang, but they were
at their best when they gave musical voice
to the fact that ".John Browns soul goes
marching on. This they sang as though
inspired, and when n thousand voices joined
in the chorus, filling the frosty air with q
great sound of chanting, the effect was one
I'll never forget This singing and the
music were the most characteristic features
! of our Christmas festivities, the one in
which we all participated as performer or
| listener, and the one which afforded the
most universal pleasure and delight Thus
all Of Christmas ovo was passed. Christ
mas morning my striker, II boy about 1S
or 49, black, careless, shrewd, impudent
and faithful, woke me up by crying:
"Crismus gif', majah; Crismus gif',
sah Ize de fus'. Wot ye gwine to glib me
"A drink?'
He lodged a boot and got his drink.
Thus my first Christmas with the colorcd
troops began. We of course had our indis-
pensable military duties to perform, and
we formed the regiment in hollow square
on the parade ground to listen to divine
service. Then the day was given up to jol-
| lily and inerriment OF course the chief
| interest of the day, especially with the col
ored men, conferred In the dinner table. It
! is sufficient to say that they got the best
dinner they had ever had. After that they
whiled away the time in singing and dane
ing, swtfpplng stories or their old life In
slavery, now ended for them and soon to
be for all wherever the stars and stripes
1oated; ran races and engaged In such
games as their plantation life had made
them familiar with and generally were
boisterously merry, filling the air with
their shouts Of glee and unctuous negro
laughter. They were tired and happy lot
of big, black, overgrown children when
taps, "lights OUT sounded that night and
ended a day Siat to many of them no doubt
seemed to set for the first time the seal Of
reality on that wonderful possession, per-