It is fair now to recognize the fact that this combination of civil and military authority was not always what Saxton himself would have selected. There were times when he chafed under what seemed to him a non-military work and longed for the open field. It is perhaps characteristic of his temperament, however, that at the outset he preferred to be where the greatest obstacles were to be encountered, and this he certainly achieved. It must be remembered that the early organizers and officers of the colored troops fought in a manner with ropes around their necks, both they and their black recruits having been expressly denied by the Confederate government the usual privileges of soldiers. They had also to encounter for a long time the disapproval of many officers of high rank in the Union army, both regular and volunteer, this often leading to a grudging bestowal of supplies (especially, strange to say, of medical ones), and to a disproportionate share of fatigue duty. This was hard indeed for Saxton to bear, and was increased in his case by the fact that he had been almost the only cadet in his time at West Point who was strong in anti-slavery feeling, and who thus began with antagonisms which lasted into actual service. To these things he was perhaps oversensitive, and he had to be defended against this tendency, as he was, by an admirable wife and by an invaluable staff officer and housemate, Brevet Major Edward W. Hooper, of Massachusetts, who was his volunteer aide-de-camp and housemate. The latter was, as many Bostonians will remember, of splendid executive ability, as shown by his long subsequent service as steward and treasurer of Harvard University; a man of rare organizing power, and of a cheerfulness which made him only laugh away dozens of grievances that vexed General Saxton.