When the crack regiments of young men from the black counties went to Virginia, early in 1861, nearly every soldier had with him a negro servant who faithfully took care of his "young master" and performed the rough tasks that fell to the soldier--splitting wood, digging ditches about the camp, hauling, and building. The Third Alabama regiment of infantry, one of the best, left Alabama a thousand strong in rank and file and several hundred strong in negro servants. Two years later there were no negro servants; they had been sent home when their masters were killed, or because they were needed at home, or they had been sold and "eaten up" by the youngsters, who now had to do their own work.[576] Only the officers kept body-servants after the first year or two. These servants were always faithful, even unto death. The old Confederate soldiers have pleasant recollections of the devotion of the faithful black who "fought, bled, and died" with him for four years in dreary camp and on bloody battle-field. The old soldier-servants who survive tell with pride of the times when with "young master" and "Mass Bob Lee" they "fowt the Yankees in Virginny" or at "Ilun 10." Many a bullet was sent into the northern lines by the slaves secretly using the white soldiers' guns. When capture was imminent, the negro servant would take watches, papers, and other valuables of the master, and, making his way through the enemy's lines, return to the old home with messages and directions from his master, then in prison. In battle the slave was close at hand to aid his master when wounded or exhausted. With a pine torch at night he searched among the wounded and dead for his master. Finding him wounded, he cared for him faithfully, bore him to hospital or friendly house, or carried him a long journey home. Finding him dead, the devoted slave performed the last duties and alone often buried his master, and then went sadly home to break the news. Sometimes he managed to carry home his master's body, that it might lie among kindred in the family burying-ground. If he could not do that, he carried to his mistress his master's sword, horse, trinkets, and often his last message.[577] The negroes were more willing to serve as soldiers than the whites were for them to serve. The slave owner did not like the idea of having the negro fight, because it was felt that fundamentally the black was the cause of strife. Others were sensitive about using slave property to fight the quarrels of free men. As the years went on opinion was more and more favorable to negro enlistment, but it was too late before the Confederate government took up the matter.[578]