"The accounts of the terrible fighting done here almost surpass human belief. About the 23rd of May, the Northern armies invested this place, and made a most tremendous effort to carry it by storm. The rebels had a naturally strong position, and all the appliances of war at their command. They had batteries and masked batteries, mortars, and, in short, almost everything known for destruction and modern warfare. They had even felled trees in our path, and their very cannon balls mowed down trees three feet thick. The noise of their guns made more din and uproar than the loudest thunderstorm. Against those brave and terrible rebels white soldiers from the North and colored soldiers from Louisiana advanced again and again, but all of them failed, and they were mown down like grass before the scythe. O terrible, sanguinary war! It was horrible! The balls and other missiles flew through the air thicker than hailstones. Once more we terribly underrated the prowess of the South. All of us were shipped alike, though we fought like gods! Oh, my dear Beulah! This is the price the American nation is now paying for the crime of slavery! The South carried out the villainy, and the North winked at the whole devilish business, thus, in fact, helping the rebels to keep on our claims! Shall a guilty nation indeed escape for deeds like these? At all events, we proved one thing during that terrible assault in May, and the subsequent siege of Port Hudson, and that was that colored men are as much men as white men, red, brown, yellow or any other race that can be named. These things were all well known before by every man, woman and child, but then, ’None are so blind as those who don’t want to see.’ The cry now is, ’Yes, yes! Colored men will fight well.’ It is some comfort to know all this, for now we can get a rest. "I send a deal of love to yourself, the children, to Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, to the entire church on Vine street, and to all others. I get all your letters. "I am, my dear Beulah, your most loving "THOMAS LINCOLN."