even-handed when we had a fair field. Four thousand men, therefore, advanced along the sands of Morris Island with the intention of investing and clearing out the fort of its defenders, if there were any of them there. The colored Massachusetts troops led the way, and so they all advanced along the sands—the white sands that had but lately been washed by the ocean. Everything was as still as a stone till they came to a ditch, when a fearful tempest of shot from the cannon and musket assailed them, and the assailants were mowed down like grass before the scythe. Still our troops bravely advanced across the ditch, climbed up the bank, and pushed forward right into the fort, slaughtering the gunners and clearing a path before them. But all this time our brave men were being mowed down in rows. Many jumped into the fort and had to surrender there, because, indeed, they could neither advance nor retreat, being caught in a perfect trap. Thus we lost about half our men in killed, wounded and prisoners, and had to retreat in the best way we were able. It was a dreadful defeat that the Union forces sustained; but the colored troops had the honor of leading all the rest, and the foolish idea that colored men would not fight received another complete quietus, and their bravery was published in all the papers from one end of the Union to the other. We now come to the glorious subject of education—that which lifts up any nation from the bottom, and places it among the kings and queens of the world. The colored men and women of the South before who could read and write, were like angel visits—few and far between. You might search the whole day long, and not find one who could sign his name. But the government records show that in the year 1870, only five years after the close of the war, taking the entire population of the United States in the aggregate, there were two-tenths, which is twenty per cent., who could read and write. Here, indeed, was one of the signs of the times with a vengeance! Surely the colored race must have a great natural thirst for knowledge. In the year 1880, that is, fifteen years after freedom came, three-tenths, which is thirty per cent. of the whole population, could read and write; and in 1890, or twenty-five years after the end of the war, forty-three of every hundred. In other words, forty-three per cent. of the colored population of the United States could read and write—being ten years and over of age. At that time that I am writing my book, that is, the year of grace, 1897, inasmuch as the increase is going bravely on from day to day, I have no hesitation in saying that fifty per cent., that is, one-half of the entire colored population of the United States, North and South included, and—as usual in such government statistics—ten years of age and over, are able to read and write at least, and there are hundreds of thousands of them who can do a hundred times more.