"I have had a good deal of conversation with a soldier who served in the Red river campaign under General Banks, and where the rebels numbered three to our one. In that campaign we were unsuccessful, for they defeated our forces day after day. We were about ten thousand in number, as we fled before such overwhelming odds. It was at this crisis that the black soldier proved himself such ’a very present help in the time of trouble.’ If it had not been for Dickey’s colored troops there would have been a regular slaughter of the Union forces at Pleasant Grove. These colored soldiers were attached to the first division of the 19th corps. Our army under General Banks had been beaten both days at Sabine, Cross Roads, below Mansfield, and they drove us for several hours before them towards Pleasant Grove. And yet the ardor and spirit of the combined Union forces under Banks and Franklin could not have been much higher. But for all that, it was quite evident that unless the rebels could be checked by the time we were pushed back to Pleasant Grove, all would be lost. So General Emory prepared for the coming crisis on the western edge of a wood, which had an open field before it that sloped down towards Mansfield. It was at this point that General Dwight formed a brigade of the colored troops right across the road in the face of the rebels, who came rushing and hurrahing on, driving our ten thousand men before them. They were charging at double quick time; but the black brigade reserved their fire till the exultant rebels were close at hand, when they all poured a deadly volley into them, arresting them at once, and covered the ground with their dead and wounded. Now a regular fight came on which lasted an hour and a half, and only ceased even then because darkness put an end to the terrible combat. The foe made one charge after another, and as he had plenty of men, he thought he would wear us out at last; but the black soldiers and General Emory’s brigade successfully repulsed them every time, and thus saved the Union army from being destroyed. Nor was this the only time that our own troops met the rebels in the Red river campaign, and defied both them and their repeated threats of ’the black flag;’ for they always said that they would not treat a black man like a white man if the former fell alive into their hands. They said they would treat him like a wild beast, and not like a human being at all! No doubt but that was done to keep our soldiers from fighting for freedom and the Union; but the threat most signally failed, because our brave men cared not a straw for their black flag; indeed the threats, and even the practices of the rebels in destroying some of our prisoners whom they took in the beginning contributed a great deal in bringing about the downfall of the rebel powers, at least up to the present time; and will no doubt contribute more and more till the last rebel lays down his arms. Although a war