In January, 1864, this regiment was ordered to report to Helena, Arkansas, and lent a hand in a number of small engagements, where they took numbers of prisoners. But the most serious fight in which they were engaged took place in the following July, near the White river, where they attacked a force of the rebels twice as numerous as themselves. This fight was most desperate, though the rebels lost three men to our one. Most of our own officers were killed or wounded; night was coming on apace, and still we held out—yea! fought like lions hour after hour. At last a body of white Union soldiers coming to our aid, burst through the rebel ranks with loud cheering, and our poor fellows, who were so hard pressed, cheered loudly in return. Still the arrival of these re-enforcements did not turn the battle into a Union victory, but they enabled us to retreat from the field in good order. Later on in the day, more colored re-enforcements from Helena arrived, but too late to make any changes in the situation. It was well for us, however, to save all the men we could, because the rebel soldiers and the rebel population on these western States and territories seldom missed an opportunity to murder every colored soldier who fell alive into their hands. Still we cared nothing for their "black flag," but fought ten times harder than before, and thus we helped on the downfall of slavery! The State of Kansas was the very first State in the entire Union to make a commencement in recruiting and drilling regiments of colored men to put down the great rebellion. Kansas was only admitted into the Union as a free State on the 29th of January, 1861. It was her admission as such that transferred the slave-holder’s rebellion from Kansas to South Carolina, and the other seceding States. In other words, the rebellion began in Kansas, and the scene was simply shifted upon Lincoln’s election. But the Republican men of Kansas arose with unbounded alacrity and enthusiasm, and in a short time had 20,000 men in the field, some of whom were regiments of colored men, who did yeoman’s service in the West. And not only in Kansas, but in every other section of the Union, colored men showed a great deal of principle in the way in which they came up to the rescue of the nation; came up with horse, foot and artillery! As Deborah says in her song of victory (Judges, 5 chapter, verse 18): "Zabulun and Naphtali were a people that jeopardized their lives unto the death in the high place of the field." The first fight in which the colored troops of Kansas were engaged took place near Butler. There were about two hundred and twenty-five men in all, and they were attacked by about five hundred Confederates. This is supposed to have been the very first engagement in the war between colored soldiers and the rebels, and the rebels were defeated with considerable loss. The date of the engagement was the 28th of October, 1862. The next morning a