The prolonged struggle which culminated in permitting the Negro's general enlistment in our Civil War had only to be repeated to secure for him the full pay of a soldier, the right to be treated as a prisoner of war, and to relieve him of the monopoly of fatigue and garrison duty. He was too overjoyed with the boon of fighting for the liberation of his race to make much contention about who was to lead him. With meagre exception, his exclusive business in that war was to carry a gun. Yet repeatedly Negro soldiers evinced high capacity for command. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson draws a glowing portrait of Sergeant Prince Rivers, Color-Sergeant of the First South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment of slaves, organized late in 1862. The Color-Sergeant was provost-Sergeant also, and had entire charge of the prisoners and of the daily policing of the camp. "He is a man of distinguished appearance and in old times was the crack coachman of Beaufort. * * * They tell me that he was once allowed to present a petition to the Governor of South Carolina in behalf of slaves, for the redress of certain grievances, and that a placard, offering two thousand dollars for his re-capture is still to be seen by the wayside between here and Charleston. He was a sergeant in the old 'Hunter Regiment,' and was taken by General Hunter to New York last spring, where the chevrons on his arm brought a mob upon him in Broadway, whom he kept off till the police interfered. There is not a white officer in this regiment who has more administrative ability, or more absolute authority over the men; they do not love him, but his mere presence has controlling power over them. He writes well enough to prepare for me a daily report of his duties in the camp; if his education reached a higher point I see no reason why he should not command the Army of the Potomac. He is jet-black, or rather, I should say, wine-black, his complexion, like that of others of my darkest men, having a sort of rich, clear depth, without a trace of sootiness, and to my eye very handsome. His features are tolerably regular, and full of command, and his figure superior to that of any of our white officers, being six feet high, perfectly proportioned, and of apparently inexhaustable strength and activity. His gait is like a panther's; I never saw such a tread. No anti-slavery novel has described a man of such marked ability. He makes Toussaint perfectly intelligible, and if there should ever be a black monarchy in South Carolina he will be its king."[28]