18                  THE BLACK BRIGADE.

  They received this promise of protection and fair treatment
with grateful emotion, and assured me that they would endeavor
to do their duty. They felt some apprehension that the police
would arrest them; but, as I had advised the city authorities of
my action in the premises, and had received assurances that
there would be no more arrests, I told them that they could go
home without fear in this respect, and dismissed them. In this
I was, however, mistaken. Scarcely had these men, wearied
with thirty-six hours of constant labor-upon half rations, and
without sleep-broken ranks, when they were set upon by the
police, and numbers of them, with blows and imprecations,
dragged to the nearest cells. I reported the matter to General
Wallace, and bore from him to Mayor Hatch a peremptory
order prohibiting the arrest of any colored man, except for
crime. This opened the prison-doors, and by a late hour of the
evening, with the assistance of my staff and some citizens, all
the men arrested had been released and returned to their
homes.  This order secured exemption from further arrests for
some days, until Major-General Wright assumed immediate
command of the city, when, for some unknown reason-per-
haps because it was thought that the removal of General Wal-
lace from the command had annulled his orders--the police, a
third time, began arresting the colored men, those to whom, for
sickness or other cause, I had given passes to return to the city.
I again bore a peremptory order, this time from General Wright,
to Mayor Hatch, commanding him not to arrest colored men,
except for crime.  This again opened the prison-doors; and
since that time no colored man has been arrested in the city of
Cincinnati, merely because he was a colored man. Whether
these arrests were made by the police of their own volition, or
in obedience to orders from superiors, I know not. Each time
that I delivered a peremptory order from the commanding
General to Mayor Hatch, he promised obedience to it.
  The number of men dismissed on the evening of the 4th was
about four hundred. On the morning of the 5th, at the given
hour, 5 o'clock, about seven hundred reported for duty. A num-
ber of them were detailed for special duties, and about five
hundred marched with me across the river to Newport, and
thence to the cemetery on the Alexandria road in the rear of




			

OHS Archives/Library Pamphlet Collection

Black Brigade of Cincinnati: Being a Report of Its Labors and a Muster-Roll of Its Members; Together with Various Orders, Speeches, Etc. Relating to It.

H.