Meanwhile General Butler, with the consent of the War Department, had raised, organized, and equipped, in the neighborhood of New Orleans, two good regiments of Louisianans, the 1st Louisiana, Colonel Richard E. Holcomb, and the 2d Louisiana, Colonel Charles J. Paine, both regiments admirably commanded and well officered; three excellent troops of Louisiana cavalry, under fine leaders, Captains Henry F. Williamson, Richard Barrett, and J. F. Godfrey; and beside these white troops, three regiments of negroes, designated as the 1st, 2d, and 3d Louisiana Native Guards. This was the name originally employed by Governor Moore early in 1861, to describe an organization of the free men of color of New Orleans enrolled for the defence of the city against the expected attack by the forces of the Union.
This action was taken by Butler of his own motion. It was never formally approved by the government, but it was not interfered with. These three regiments were the first negro troops mustered into the service of the United States. At least one of them, the 1st, was largely made up of men of that peculiar and exclusive caste known to the laws of slavery as the free men of color of Louisiana. All the field and staff officers were white men, mainly taken from the rolls of the troops already in service; but at first all the company officers were negroes. As this was the first experiment, it was perhaps, in the state of feeling then prevailing, inevitable, yet not the less to be regretted, that the white officers were, with some notable exceptions, inferior men. Fortunately, however, courts-martial and examining boards made their career for the most part a short one. As for the colored officers of the line, early in 1863 they were nearly all disqualified on the most rudimentary examination, and then the rest resigned. After that, the government having determined to raise a large force of negro troops, it became the settled policy to grant commissions as officers to none but white men.
The 1st and 2d regiments were sent into the district of La Fourche to guard the railway.
Then, between Butler and Weitzel, in spite of confidence on the one hand and respect and affection on the other, began the usual controversy about arming the negro. To one unacquainted with the history of this question and of those times it must seem strange indeed to read the emphatic words in which a soldier so loyal and, in the best sense, so subordinate as Weitzel, declared his unwillingness to command these troops, and to reflect that in a little more than two years he was destined to accept with alacrity the command of a whole army corps of black men, and at last to ride in triumph at their head into the very capital of the Confederacy.