The officers and men of the Twenty-ninth Regiment never felt a very deep interest in returning refugee negroes to their masters, and had never been educated up to the point of believing it to be any part of their duties as soldiers, in fighting for the restoration of the Union, to aid the slave-masters who were attempting to destroy it. To have felt otherwise, would have been as unjust as unnatural, for the poor negroes were the best, and in many instances the only, friends which the soldiers found throughout the Southern land. Whenever they came into our camps, they communicated to our officers whatever information they possessed about the movements and plans of the enemy; and although this information was seldom reliable, yet it was conscientiously given, its imperfections being mainly attributable to the utter incapacity of the negro to comprehend number or distance.
They were faithful and devoted servants to the soldiers, never demanding or expecting pay for their labor; were made supremely happy by the gift of a pair of blue trousers or a blouse; would follow a regiment on its longest and hardest marches; relieve the weary soldier of his knapsack or gun, and if the soldier was sick or overcome by the heat, save him from falling on the road and suffering the fate of a straggler. Scarcely a soldier of Company C will fail to remember the faithful “Toney,” who came to them from North Carolina through the wilds of the Dismal Swamp, and followed their fortunes to the end of the war.
On the 1st of June, the Paymaster arrived in camp, and paid off the men. At midnight of the 2d, orders came for the regiment to march early the next morning; it was in line and moved out of camp at six o’clock on the morning of the 3d. The place of destination was Suffolk, a post-village, capital of Nansemond County, Va., distant from Portsmouth about thirty-five miles, and the distance actually marched by the regiment, from its encampment to the village, not less than twenty-five miles. The day was extremely hot and sultry; the roads for much of the distance half submerged in water, and everywhere muddy. The men were in heavy marching order, each man’s burden consisting of his rifle, three days’ rations, forty rounds of cartridges, a canteen, and a knapsack. The men had not had much practice in marching, and it was easy enough to foresee the result of such an undertaking. Long before noon they began to straggle; instances of sunstroke were quite numerous; and all during that boiling, blistering day, no halt exceeding fifteen minutes was permitted. It was _a forced march of the most aggravated character, and that, too, without the slightest demand or necessity_.