"Oh, papa!" protested Lillie. She was slightly unionized, but not in the least abolitionized.
"I am delighted that General Butler has resolved to take the responsibility of it," continued the Doctor. "Our free negroes are really a respectable class. Many of them are wealthy and well educated. In the whole south General Butler could not have found another so favorable a place to try this experiment as New Orleans."
"I am glad you think so," answered the Colonel; but he said it with an air of no great enthusiasm. In fact how could an old army officer, a West Point military Brahmin and a Virginian gentleman look with favor at first sight on the plan of raising nigger regiments?
"But as for the colonelcy," continued the Doctor. "Are you positively serious in making me that proposition?"
"Why, I am no more fit to be a Colonel than I am to be a professor of Sanscrit and Chinese literature."
"That needn't stand in the way at all. That is of no consequence."
Ravenel laughed outright, and waited for an explanation.
"Your Lieutenant-Colonel and Major will be experienced officers--that is, for volunteers," said Carter. "They will know the drill, at any rate. Your part will be simply to give the thing a local coloring, as if the New Orleans people had got it up among themselves."
Here he burst into a horse-laugh at the idea of saddling Louisianians with the imputation of desiring and raising nigger soldiers for putting down the rebellion and slavery.
"You will have nothing to do with the regiment," he went on. "As soon as it is organized, or under way, you will be detached. You will be superintendent of negro education, or superintendent of negro labor, or something of that sort. You will have the rank and pay of Colonel, you see; but your work will be civil instead of military; it will be for the benefit of the niggers."
"Oh, indeed!" answered the Doctor, his face for the first time showing that the proposition had for him a pole of attraction. "So officers can be detached for such purposes? It is perfectly honorable, is it?"
"Quite so. Army custom. About the same thing as making an officer a provost-marshal, or military governor, or mayor."
"Really, I am vastly tempted. I am vastly flattered and very grateful. I must think of it. I will consider it seriously."