In this respect our surgeons fortunately agreed with me, and we never had reason to regret it.

I believe the use of ardent spirits to be as useless and injurious in the army as on board ship, and among the colored troops, especially, who had never been accustomed to it, I think that it did only harm.
The point of greatest laxity in their moral habits--the want of a high standard of chastity--was not one which affected their camp life to any great extent, and it therefore came less under my observation.

But I found to my relief that, whatever their deficiency in this respect, it was modified by the general quality of their temperament, and indicated rather a softening and relaxation than a hardening and brutalizing of their moral natures.

Any insult or violence in this direction was a thing unknown.

I never heard of an instance.