3 Quotes by Luis Fenollosa Emilio

While recruiting, Lieutenant Grace was often insulted by such remarks as, "There goes the captain of the Negro Company! He thinks the negroes will fight! They will turn and run at the first sight of the enemy!" His little son was scoffed at in school because his father was raising a negro company to fight the white men.

It was the lot of the Fifity-fourth to bear the brunt of the struggle against the bitter injustice of inferior pay to which black troops were subjected, and the further struggle to secure for the enlisted men who earned it by intelligence and bravery, the right to rise from the ranks and serve as officers.

You have probably seen the order from Washington which cuts down the pay for colored troops from $13 to $10. Of course if this affects Massachusetts regiments, it will be a great piece of injustice to them, as they were enlisted on the express understanding that they were to be on precisely the same footing as all other Massachusetts troops. (excerpt from letter to MA Gov. John A. Andrew from Col. Robert G. Shaw, 2 July 1863)