The negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among than our white troops, and I doubt not will prove equally good for garrison duty. All that have been tried have fought bravely.

At Vicksburg (24 July 1863), as quoted in Words of our Hero: Ulysses S. Grant, edited by Jeremiah Chaplin, Boston: D. Lothrop and Company, pp. 13-14. Also quoted in Ulysses S. Grant, Triumph over Adversity, by Brooks Donohue Simpson, p. 217