General Butlers Testimony. February 2, 1863.
"Upon examining the records I found that Governor Moore, of Louisiana, had raised a regiment of free colored people, and organized it and officered it; and I found one of his commissions. I sent for a colored man as an officer of that regiment, and got some fifteen or sixteen of the officers together—black and mulatto, light and dark colored—and asked them what they meant by being organized under the rebels. They said they had been ordered out, and could not refuse; but that the rebels had never trusted them with arms. They had been drilled in company drill. I asked them if that organization could be resuscitated, provided they were supplied with arms. They said that it could. Very well, I said, then I will resuscitate that regiment of Louisiana militia. I thereupon issued an order, stating the precedent furnished by Governor Moore, and in a week from that time I had in that regiment a thousand men, reasonably drilled and well disciplined; better disciplined than any other regiment I had there, because the blacks had been always taught to do as they were told. It was composed altogether of free men; made free under some law."
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General Butler in New Orleans: History of the Administration of the Dept. of the Gulf in the year 1862 ...By James Parton, 1864
The Panic in New Orleans, page 264
...There were but twenty-eight hundred Confederate troops in the city; and General Lovell, their commander, had gone down to the forts the day before, and was now galloping back along the levee like a man riding a steeple-chase. The militia, however, were numerous; conspicuous among them the European Brigade, composed of French, English and Spanish battalions. A fine regiment of free colored men was on duty also. But, in the absence of the general, and the uncertainty of the intelligence, nothing was done or could be done, but assemble and wait, and increase the general alarm by the specticle of masses of troops....Some thousands of the militia, it appears, left with the twenty-eight hundred Confederate troops, choking the avenues of escape with mulititudiuous vehicles. Other thousands remained, doffing their uniforms, exchanging garments even with negroes, and returned to their homes. The regiment of free colored men would not leave the city- a fact which was remembered, some months later, to their advantage.