The Richmond Daily Dispatch: March 22, 1865.
Parade on the square.
--At half past 4 o'clock this afternoon, Major Chambliss's (Winder and Jackson Hospitals) battalion will parade on Capitol Square. Included in the battalion is a company of negroes, commanded by Captain Grimes, who will also be present and go through the military evolutions. This is the first company of negro troops which have been raised in Virginia, and was organized about a month ago by Dr. Chambliss from the employees of the hospitals. The men were on the lines during the recent raid.
Richmond Dispatch.
Thursday morning...March 23, 1865.
We trust that the appeal of Major Pegram and Major Turner for persons of color, free and slave, who are willing to volunteer under the recent acts of Congress and the Virginia Legislature, will meet a prompt and cordial response. Let the people of Virginia come up to the crisis like men. Those who have given their own sons and brothers cannot hesitate to give their servants also to the glorious cause. We say, with our gallant officers: "Let every man in the State consider himself as a recruiting officer, and enter at once upon the duty of aiding in the organization of this force by sending forward recruits to our rendezvous." We learn, with pleasure, that quite an enthusiasm has been kindled among the negroes themselves here, and that they are eager to aid in the deliverance of the country. We are not surprised at it, for of all who must suffer from Yankee subjugation they would be the most hopeless of the miserable. It is, in realty, their extermination that is the inevitable effect of Yankee triumph in this war.
The Daily Dispatch: March 25, 1865.
The cause Progressing.
--Daily accessions are made to Major Turner's negro troops, now being drilled and organized at Smith's factory, on the corner of Twenty-first and Cary streets, by Lieutenant Virginius Bossieux. At 5 o'clockyesterday afternoon we witnessed a drill at their barracks, and have no hesitation in saying that, for the time they have been at it, as much aptness and proficiency was displayed as is usually shown by any white troops we have ever seen.
Among the number who enlisted yesterday was a free negro, who had been despoiled of his canal boat by the Yankee raiders who lately visited Goochland and other counties on the line of the canal. Upon applying to Lieutenant Bossieux for permission to join, he said that he was born in Virginia, and had, by hard work, bought himself a boat, but the Yankees had despoiled him of his all, and he never would rest till he had his revenge and they were driven entirely out of the State. Other free negro boatmen, he said, had, like himself, been robbed by the Yankees, and he was in for making them, too, join the army of the South or leave the soil of this good old Commonwealth.