Troop Morale Quotes
Critics claim that this way he could appear that troops were well trained and display that to the press and the Congress while being able to avoid serious fighting. He never did have a grand review far away from Washington which could not be well attended.
The national troops acquired a confidence … at Belmont, that did not desert them throughout the war.
The battle had little strategic value, but was very significant as the Western Union troops gained an espirit de corps and a battle tested confidence.
The officers were all white, and Higginson was the Commander. It was his first experience with Negro troops, and he had heard much extrapolation from racist attitudes about Blacks not being able to make good soldiers. Ironically, the same suspicions of Blacks as military men carried over into the Second World War when this canard was disproved so publicly that it finally was erased with the exception of the most inveterate racists for whom no evidence would matter.
