Army Life in a Black Regiment is a riveting and empathetic account of the lessons learned from an encounter between a New England intellectual and nearly a thousand newly freed slaves. In the fall of 1862, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was asked to take command of the 1st Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, and he immediately understood the significance of the experiment and enthusiastically accepted the position. Drawing extensively from the diary he kept during the seventeen months he commanded the regiment, Higginson details the nature of camp life, the drills and discipline of the men, the expeditions up rivers and into the southern interior, and the invasion and occupation of Jacksonville, Florida. This literary classic is stitched together with dramatic events, factual reporting, humor, and insightful reflection on human nature.