Colonel John Eaton, Jr., Commander of the 63rd, praises the Home Guard

“I have dwelt somewhat in detail upon these regiments composing the colored invalid corp because they represent a distinct though humble phase of the service, the usefulness of which deserves to be recorded and fixed in the public mind.”

"People will remember those who fought at Port Hudson and at Milliken Bend…but the humbler duty of safeguarding the plantations from assaults…protecting the women and children, the aged and infirm,--these were services which devolved upon men debarred by physical incapacity from the more heroic campaigns endured by their brothers, but no whit less devoted to the Union, no whit less brave in their loyalty to the cause that has freed them.” *

*John Eaton, Jr., Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen, 112.