Notes

1. The First and Third Regiments of Louisiana Native Guards bravely attacked Port Hudson on May 27, 1863. Some newspaper correspondents mistakenly reported that it was the Second Regiment which had taken part in the assault. In the summer of 1863 Boker's poem circulated in the antislavery press under the title "The Second Louisiana" (see also "The Second Louisiana" in the Christian Recorder, June 13, 1863, and "The Second Louisiana" in the Anglo-African, June 27, 1863). Boker probably wrote the poem in response to early reports, then changed the title to "The Black Regiment" when the mistake became apparent.
    
   "Col. Daniel's Second Louisiana negro regiment distinguished itself . . . especially in charging upon the enemy's siege guns, losing killed and wounded over 600," reported the Boston Daily Evening Transcript of June 6, 1863 (quoted by James G. Hollandsworth, The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience during the Civil War [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995], 63). "Nobly done, Second Regiment of Louisiana," proclaimed the Liberator a fortnight later. General Nathaniel Banks's official report praised the First and Third Regiments. The Anglo-African of June 13, 1863, brushed aside reporters' confusion as to which Louisiana regiments had taken part in the battle: "It is immaterial which statement is true, so long as the great fact remains; that no such fighting has been seen since the war began."
   
2. John Aylmer Dorgan (1836–1867), conveyancer, poet. Little is known about his life. His father, Daniel, was a cabinetmaker from Ireland who immigrated to the United States and settled in Philadelphia before John's birth. John trained as a specialist property lawyer. Studies—his first and last collection of poetry, privately published in 1862—is dedicated to Joseph Ball, a conveyancer of Frankford, Pennsylvania. The book received a lukewarm reception in the Liberator (April 10, 1863). Newspaper poetry provides the only extant record of Dorgan's antislavery sympathies. During the Civil War, Dorgan lived in Philadelphia with his father and "Annie" (probably his elder sister). According to the New York Times of December 31, 1867, he died of consumption that year.
3. Anselmo/Anselmas Planciancios (1822?–May 27, 1863); sergeant, Company E, First Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards. Prior to his enlistment, free-born Planciancios worked as a driver to support his family (Stephen S. Ochs, A Black Patriot and a White Priest: André Cailloux and Claude Paschal Maistre in Civil War New Orleans [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000], 80). He was chosen to carry the regimental colors during the Port Hudson attack: the dangerous role was perceived as an honor and a mark of military distinction. Early in the battle, Planciancios was mortally wounded in the head: "He hugged the colors to his heart and fell forward on them," reported the Boston Journal (Anglo-African, June 27, 1863, [2]).
4. Arnold von Winkelried, a Swiss soldier reputed to have turned the tide of the Battle of Sempach (1386). When the Swiss found themselves surrounded by Austrian enemies, Winkelried "seized with both arms as many of the enemy's spears as he was able, buried them in his body, and sank dead to the ground, while the confederates rushed forward through the breach, over the body of their heroic and self-devoted compatriot" (Frederick Kohlrausch, A History of Germany; From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, trans. James D. Haas [New York: Appleton, 1852], 220).