on the lake, besides preventing the enemy from having cover. To do this the negroes ought to be employed; and in so employing them I see no evidence of 'slave-driving' or employing you as a 'slave-driver.'

"The soldiers of the Army of the Potomac did this very thing last summer in front of Arlington Hights: are the negroes any better than they? "Because of an order to do this necessary thing to protect your front, threatened by the enemy, you tender your resignation and ask immediate leave of absence. I assure you I did not expect this, either from your courage, your patriotism, or your good sense. To resign in the face of an enemy has not been the highest plaudit to a soldier, especially when the reason assigned is that he is ordered to do that which a recent act of congress has specially authorized a military commander to do, i. e., employ the Africans to do the necessary work about a camp or upon a fortification.

"General, your resignation will not be accepted by me, leave of absence will not be granted, and you will see to it that my orders, thus necessary for the defense of the city, are faithfully and diligently executed, upon the responsibility that a soldier in the field owes to his superior. I will see that all proper requisitions for the food, shelter, and clothing of these negroes so at work are at once filled by the proper departments. You will also send out a proper guard to protect the laborers against the guerilla force, if any, that may be in the neighborhood.

"I am your obedient servant,

“BENJ. F. BUTLER, Major-General Commanding. "Brigadier-General J. W. PHELPS, commanding at Camp Parapet."

On the same day, General Butler wrote again to General Phelps:

"NEW ORLEANS, August 2, 1862. "GENERAL-By the act of congress, as I understand it, the president of the United States alone has the authority to employ Africans in arms as a part of the military forces of the United States.

Every law up to this time raising volunteer or militia forces has been opposed to their employment. The president has not as yet indicated his purpose to employ the Africans in arms.

"The arms, clothing, and camp equipage which I have here for the Louisiana volunteers, is, by the letter of the secretary of war, expressly limited to white soldiers, so that I have no authority to divert them, however much I may desire so to do.

"I do not think you are empowered to organize into companies negroes, and drill them as a military organization, as I am not surprised, but unexpectedly informed you have done. I can not sanction this course of action as at present advised, specially when we have need of the services of the

blacks, who are being sheltered upon the outskirts of your camp, as you will see by the orders for their employment sent you by the assistant adjutantgeneral.

"I will send your application to the president, but in the mean time you must desist from the formation of any negro military organization.

66

"I am your obedient servant,

"BENJ. F. BUTLER, Major-General Commanding. "Brigadier-General PHELPS, commanding forces at Camp Parapet."

With these official letters General Butler sent a private one, in which he gave utterance to his sincere appreciation of General Phelps's abilities, patriotism and humanity, and implored him not to persist in a course which must place him in an attitude of hostility to the commander of the department. "A more delicate, generous, or considerate letter I never read," says Captain Puffer, who wrote it from the general's dictation.

General Phelps was immovable. He at once replied to the two official letters:

"CAMP PARAPET, LA., August 2, 1862. "Major-General B. F. BUTLER, commanding the Department of the Gulf : "SIR:-Two communications from you of this date have this moment been received. One of them refers to the raising of volunteers or militia forces, stating that I'must desist from the formation of any negro military organization,' and the other declaring, in a spirit contrary to all usage of military service, and to all the rights and liberties of a citizen of a free government, that my resignation will not be accepted by you; that a leave of absence until its acceptance by the president will not be granted me; and that I must see to it that your orders, which I could not obey without becoming a slave myself, are 'faithfully and diligently executed.'

"It can be of but little consequence to me as to what kind of slavery I am to be subjected, whether to African slavery or to that which you thus so offensively propose for me, giving me an order wholly opposed to my convictions of right as well as of the higher scale of public necessities in the case, and insisting upon my complying with it faithfully and diligently, allowing me no room to escape with my convictions or my principles at any sacrifice that I may make. I can not submit to either kind of slavery, and can not, therefore, for a double reason, comply with your order of the 31st of July; in complying with which I should submit to both kindsboth to African slavery and to that to which you resort in its defense.

"Desirous to the last of saving the public interests involved, I appeal to your sense of justice to reconsider your decision, and make the most to the

cause out of the sacrifice which I offer, by granting the quiet, proper, and customary action upon my resignation. By refusing my request, you would subject me to great inconvenience, without, as far as I can see, any advantage either to yourself or to the service.

"With the view of securing myself a tardy justice in the case, being remote from the capital, where the transmission of the mails is remarkably irregular and uncertain, and in order to give you every assurance that my resignation is tendered in strict compliance with paragraph 29 of the regulations, to be 'unconditional and immediate,' I herewith inclose a copy for the adjutant-general of the army, which I desire may be forwarded to him to lay before the president for as early action in the case as his excellency may be pleased to accord. And as my position, sufficiently unpleasant already, promises to become much more so still by the course of action which I am sorry to find that you deem it proper to pursue, I urgently request his excellency, by a speedy acceptance of my commission, to liberate me from that sense of suffocation, from that darkling sense of bondage and enthrallment which, it appears to me, like the snake around the muscles and sinews of Laocoon, is entangling and deadening the energies of the government and country, when a decisive act might cut the coils and liberate us from their baueful and fascinating influence for ever.

"In conclusion of this communication, and I should also hope of my services in this department, I deem it my duty to state, lest it might not otherwise come to your notice, that several parties of the free colored men of New Orleans have recently come to consult me on the propriety of raising one or two regiments of volunteers from their class of the population for the defense of the government and good order, and that I have recommended them to propose the measure to you, having no power to act upon it myself.

“I am, sir, very respectfully,

"Your obedient servant,

"J. W. PHELPS, Brigadier-General.

"P. S. Monday, August 4.-The negroes increase rapidly. There are doubtless now six hundred able-bodied men in camp. These, added to those who are suffering uselessly in the prisons and jails of New Orleans and vicinity, and feeding from the general stock of provisions, would make a good regiment of one thousand men, who might contribute as much to the preservation of law and good order as a regiment of Caucasians, and probably much more. Now a mere burden, they might become a benificent element of governmental power.

General Butler remained firm to his purpose.

"J. W. P."

"NEW ORLEANS, August 4, 1862.

"GENERAL:-Your communication of to-day has been received. I had forwarded your resignation on the day it was received, to the president of the United States, so that there will be no occasion of forwarding a duplicate. I am not at liberty to accept your resignation. I can not consistently with my duty and the orders of the war department grant you a leave of absence till it is accepted by the president, for want of officers to supply your place.

"I see nothing unusual, nor do I intend anything so, in the refusal to accept the resignation of an officer, where his place can not be at the present moment supplied.

"I pray you to understand that there was nothing intended to be offensive to you in either the matter or manner of my communication. In directing you to cease military organization of the negroes, I do but carry out the law of congress as I understand it; and in doing which I have no choice. I can see neither African nor other slavery in the commander of the post clearing from the front of his line, by means of able-bodied men under his control, the trees and underbrush, which would afford cover and shelter to his enemies in case of attack, especially where the very measure, as a precautionary one, was advised by yourself; and while in deference to your age and experience as a soldier, and the appreciation I have of your many good qualities of heart, I have withdrawn and do withdraw anything you may find offensive in my communication; still I must request a categorical answer to this question: Will you or will you not employ a proper portion of the negroes now within your lines in cutting down the trees which afford cover to the enemy in the front and right of your line?

"I pray you to observe, that if there is anything of wrong in this order, that wrong is mine, for you have sufficiently protested against it. You are not responsible for it more than the hand that executes it; it can offend neither your political nor moral sense.

"With sentiments of the utmost kindness and respect, I am your obedient servant,

"B. F. BUTLER, Major-General Commanding. "Brigadier-General J. W. PHELPS, commanding at Carrollton."

General Phelps would not give the "categorical answer" required. Instead of that, he favored the president with an unanswerable argument in favor of employing the negroes as soldiers.

"CAMP PARAPET, LA., August 5, 1862. "Major-General BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, commanding the Department of the Gulf, New Orleans, Louisiana :

"SIR:-I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communica

tion of yesterday, proposing a question for a categorical answer, which came to hand at a quarter before one o'clock P. M. to-day.

"To propose a question, either specific or abstract, of obedience to orders, after I had tendered my resignation immediate and unconditional, seems to me hardly compatible with the 'sentiments of kindness' that you express. If I am to be detained here against my wishes because my place can not at present be supplied, then, at least, I ought not to be troubled with unnecessary issues between my sense of obedience to orders, and my convictions and principles. I am willing to fill a place temporarily, and perform the routinary duties of my profession until the acceptance of my resignation; but as I am left wholly destitute of the proper power and authority to meet the urgent and practical questions that come up every day for solution, it would seem to me idle to comply with merely one measure among many, especially when we have work enough already for our negroes to do, and when the order proposed, if extended to other obstructions as well as trees, would occasion a great amount of unnecessary labor and destruction.

"My dear sir, it is not a question of obedience to orders between us. I fully appreciate the difficulties of your position, and the varied abilities, patriotism and untiring diligence which you have shown in meeting them; and it is with great reluctance and regret that I have to trouble you with anything of my own; but at a crisis in our national affairs so important as this, I should not be doing my duty either to the country or to the government I should mislead them both, were I to remain quietly at my post, with the semblance, but without the power of fulfilling the duties incumbent upon it. I should endanger and complicate public interests in this way, rather than serve them.

"The distance of this station from the capital of the country; the irregularity and studied uncertainty of the mails; the uncongenial character of Latin laws and education, and slave labor to democratic institutions; the speculating character of the people habituated to conspiratorial associations, idle combinations and fraudulent collusions; all these and many other elements of disorder and opposition to legitimate authority, Lilliputian as they are when viewed by themselves, seem threatening to entangle the feeble, hesitating and undecided action of the government, and render its great and beneficent power of no avail. As it is, we seem to be in a foreign country rather than in the United States, not so much from the character of the people as from the want of action of the government upon it. "You ask me whether I will obey a certain order or not. With perfect respect and deference for yourself and your position, I beg leave to be permitted in return to submit the following propositions to his excellency the president of the United States, as those under which I could alone consent to serve.

"1st. The people purchased a large region of country called Louisiana,