integrate our armies." Nevertheless, when policy indicated it, the declaration came, as will be seen hereafter. Meantime, General Fremont, in command in Missouri, issued a proclamation on August 31, 1861, declaring the property, real and personal, of all persons in arms against the United States, or taking an active part with their enemies, to be confiscated, and their slaves to be free men. This was subsequently modified to conform to the terms of the above-mentioned confiscation act. General Thomas W. Sherman, commanding at Port Royal, in South Carolina, was instructed, on October 14, 1861, to receive all persons, whether slaves or not, and give them employment, assuring all loyal masters that Congress will provide just compensation to them for the loss of the services of the persons so employed." To others no relief was to be given. This was, by confiscation, to punish a class of citizens, in the emancipation of every slave whose owner rendered support to the Confederate States. Finally, General Halleck, who succeeded Fremont, and General Dix, commanding near Fortress Monroe, issued orders not to permit slaves to come within their lines. They were speedily condemned for this action, because it put a stop to the current of emancipation, which will be hereafter narrated.

Reference has been made to our want of a navy, and the efforts made to supply the deficiency. The usual resort under such circumstances to privateers was, in our case, without the ordinary incentive of gain, as all foreign ports were closed against our prizes, and, our own ports being soon blockaded, our vessels, public or private, had but the alternative of burning or bonding their captures. To those who, nevertheless, desired them, letters of marque were granted by us, and there was soon a small fleet of vessels composed of those which had taken out these letters, and others which had been purchased and fitted out by the Navy Department. They hovered on the coasts of the Northern States, capturing and destroying their vessels, and filling the enemy with consternation. The President of the United States had already declared in his proclamation of April 19th, as above stated, that "any person, who, under the pretended authority of the said (Confederate) States, should molest a vessel of the

1862]

THE LITTLE SCHOONER SAVANNAH.

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United States, or the persons or cargo on board," should be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention of piracy. This was another violation of international law, another instance of arrogant disregard for universal opinion. The threat, if meant for intimidation, and to deprive the Confederacy of one of the usual weapons of war, was unbecoming the head of a Government. To have executed it upon a helpless prisoner, would have been a crime intensified by its cowardice. Happily for the United States, the threat was not executed, but the failure to carry out the declared purpose was coupled with humiliation, because it was the result of a notice to retaliate as fully as might need be to stop such a barbarous practice. To yield to the notice thus served, was a practical admission by the United States Government that the Confederacy had become a power among the nations.

On June 3, 1861, the little schooner Savannah, previously a pilot-boat in Charleston Harbor and sailing under a commission issued by authority of the Confederate States, was captured by the United States brig Perry. The crew were placed in irons and sent to New York. It appeared, from statements made without contradiction, that they were not treated as prisoners of war, whereupon a letter was addressed by me to President Lincoln, dated July 6th, stating explicitly that, "painful as will be the necessity, this Government will deal out to the prisoners held by it the same treatment and the same fate as shall be experienced by those captured on the Savannah; and, if driven to the terrible necessity of retaliation by your execution of any of the officers or crew of the Savannah, that retaliation will be extended so far as shall be requisite to secure the abandonment of a practice unknown to the warfare of civilized man, and so barbarous as to disgrace the nation which shall be guilty of inaugurating it." A reply was promised to this letter, but none came. Still later in the year the privateer Jefferson Davis was captured, the captain and crew brought into Philadelphia, and the captain tried and found guilty of piracy and threatened with death. Immediately I instructed General Winder, at Richmond, to select one prisoner of the highest rank, to be confined in a cell appropriated to convicted felons, and treated in all re

spects as if convicted, and to be held for execution in the same manner as might be adopted for the execution of the prisoner of war in Philadelphia. He was further instructed to select thirteen other prisoners of the highest rank, to be held in the same manner as hostages for the thirteen prisoners held in New York for trial as pirates. By this course the infamous attempt made by the United States Government to commit judicial murder on prisoners of war was arrested.

The attention of the British House of Lords was also attracted to the proclamation of President Lincoln, threatening the officers and crew of privateers with the punishment of piracy. It led to a discussion in which the Earl of Derby said: "He apprehended that, if one thing was clearer than another, it was that privateering was not piracy; and that no law could make that piracy, as regarded the subjects of one nation which was not piracy by the law of nations. Consequently, the United States must not be allowed to entertain this doctrine, and to call upon her Majesty's Government not to interfere." The Lord Chancellor said: "There was no doubt that, if an Englishman engaged in the service of the Southern States, he violated the laws of his country and rendered himself liable to punishment, and that he had no right to trust to the protection of his native country to shield him from the consequences of his act. But, though that individual would be guilty of a breach of the law of his own country, he could not be treated as a pirate, and those who treated him as a pirate would be guilty of murder."

The appearance of this little fleet on the ocean made it necessary for the powers of Europe immediately to define their Great Britain, position relative to the contending powers. adopting a position of neutrality, and recognizing both as belligerents, interdicted the armed ships and privateers of both from carrying prizes into the waters of the United Kingdom or its colonies. All the other powers recognized the Confederate States to be belligerents, but closed their ports against the admission of prizes captured by either belligerent.

It is worthy of notice that the United States Government (though it had previously declined) at this time notified the English and French Governments that it was now willing to

1862]

WHY WERE THEY NOT HUNG?

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adhere to all the conditions of the Paris Congress of 1856, provided the clause abolishing privateers might apply to the Confederate States. The offer, with the proviso, was honorably declined by both France and England.

In the matter of the exchange of prisoners, which became important in consequence of these retaliatory measures, and the number taken by our troops at Manassas, the people of the Northern States were the victims of incessant mortification and distress through the vacillating and cruel conduct of their Government. It based all its immense military movements on the theory that "the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed and the execution thereof obstructed,... by combinations too powerful to be suppressed" by the ordinary methods. Under this theory the United States are assumed to be one nation, and the distinctions among them. of States are as little recognized as if they did not exist. This theory was false, and thereby led its originators into constant blunders. When the leaders of a government aspire to the acquisition of absolute, unlimited power, and the sword is drawn to hew the way, it would be more logical and respectable to declare the laws silent than to attempt to justify unlawful acts by unwarranted legislation. If their theory had been true, then their prisoners of war were insurrectionists and rebels, and guilty of treason, and hanging would have been the legitimate punishment. Why were they not hung? Not through pity, but because the facts contradicted the theory. The "combinations" spoken of were great and powerful States, and the danger was that the North would be the greater sufferer by our retali ation. There was no humane course but to exchange prisoners according to the laws of war. With this the Government of the United States refused to comply, lest it might be construed into an acknowledgment of belligerent rights on our part, which would explode their theory of insurrectionary combinations, tend to restore more correct views of the rights and powers of the States, and expose in its true light their efforts to establish the supreme and unlimited sovereignty of the General Government. The reader may observe the tenacity with which the authorities at Washington, and, behind them, the Northern States, clung

to this theory. Upon its strict maintenance depended the success of their bloody revolution to secure absolute supremacy over the States. Upon its failure, the dissolution of the Union would have been established; constitutional liberty would have been vindicated; the hopes of mankind in the modern institutions of federation fulfilled; and a new Union might have been formed and held together with a bond of fraternity and not by the sword, as under the above revolutionary theory.

By the exchange of prisoners, nothing was conceded except what was evident to the world-that actual war existed, and that a Christian people should at least conduct it according to the usages of civilized nations. But sectional hate and the vain conceit of newly acquired power led to the idle prophecy of our speedy subjection, and hence the Government of the United States refused to act as required by humanity and the usages of civilized warfare. At length, moved by the clamors of the relatives and friends of the prisoners we held, and by fears of retaliation, it covertly submitted to abandon its declared purpose, and to shut its eyes while the exchanges were made by various commanders under flags of truce. Thus some were exchanged in New York, Washington, Cairo, and Columbus, Kentucky, and by General McClellan in western Virginia and elsewhere. On the whole, the partial exchanges were inconsiderable and inconclusive as to the main question. The condition at the close of the year 1861, summarily stated, was that soldiers captured in battle were not protected by the usage of "exchange," and citizens were arrested without due process of law, deported to distant States, and incarcerated without assigned cause. All this by persons acting under authority of the United States Government, but in disregard of the United States Constitution, which provides that "no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or an indictment of a grand jury, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."*"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated." These provisions were of no avail to protect the citi+ Ibid., Article IV. * Constitution of the United States, Article V.