ence for our Congress, I do doubt their wisdom in the passage of this law:

"1. Because civilian agents about an army are a nuisance.

"2. The duty of citizens to fight for their country is too sacred a one to be peddled off by buying up the refuse of other States.

"3. It is unjust to the brave soldiers and volunteers who are fighting as those who compose this army do, to place them on a par with the class of recruits you are after.

“4. The negro is in a transition state, and is not the equal of the white man.

"5. He is liberated from his bondage by act of war, and the armies in the field are entitled to all his assistance in labor and fighting, in addition to the proper quotas of the States.

"6. This bidding and bartering for recruits, white and black, has delayed the re-enforcement of the armies at the times when such re-enforcements would have enabled us to make our successes permanent.

"7. The law is an experiment which, pending war, is unwise and unsafe, and has delayed the universal draft, which I firmly believe will become necessary to overcome the wide-spread resistance offered us; and I also believe the universal draft will be wise and beneficial, for, under the providence of God, it will separate the sheep from the goats, and demonstrate what citizens will fight for their country, and what will only talk.

"No one will infer from this that I am not a friend of the negro as well as the white race. I contend that the treason and rebellion of the master freed the slave, and the armies I have commanded have conducted to safe points more negroes than those of any general officer in the army; but I prefer negroes for pioneers, teamsters, cooks, and servants; others gradually to experiment in the art of the soldier, beginning with the duties of local garrisons, such as we had at Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, Nashville, and Chattanooga; but I would not draw on the poor race for too large a proportion of its active, athletic young men, for some must remain to seek new

homes, and provide for the old and young, the feeble and helpless.

"These are some of my peculiar notions, but I assure you they are shared by a large proportion of our fighting men."

In further explanation of these views, he subsequently wrote to Adjutant-General Thomas, then in special charge of the duty of raising colored troops in the West and Southwest :

"My preference is to make this radical change with natural slowness. If negroes are taken as soldiers by undue influence or force, and compelled to leave their women in the uncertainty of their new condition, they cannot be relied on; but if they can put their families in some safe place, and then earn money as soldiers or laborers, the transition will be more easy and the effect more permanent. What my order contemplated was the eagerness of recruiting captains and lieutenants to make up their quota, in order to be commissioned. They would use a species of force or undue influence, and break up our gangs of laborers, as necessary as soldiers. We find gangs of negro laborers, well organized, on the Mississippi, at Nashville, and along the railroads, most useful, and I have used them with great success as pioneer companies attached to divisions; and I think it would be well if a law would sanction such an organization, say of one hundred to each division of four thousand men. The first step in the liberation of the negro from bondage will be to get him and family to a place of safety; then to afford him the means of providing for his family, for their instincts are very strong; then gradually use a proportion, greater and greater each year, as sailors and soldiers. There will be no great difficulty in our absorbing the four millions of slaves in this great industrious country of ours; and, being lost to their masters, the cause of the war is gone, for this great money interest then ceases to be an element in our politics and civil economy. If you divert too large a proportion of the able-bodied men into the ranks, you will leave too large a class of black paupers on our hands.

"The great mass of our soldiery must be of the white race, and the black troops should for some years be used with caution, and with due regard to the prejudice of the races. As was to be expected, in some instances they have done well, in others, badly; but, on the whole, the experiment is worthy a fair trial, and all I ask is, that it be not forced beyond the laws of natural development."

On the 29th of August he issued the following comprehensive order on the subject of trade within the limits of his command, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the act of Congress, approved July 2, 1864, and the regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury, made in pursuance thereof :

"I. All trade is prohibited near armies in the field, or moving columns of troops, save that necessary to supply the wants of the troops themselves. Quartermasters and commissaries will take such supplies as are needed in the countries passed through, giving receipts, and taking the articles up on their returns. When cotton is found, and transportation to the rear is easy and does not interfere with the supplies of the army dependent on the route, the quartermaster will ship the cotton to the quartermaster at Nashville or Memphis, who will deliver it to the agent of the Treasury Department. It will be treated as captured property of an enemy, and invoiced accordingly. No claim of private interest in it will be entertained by the military authorities.

"II. In departments and military districts, embracing a country within our military control, the commanders of such departments and districts may permit a trade in articles not contraband of war or damaging to the operations of the army at the front, through the properly appointed agents and subagents of the Treasury Department, to an extent proportionate to the necessities of the peaceful and worthy inhabitants of the localities described; but as trade and the benefits of civil government are conditions not only of the fidelity of the people, but also of an ability to maintain peace and order in their dis

trict, county, or locality, commanding officers will give notice that all trade will cease where guerrillas are tolerated and encouraged; and moreover, that in such districts and localities, the army or detachments sent to maintain the peace must be maintained by the district or locality that tolerates or encourages such guerrillas.

"III. All military officers will assist the agents of the Treasury Department in securing the possession of all abandoned property and estates subject to confiscation under the law.

"IV. The use of weapons for hunting purposes is too dangerous to be allowed at this time, and therefore the introduction of all arms and powder, percussion-caps, bullets, shot, lead, or any thing used in connection with firearms, is prohibited absolutely, save by the proper agents of the United States; and when the inhabitants require and can be trusted with such things for self-defence, or for aiding in maintaining the peace and safety of their families and property, commanding officers may issue the same out of the public stores in limited quantities.

"V. Medicines and clothing, as well as salt, meats, and provisions, being quasi-contraband of war, according to the condition of the district or locality, when offered for sale, will be regulated by local commanders, in connection with the agents of the Treasury Department.

“VI. In articles non-contraband, such as the clothing needed for women and children, groceries and imported articles, the trade should be left to the Treasury agents, as matters too unimportant to be noticed by military men.

"VII. When military officers can indicate a preference to the class of men allowed to trade, they will always give the preference to men who have served the Government as soldiers, and are wounded or incapacitated from further service by such wounds or sickness. Men who manifest loyalty by oaths, and nothing more, are entitled to live, but not to ask favors of a Government that demands acts and personal sacrifices."

CHAPTER XIX.

HOOD'S INVASION.

THE condition of affairs in the several theatres of war in the month of September, 1864, may be summed up in a few words. Grant held Lee firmly at Petersburg, with a large force under Sheridan stopping the debouches from the Valley of the Shenandoah, and showed an evident purpose of persisting in his operations until a decisive result should be reached. In North and South Carolina matters were passive. Sherman, as we have seen, was at Atlanta and Hood southwest of that place, both watching each other; each preparing to take the initiative. Along the Mississippi and west of that river no operations of importance were in progress. Mobile was constantly threatened, more to compel the Confederates to keep a garrison there than with any intention of resorting to decisive measures. For practical purposes, all the troops of the enemy west of the Mississippi might be considered out of the war, since, unless by some unlikely accident, they were powerless to influence the decisive campaigns about to commence.

In point of fact, the issue of the war was now concentrated upon the result of the approaching campaigns of the two main armies on either side. It was obvious that the Union armies would, if allowed to complete all their preparations and select their time and direction, continue the offensive. Should Sherman move to the southeast, while Hood maintained his present position, it would be in the power of the former, should he be able to reach the sea-coast in safety, to place himself in communication with Grant, and thus wrest from the Confederates their great advantage of interior lines. Under these circumstances, it was evidently Hood's true policy to abandon all attempts to hold the line of the Chattahoochee or the country west