reported it back to the Senate with the recommendation that it do not pass, because the authority intended to be given by it to the President was already conferred on him by the act of July 17, 1862.

BRAVERY OF NEGRO SOLDIERS

President Lincoln from this time on devoted a large part of his energy to enlisting negro troops, his old fear that the former slaves would make inefficient soldiers having been outweighed by consideration of the great moral force of the policy. To Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, who was contemplating the raising in his State of a negro military force, he wrote on March 26, 1863:

In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some man of your ability and position to go to this work. When I speak of your position I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave State and himself a slaveholder. The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of fifty thousand armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once; and who doubts that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest? If you̟ have been thinking of it, please do not dismiss the thought.

As we have seen, General David Hunter had already organized negro troops in his department. From the beginning the experiment was an unqualified success. It was a pleasure to the President that he could now write a letter of congratulation to the Abolitionist general whom less than a year before he had been compelled to reprimand for his premature act of emancipation.

I am glad to see the accounts of your colored force at Jacksonville, Fla. I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as is to be expected. It is important to the enemy that such a force shall not take shape and grow and thrive in the South, and in precisely the same proportion it is important to us that it shall. Hence the utmost caution and vigilance are necessary on our part. The enemy will make extra efforts to destroy them, and we should do the same to preserve and increase them.

In all their subsequent battles the negro soldiers acquitted themselves with such valor that in the war reports the sentence, "the colored troops fought bravely," became a stock expression.

On the occasion of their soldierly conduct at the assault of Port Hudson late in May, 1863, George Henry Boker wrote a poem called "The Black Regiment," in which he extolled their patriotism and pleaded for their recognition as comrades by the white soldiers.

"Freedom!" their battlecry,-
"Freedom! or leave to die!"
Ah! and they meant the word,
Not as with us 'tis heard,
Not a mere party shout;
They gave their spirits out,

On June 1, 1863, through Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, the President made a tentative offer to General Frémont to place him in command of all the negro troops to be raised. The offer was not accepted. Had it been, Frémont at the close of the war would have commanded an army of almost 200,000 men, second in number only to Grant's.

EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES BY THE CONFEDERATES

As early as June 1, 1861, negroes were employed by the secessionists in constructing fortifications at Charleston, S. C. As soon as Virginia went out of the Union free negro volunteers were accepted in that State.

On June 28, 1861, after the legislature of Tennessee had formed a military alliance with the Confederacy, it

authorized the governor, Isham G. Harris, "to receive into the military service of the State all male free persons of color, between the ages of 15 and 50," paying each $8 per month, with clothing and rations. It was further enacted that, if sufficient volunteers did not present themselves the sheriffs should press enough of such persons to make up the required number. Early in September it was announced in the Memphis Ava

"O MASSA JEFF, DIS SECESH FEVER WILL KILL DE NIGGER!"'

From the collection of the New York Historical Society

lanche that many negroes had volunteered for such service, and, armed and equipped with shovels, axes, blankets, etc., and under the leadership of white officers, were marching through the streets shouting for Jeff. Davis and singing war songs. In very sinister fashion the paper added: "Their destination is unknown, but it is supposed that they are on their way to the 'other side of Jordan.'"

About this time Alabama organized free negro volunteers, one regiment consisting of as many as 1,400.

In February, 1862, the Confederate legislature of

Virginia passed a bill to enroll in the military service all the free negroes in the State.

RETALIATION

In despite of these acts, when President Lincoln's preliminary emancipation proclamation appeared on September 22, 1862, the Confederate authorities exhibited great indignation over what they charged to be a deliberate purpose of the Union Government to incite a servile insurrection in the South. On October 13 General Pierre G. T. Beauregard wrote to a Confederate congressman at Richmond:

Has the bill for the execution of abolition prisoners, after January next, been passed? Do it, and England will be stirred. into action. It is high time to proclaim the black flag after that period. Let the execution be with the garrote.

On December 23 Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, proclaimed the outlawry of the Union generals who had enlisted negroes as soldiers, and decreed that all slaves and their white officers captured in arms be turned over to the State governors to be dealt with according to law. In his third annual message to his Congress on January 12, 1863, he stigmatized the final proclamation as a violation of President Lincoln's inaugural pledge and the platform on which he had been elected. He added:

It has established a state of things which can lead to but one of three possible consequences-the extermination of the slaves, the exile of the whole white population of the Confederacy, or absolute and total separation of these States from the United States. This proclamation is also an authentic statement by the Government of the United States of its inability to subjugate the South by force of arms, and, as such, must be accepted by neutral nations, which can no longer find any justification in withholding our just claims to formal recognition. It is also, in effect, an intimation to the people of the North that they must prepare to submit to a separation, now become inevitable; for that people are too acute not to understand that a restitution

of the Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adoption of a measure which, from its very nature, neither admits of retraction nor can coexist with union.

But the passage which more especially concerns negro soldiers is the following:

We may well leave it to the instincts of that common humanity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellowmen of all countries to pass judgment on a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere-are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation to abstain from violence unless in necessary self-defence. Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measures recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered by profound contempt for the impotent rage which it discloses. So far as regards the action of this government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, I confine myself to informing you that I shall-unless in your wisdom you deem some other course more expedient— deliver to the several State authorities all commissioned officers of the United States that may hereafter be captured by our forces in any of the States embraced in the proclamation, that they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in exciting servile insurrection. The enlisted soldiers I shall continue to treat as unwilling instruments in the commission of these crimes, and shall direct their discharge and return to their homes on the proper and usual parole.

The Confederate Congress took up the subject soon afterward, and, after protracted consideration, ultimately disposed of it by passing the following resolution:

SEC. 1. That, in the opinion of Congress, the commissioned officers of the enemy ought not to be delivered to the authorities of the respective States, as suggested in the said message, but all captives taken by the Confederate forces ought to be dealt with and disposed of by the Confederate Government.

SEC. 2. That, in the judgment of Congress, the proclamations of the President of the United States and the other measures of