Page Image  |  Close

Collection: National AntiSlavery Standard
Publication: National Anti-Slavery Standard
Date: NOVEMBER 9, 1861
American Anti-Slavery SocietyTitle: Selections.EXPERIENCES AMONG THE CONTRABANDS.SKETCHES OF THEIR

Selections.

EXPERIENCES AMONG THE CONTRABANDS .

SKETCHES OF THEIR CHARACTER AND HABITS.

[Mr. Edward L. Pierce, one of the Massachusetts soldiers who served in the three months campaign under Gen. Butler, contributes to the November number of The Atlantic Monthly an interesting article on the “Contrabands at Fortress Monroe.” Mr. Pierce was assigned to the exclusive control and supervision of the negroes, directing the hours of their labor and their rest, without interference from any one; and hence enjoyed peculiar facilities for observing their habits and arriving at just conclusions in regard to their condition. He shows us that the slaves are not imbruted savages, but an intelligent and docile race, “quite equal,” he says, “to the mass of the Southern population,” if not so thrifty and practical as the Yankees. We copy a few passages from Mr. Pierce's excellent narrative:]

CONTRABANDS AS WORKMEN.

THE contrabands worked well, and in no instance was it found necessary for the superintendents to urge them. There was a public opinion among them against idleness, which answered for discipline. Some days they worked with our soldiers, and it was found that they did more work, and did the nicer parts—the facings and dressings—better. Colonels Packard and Wardrop, under whose direction the breastworks were constructed, and Gen. Butler, who visited them, expressed satisfaction at the work which the contrabands had done. On the 14th of July, Mr. Russell, of the London Times , and Dr. Bellows, of the Sanitary Commission, came to Hampton and manifested much interest at the success of the experiment. The result was, indeed, pleasing. A subaltern officer, to whom I had insisted that the contrabands should be treated with kindness, had sneered at the idea of applying philanthropic notions in time of war. It was found then, as always, that decent persons will accomplish more when treated at least like human beings. The same principle, if we will but credit our own experience and Mr. Rarey, too, may with advantage be extended to our relations with the beasts that serve us.

MORALITY OF THE NEGROES.

There was one striking feature in the contrabands which must not be omitted. I did not hear a profane or vulgar word spoken by them during my superintendence, a remark which it will be difficult to make of any sixty-four white men taken together anywhere in our army. Indeed, the greatest discomfort of a soldier, who desires to remain a gentleman in the camp, is the perpetual reiteration of language which no decent lips would utter in a sister's presence. But the negroes, so dogmatically pronounced unfit for freedom, were in this respect models for those who make high boasts of civility of manners and Christian culture. Out of the sixty-four who worked for us, all but half a dozen were members of the Church, generally the Baptist. Although without a pastor, they held religious meetings on the Sundays which we passed in Hampton, which were attended by about sixty colored persons and three hundred soldiers. The devotions were decorously conducted, bating some loud shouting by one or two excitable brethren, which the better sense of the rest could not suppress. Their prayers and exhortations were fervent, and marked by a simplicity which is not unfrequently the richest eloquence. The soldiers behaved with entire propriety, and two exhorted them with pious unction, as children of one Father, ransomed by the same Redeemer.

MASTERS AND SLAVES.

During our encampment at Hampton I occupied much of my leisure time in conversations with the contrabands, both at their work and in their shanties, endeavoring to collect their currents of thought and feeling. It remains for me to give the results, so far as any could be arrived at.

There were more negroes of unmixed African blood than we expected to find. But many were entirely bleached. One man, working on the breastworks, owned by his cousin, whose name he bore, was no darker than white laborers exposed by their occupation to the sun, and could not be distinguished as of negro descent. Opposite our quarters was a young slave woman who had been three times a mother without ever having been a wife. You could not discern in her three daughters, either in color, feature or texture of hair, the slightest trace of African lineage. They were as light-faced and fair-haired as the Saxon slaves whom the Roman Pontiff, Gregory the Great, met in the market of Rome. If they were to be brought here and their pedigree concealed, they could readily mingle with our population and marry white men, who would never suspect that they were not pure Caucasians.

From the best knowledge I could obtain, the negroes in Hampton had rarely been severely whipped. A locust tree in front of the jail had been used as a whipping-post, and they were very desirous that it should be cut down. It was used, however, only for what are known there as flagrant offences, like running away. Their masters, when in ill-temper, had used rough language and inflicted chance blows, but no one ever told me that he had suffered from systematic cruelty or been severely whipped, except Joe, whose character I have given. Many of them bore testimony to the great kindness of their masters and mistresses.

SEPARATION OF FAMILIES.

Separations of families had been frequent. Of this I obtained definite knowledge. When I was registering the number of dependents, preparatory to the requisition for rations, the answer occasionally was, “Yes, I have a wife, but she is not here.” “Where is she”? “She was sold off two years ago, and I have not heard of her since.” The husband of the woman who took care of the quarters of Gen. Pierce had been sold away from her some years before. Such separations are regarded as death, and the slaves re-marry. In some cases the bereft one—so an intelligent negro assured me—pines under his bereavement and loses his value; but so elastic is human nature that this did not appear to be generally the case.

THEIR DESIRE FOR FREEDOM.

There is a universal desire among the slaves to be free. Upon this point my inquiries were particular, and always with the same result. When we said to them, “You don't want to be free—your masters say you don't”—they manifest much indignation, answering, “We do want to be free—we want to be for ourselves.” We inquired further, “Do the house slaves who wear their master's clothes want to be free”? “We never heard of one who did not,” was the instant reply. There might be, they said, some half-crazy one who did not care to be free, but they had never seen one. Even old men and old women, with crooked backs, who could hardly walk or see, shared the same feelings. An intelligent secessionist, Lowry by name, who was examined at headquarters, admitted that a majority of the slaves wanted to be free. The more intelligent the slave, and the better he had been used, the stronger this desire seemed to be. I remember one such particularly, the most intelligent one in Hampton, known as “an influential darky” (“darky” being the familiar term applied by contrabands to themselves). He could read, was an exhorter in the Church, and officiated in the absence of the minister. He would have made a competent juryman. His mistress, he said, had been kind to him, and had never spoken so harshly to him as a captain's orderly in the Naval Brigade had done, who assumed one day to give him orders. She had let him work where he pleased, and he was to bring her a fixed sum, and appropriate the surplus to his own use. She pleaded with him to go away with her from Hampton at the time of the exodus, but she would not force him to leave his family. Still he hated to be a slave; he talked like a philosopher about his rights. No captive in the galleys of Algiers, no Lafayette in an Austrian dungeon, ever pined more for free air. He had saved eighteen hundred dollars of his surplus earnings in attending on persons at Old Point, and had spent it all in litigation to secure the freedom of his wife and children, belonging to another master, whose will had emancipated them, but was contested on the ground of the insanity of the testator. He had won a verdict, but his lawyers told him they could not obtain a judgment upon it, as the judge was unfavorable to freedom.

THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WAR.

The most frequent question asked of one who has had any means of communication with the contrabands during the war, is in relation to their knowledge of its cause and purposes, and their interest in it. One thing was evident—indeed, you could not talk with a slave who did not, without prompting, give the same testimony—that their masters had been most industrious in their attempts to persuade them that the Yankees were coming down there only to get the land—that they would kill the negroes and manure the ground with them, or carry them off to Cuba or Hayti and sell them. An intelligent man who had belonged to Col. Joseph Segar—almost the only Union man at heart in that region, and who, for that reason, being in Washington at the time the war began, had not dared to return to Hampton—served the staff of Gen. Pierce. He bore the highest testimony to the kindness of his master, who, he said, told him to remain, that the Yankees were the friends of his people, and would use them well. “But,” said David (for that was his name), “I never heard of any other master who talked that way, but they all told the worst stories about the Yankees, and the mistresses were more furious even than the masters.” David, I may add, spite of his good master, longed to be free.

The masters, in their desperation, had within a few mouths resorted to another device to secure the loyalty of their slaves. The colored Baptist minister had been something of a pet among the whites, and had obtained subscriptions from some benevolent citizens to secure the freedom of a handsome daughter of his who was exposed to sale on an auction block, where her beauty inspired competition. Some leading secessionists, Lawyer Hope for one, working somewhat upon his gratitude and somewhat upon his vanity, persuaded him to offer the services of himself and his sons, in a published communication, to the cause of Virginia and the Confederate States. The artifice did not succeed. He lost his hold on his congregation, and could not have safely remained after the whites left. He felt uneasy about his betrayal, and tried to restore himself to favor by saying that he meant no harm to his people; but his protestations were in vain. His was the deserved fate of those in all ages who, victims of folly or bribes, turn their backs on their fellows.

Notwithstanding all these attempts, the negroes, with rare exceptions, still believed that the Yankees were their friends. They had learned something in Presidential elections, and they thought their masters could not hate us as they did unless we were their friends. They believed that the troubles would somehow or other help them, although they did not understand all that was going on. They may be pardoned for their want of apprehension, when some of our public men, almost venerable and reputed to be very wise and philosophical, are bewildered and grope blindly. They were somewhat perplexed by the contradictory statements of our soldiers, some of whom, according to their wishes, said the contest was for them, and others that it did not concern them at all, and they would remain as before. If it was explained to them that Lincoln was chosen by a party who were opposed to extending slavery, but who were also opposed to interfering with it in Virginia —that Virginia and the South had rebelled, and we had come to suppress the rebellion—and although the object of the war was not to emancipate them, yet that might be its result—they answered, that they understood the statement perfectly. They did not seem inclined to fight, although willing to work. More could not be expected of them while nothing is promised to them. What latent inspirations they may have remains to be seen. They had at first a mysterious dread of firearms, but familiarity is rapidly removing that.

The religious element of their life has been noticed. They said they had prayed for this day, and God had sent Lincoln in answer to their prayers. We used to overhear their family devotions, somewhat loud according to their manner, in which they prayed earnestly for our troops. They built their hopes of freedom on Scriptual examples, regarding the deliverance of Daniel from the lion's den, and of the Three Children from the furnace, as symbolic of their coming freedom. One said to me that masters, before they died, by their wills sometimes freed their slaves, and he thought that a type that they should become free.

THE SLAVES AND THE BIBLE.

One Saturday evening one of them asked me to call and see him at his home the next morning. I did so, and he handed me a Bible belonging to his mistress, who had died a few days before, and whose bier I had helped to carry to the family vault. He wanted me to read to him the eleventh chapter of Daniel. It seemed that, as one of the means of keeping them quiet, the white clergymen during the winter and spring had read them some verses from it to show that the South would prevail, enforcing passages which ascribed great dominion to “the king of the South,” and suppressing those which subsequently give the supremacy to “the king of the North.” A colored man who could read had found the latter passages and had made them known. The chapter is dark with mystery, and my auditor, quite perplexed as I read on, remarked, “The Bible is a very mysterious book.” I read to him also the thirty-fourth chapter of Jeremiah, wherein the sad prophet of Israel records the denunciations by Jehovah of sword, pestilence and famine against the Jews for not proclaiming liberty to their servants and handmaids. He had not known before that there were such passages in the Bible.

NEGRO REASONING.

The conversations of the contrabands on their title to be regarded as freemen showed reflection. When asked if they thought themselves fit for freedom, and if the darkies were not lazy, their answer was, “Who but the darkies cleared all the land round here? Yes, there are lazy darkies, but there are more lazy whites.” When told that the free blacks had not succeeded, they answered that the free blacks have not had a fair chance under the laws—that they don't dare to enforce their claims against white men—that a free colored blacksmith had a thousand dollars due to him from white men, but he was afraid to sue for any portion of it. One man, when asked why he ought to be free, replied: “I feed and clothe myself and pay my master one hundred and twenty dollars a year; and the one hundred and twenty dollars is just so much taken from me, which ought to be used to make me and my children comfortable.” Indeed, broken as was their speech and limited as was their knowledge, they reasoned abstractly on their rights as well as white men. Locke or Channing might have fortified the argument for universal liberty from their simple talk. So true is it that the best thoughts which the human intellect has produced have come, not from affluent learning or ornate speech, but from the original elements of our nature, common to all races of men and all conditions in life; and genius the highest and most cultured may bend with profit to catch the lowliest of human utterances.

There was a very general desire among the contrabands to know how to read. A few had learned; and these, in every instance where we inquired as to their teacher, had been taught on the sly in their childhood by their white playmates. Others knew their letters, but could not “put them together,” as they said. I remember of a summer's afternoon seeing a young married woman, perhaps twenty-five years old, seated on a door-step with primer before her, trying to make progress.

THEIR CHARACTER.

In natural tact and the faculty of getting a livelihood the contrabands are inferior to the Yankees, but quite equal to the mass of the Southern population. It is not easy to see why they would be less industrious, if free, than the whites, particularly as they would have the encouragement of wages. There would be transient difficulties at the outset, but no more than a bad system lasting for ages might be expected to leave behind. The first generation might be unfitted for the active duties and responsibilities of citizenship; but this difficulty, under generous provisions for education, would not pass to the next. Even now they are not so much behind the masses of the whites. Of the Virginians who took the oath of allegiance at Hampton, not more than one in fifteen could write his name, and the rolls captured at Hatteras disclose an equally deplorable ignorance. * * * * As a race, they may be less vigorous and thrifty than the Saxon, but they are more social, docile and affectionate, fulfilling the theory which Channing held in relation to them, if advanced to freedom and civilization.

If in the progress of the war they should be called to bear arms, there need be no reasonable apprehension that they would exhibit the ferocity of savage races. Unlike such, they have been subordinated to civilized life. They are by nature a religious people. They have received an education in the Christian faith from devout teachers of their own and of the dominant race.

But as events travel faster than laws or proclamations, already in this war with rebellion the two races have served together. The same breastworks have been built by their common toil. True and valiant, they stood side by side in the din of cannonade, and they shared as comrades in the victory of Hatteras. History will not fail to record that on the 28th day of August, 1861, when the rebel forts were bombarded by the Federal army and navy, under the command of Major-General Butler and Com. Stringham, fourteen negroes, lately Virginia slaves, now contraband of war, faithfully and without panic worked the after-gun of the upper deck of the Minnesota, and hailed with a victor's pride the Stars and Stripes as they again waved on the soil of the Carolinas.

WHAT THE NORTH SHOULD DO .

WHY should not the same “decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” which, at an hour not more momentous than the present, prompted our fathers to publish a solemn Declaration of their principles, cause a similar Declaration to be put forth now by the free States of the North, either through the voice of their chosen Executive, or by popular assemblies —a Declaration which, commencing with a recognition of the self-evident connection between the present assault upon our national existence and the institution of slavery, should assert the necessity of putting an end to slavery, as imposed upon us alike by natural justice and humanity and by national safety? If the nation is to continue to exist, in one way or another slavery must cease. The best method of abolishing it, now left to us, will require the united action of the North and the South. For the first time in the history of the country, concessions must be made, not to the South, but by it. The South must submit to the national authority. The buying and selling of human beings must instantly cease. There, must no longer be any unpaid labor. Then let the North, with its preëminent constructive skill, set to work so to organize the labor of those now held in bondage that all classes shall be benefited thereby, employing force, if necessary, for a time, to keep the laborers at work and prevent violence. If men, at a great expense, can be marshalled to destroy, so can they certainly, at a like expense, be drilled to work, to the advantage of all. Then Abolition, so long dreaded as a curse, will soon show itself to be a blessing in the lowest commercial sense, a blessing of unimagined richness.

That such conditions, as are thus very briefly hinted at, being proposed by the North, would be acceded to by the South, no one regards as probable. Yet were they in good faith publicly set forth in such a Declaration as is proposed above, the cause of the free States in the present struggle, strong as it already is, would be squarely placed before God and all good men upon an impregnable foundation, and a strength would come from it that would make every soldier in our ranks worth a thousand men. With such a cause, success is as sure as the rising of the sun. And the South will be forced, for its own sake as well as ours, to make the concessions above named. The existence of the African race upon our soil, “instead of being a millstone about the neck of the nation,” will then be a stone of Ajax in her hand—a means of power and wealth untold.

Deplorable will it be, if, when our people are rushing to confront shells and batteries, they should still be scared away from the great work by words, and fail to see that the obnoxious term Abolition is only another name for the splendid problem, namely, To convert four million of Slaves into Free Laborers: a problem, which there is no nation on the face of the earth so peculiarly qualified by native genius to solve, as this American people.— W. H. Furness .

MEMENTO MORI .

OF all the rumors of incredible atrocities, of foolish outrage, of those worst acts of cowardice that are born of cruelty, and of barbarism that just stops short of cannibalism, to which the expedition of John Brown into Virginia two years ago gave rise, the story that the skin of his son was taken from his body and tanned seemed the most unnatural, and the most improbable, and was, therefore, received with the least attention, notwithstanding its positive assertion. “Are not these the United States, a land of common schools and Churches, and is not this the nineteenth century of the Christian era?” was the instinctive response which we all made to a statement so revolting to the spirit and the culture of our time, our country, and our race. But read this letter from a General in the United States Army, now serving in Virginia, to a friend in this city—a witness on this point as impartial as he is distinguished:

CAMP AT—–, VIRGINIA, Oct. 5, 1861.

“To show the refinement of Virginia gentlemen , I inclose to my friend, the Rev. B. N. Martin, Professor, New York University, a piece of the skin of the thigh (tanned by those gentlemen) of the son of John Brown, who was killed at Harper's Ferry.

“This is a fragment of the skin which, thus prepared, was distributed in pieces over the Southern country, and was presented to my present Aid in Richmond last April by a Captain Sommers of the Confederate States Army, and a friend of the doctor who has the skeleton, and who flayed and tanned the skin.

“My Aid informs me that every preparation was made to treat the remains of John Brown in the same way, by having them thrown from the car before reaching Baltimore, and substituting a false coffin; but that the plan was frustrated by the sickness or flinching of the railroad conductor.

“—–—–, Brigadier-General.”

Professor Martin has shown us this bit of the human remains prepared by some skillful taxidermist in Virginia. It is a minute portion only, for though there are many superficial inches of cuticle on the body of a man of ordinary size, the number of persons in Virginia who coveted a bit of so precious a relic was very many. A ruder barbarism carries the scalp of a slain enemy at the girdle, makes a drinking-cup of his whitened skull, or strings the teeth and finger bones into an engaging necklace; but John Brown, Jr., was not the prize of the bow and the spear of any single warrior; a whole Commonwealth claimed him as its own. Mere savages, if they use the human tissue of the slaughtered foe at all, can only eat it—a wasteful use of such precious material. Science enables them in Virginia to refine upon this barbaric extravagance. Learned professors, skillful in the arts, lend their knowledge to the public service, and feed the patriotism of the State with bits of epidermis, imperishably prepared, of the dead, to be worn as amulets and mementos to keep ever green the memory of a sweet revenge, and the duty of a citizen to a Christian State. They may laugh in Virginia at the untutored ignorance of the savage who can only rattle the dried scalps and bones of those he has slaughtered, while they point to the curiously tanned skin of their dead enemy as the evidence of the march of civilization and refinement in that ancient and proud Commonwealth.— Tribune .

SACREDNESS OF SLAVERY .

IN every compromise upon the subject of slavery, and in all legislation to conciliate the South, property in slaves has been regarded as peculiarly sacred. This tradition still holds good at Washington. If we may credit the following, the Administration, acting through its military officers, entertains the idea that slavery is too holy to be touched, even for the purpose of saving the country:

“A slave belonging to Jeff. Offord, a Secessionist of Spencer County, made his escape and delivered himself up at Camp Sherman on our fair grounds. The officers of the camp handed him over to Mr. Dent, our Provost Marshal, who, under instructions form Gen Sherman, returned him without reward to his owner.”— Louisville Journal .

If the son of a rebel had escaped, and desired to join our army, how gladly would he have been received! If the horse of a rebel had come within our lines, how quickly he would have been seized and used for our purposes! But the slave is not treated either as a person or as property. The vilest institution upon which the sun ever shone, the primal cause of the rebellion, and the one great iniquity for which God is now dealing with the nation, is treated by the Adminstration as if it were the only really sacred thing in the land—not to be touched but on pain of death! Is it any wonder that we are defeated in our plans, and that our hosts stand still as if paralyzed by some invisible power?— Independent .

“ OUR SOUTHERN BRETHREN .”

A SOLDIER of a Michigan regiment, who was on duty near Munson's Hill while that was occupied by the enemy, writes home that on a certain night “the rebels came out of their breastworks and asked us what we were doing—if we wanted to shoot our own brothers?”

It is not related that, having by this appeal disarmed the Northern soldiers, the rebels thereupon delivered their fire and ran away unharmed; but this is, in fact, the ruse by which the conspirators too often held back the blow which could easily have annihilated them. It was as our “Southern brethren” that they gained possession of the government; it was as our “Southern brethren” that they cursed and reviled, and tarred and feathered Northern men; it was as our “Southern brethren” that they robbed the nation of arms, treasure, ships, forts, customhouses, mints; violated the laws they had sworn to obey, betrayed the trusts they had sworn to keep; and when nothing more was left to steal, fired upon the flag which had protected them whenever they chose to bully and insult foreign governments, or violate the decent proprieties of national morals.

It is remarkable that while for years the phrase “Southern brethren” was used in political harangues, till it became only a nauseous piece of cant which stank in the nostrils of manly men, there has never been any talk of “Northern brethren.” And with curious consistency, while some silly insurgent still maunders occasionally about the cruel North, which shoots its Southern brethren, there has been no word spoken or printed about the unfortunate shooting of “Northern brethren.” The relationship is, like the handle of a jug, all on one side.

It is time that this cant should cease. Our Southern brethren are the loyal men of the South. Our enemy is as alien as though every insurgent had been born at the antipodes. Let it be understood that the man who lifts his hand against our national life and honor is no longer our brother—except in that general sense in which the pirate hung at the yard-arm is the brother both of the crew he has murdered and of the just avenger who hangs him up; in which every assassin may claim brotherhood with his victim, and every burglar, thief and robber may say “brother” to his jailer, and to the community whose laws he has violated.

It was well said by Wright, of Indiana, “Whoever raises his hands against the Union is my enemy—and if he is my brother, so much the worse for him.” Gen. Dix's dispatch had the true ring: “Whoever attempts to haul down that flag, shoot him down.” There was no maudlin cry about brotherhood there— and the whole country should remember that if there is any difference between the enemy opposed to us now, and any other whom we have met, it is against the insurgents, who have brought ruin on our commerce, have paralyzed our national industry, have introduced poverty and life-long sorrow to thousands of homes—not to right a wrong, not to resist an oppressor, but to revenge a fair political defeat. The tears of widows and the cries of helpless orphans, which go up to heaven against these miscreants, absolve us from all claim of brotherhood with them. —Eve. Post .

THE ENCOURAGING NEWS FROM
KENTUCKY .

From The Evening Post.

A LATE telegraphic dispatch from Washington announces that the Administration has received encouraging intelligence from Kentucky. We wonder if the encouragement is of that sort which was given in the printed speech of Mr. Wolf, of that State, which was to have been delivered the other evening at the meeting held in this city for ratifying the Union nominations. We say printed speech, referring to the copy of it which appeared in the New York Times , for the people would not allow that part of it to be delivered which related to a compromise with the Slave Power, and spoke of the guaranties which would be demanded by Kentucky as a condition of her remaining in the Union, but silenced the speaker with hisses, and obliged him to pass to other topics. We must say that if Kentucky has no better encouragement to offer us than was contained in the propositions of Mr. Wolf; if the politicians of that State are to arbitrate the dispute between the North and the South; if they are to prescribe the manner in which the war is to be conducted, and the terms on which peace is to be finally made, it is likely to be carried on with very little enthusiasm as soon as these facts become known to the people.

In the report of Adjutant-General Thomas, who, the other day, accompanied the Secretary of War to St. Louis, for the purpose of inquiring into the condition of the Western Department, we find some very remarkable statements as to the aid which we are to expect from Kentucky in the suppression of the rebellion. According to his account, it is not to be expected that any considerable number of the people of Kentucky will take up arms for the Union. The young men of that State are already in large force serving under the rebel Generals; and those who remain at home—however much they may desire the reëstablishment of the Union—will refuse to fight for it. The free States must furnish the troops and carry on the war, and win the triumph at the expense of their best blood. We copy this passage from the report:

“We left Indianapolis October 16 for Louisville, Ky., where we arrived at 12½ o'clock p.m., and had an interview with Gen. Sherman, commanding the department of Cumberland. He gave a gloomy picture of affairs in Kentucky, stating that the young men were generally Secessionists, and had joined the Confederates, while the Union men, the aged and conservatives, would not enroll themselves to engage in conflict with their relations on the other side. But few regiments could be raised. He said that Buckner was in advance of Green River with a heavy force, on the road to Louisville, and an attack might be daily expected, which, with the force he had, he would not be able to resist; but, nevertheless, he would fight them. He, as well as citizens of the State, said that the States bordering on Kentucky must furnish the troops to drive the rebels from the State. * * * * On being asked the question what force he deemed necessary, he promptly replied two hundred thousand men. This conversation occurred in the presence of ex-Secretary Guthrie and Gen. Woods. The Secretary of War replied that he supposed that the Kentuckians would not, in any number, take up arms to operate against the rebels. But he thought Gen. Sherman over-estimated the number and power of the rebel forces; that the government would furnish troops to Kentucky to accomplish the work; but that he (the Secretary) was tired of defensive war, and that the troops must assume the offensive and carry the war to the firesides of the enemy; that the season for operations in Western Virginia was about over, and that he would take the troops from there and send them to Kentucky; but he begged of Gen. Sherman to assume the offensive and to keep the rebels hereafter on the defensive. The Secretary desired that the Cumberland Ford and Gap should be seized, and the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad taken possession of, and the artery that supplied the rebellion cut straight off.

“Complaint was made of the want of arms, and on the question being asked, What became of the arms we sent to Kentucky? we were informed by Gen. Sherman that they had passed into the hands of the Home Guards and could not be recovered; that many were already in the hands of the rebels; and others refused to surrender those in their possession, alleging the desire to use them in defence of their individual homes if invaded. In the hands of individuals, and scattered over the State, these arms are lost to the army in Kentucky.”

Gen. Sherman, an able and intelligent commander, has surveyed the ground since his arrival in the State, and assures the Secretary of War that the loyal inhabitants of Kentucky will not take an active part in the strife. The inquiry is made of “citizens of the State,” and they confirm the judgment of Gen. Sherman. The Secretary of War sees reason to adopt these conclusions, and tells Gen. Sherman that he does not suppose that the Kentuckians will in any number take up arms against the rebels, and that the government must furnish the troops. We do not dwell upon these matters with any view of casting blame upon the people of Kentucky; for we wonder not that the men of mature age should shrink from seeking the lives of their younger relatives who have been seduced into the rebel ranks; but we desire to make it clear that neither the Federal officers commanding in Kentucky, nor the Administration at Washington, expect any essential aid from the patriotism of the people of that State. It is we of the free States that must take the risk and endure the hardships of the war, and drive out the rebels at a large expense of life. The war is ours; the loyal citizens of Kentucky will merely look on and give us their good wishes. How much blood must flow, in the opinion of Gen. Sherman, to put down the rebellion in that State, may be estimated from his remark that the undertaking is likely to require two hundred thousand men.

We hope not, for our part. We earnestly hope that it may be true, as Secretary Cameron observed, that Gen. Sherman had over-estimated the number of the rebel troops and the extent of their means; but after making as large a deduction from these as we dare, the task of reducing the insurrection in Kentucky will still require a large army and a severe struggle. Thousands of our Northern volunteers who go to that State to fight, in behalf of the citizens calling themselves loyal, the battle which they will not fight for themselves, must lay their bones there. Of those gallant men under Gen. Sherman, many of the regiments of whom are the flower of our army, numbers, in going to Kentucky, have gone to their graves.

Such being the state of things in Kentucky, on whom should by right devolve the power of saying in what manner the war shall be conducted? Upon Mr. Crittenden? upon Mr. Holt? upon Mr. Wolf, whose statement of what Kentucky was going to insist upon a New York popular assembly refused to hear? Shall these politicians of Kentucky settle the matter for us, telling us what interests of the South we have leave to attack, and what interests we must spare? Or should not rather we, who give our lives for the defence of the Union, who yield up our young men, the glory and hope of the Republic, to be sacrificed in this fratricidal strife—say parricidal rather, for the armed hand of the rebel is raised against his mother country—should not we be allowed to choose the methods by which, according to our best judgment, the strife can most effectually be ended?

Most certainly they who fight the battle have a right to decide how it is to be fought. This rebellion, which is so formidable that in a single one of the border States its suppression, in the opinion of Gen. Sherman, will require more than half of the great army we have now on foot, ought to be put down in the cheapest and readiest way, without regard to the wishes of the slaveholding class in Kentucky. Yet it is certain that this class exercise a very decided influence on Mr. Lincoln's Administration. Our blood is shed while this class look on and require that it shall be shed more freely still, rather than that the institution of slavery shall be endangered. That is to be preserved and perpetuated at whatever cost of the lives of our Northern freemen. Month after month of this war will go by; grave after grave will be opened, in which our young men will be laid by hundreds, side by side; but the time will assuredly come when those who now delay to use the most effectual means for terminating the conflict will wonder that they ever hesitated.

FREMONT AND HIS ENEMIES .

THURLOW WEED'S charges against Fremont are peculiarly rich. The old body-guard story might as well be abandoned now that the much abused guard has won a brilliant victory over the enemy. Thurlow's testimony against Fremont because some of the officers of his staff are interested in contracts, is very valuable. Thurlow's hatred of contractors and abhorrence of jobs are well known. Contractors and jobbers would ruin the country if it wasn't for Thurlow. He's death on that class of people—he is. No wonder his righteous soul is disquieted by the alleged fact that one of Fremont's staff is a contractor. Put Thurlow on the staff, and there would be no complaint on that score. He wouldn't contract; not he. How the “inferior mules” and the “rotten blankets” must have disturbed him! Probably he didn't sleep a wink after he heard these awful charges. Then those muskets which Fremont purchased in France are “worthless.” How about the hundred thousand which he didn't purchase because the Administration refused to ratify the contract? Those Californians, too, of whose “malign influences” Thurlow tells us—“ill-omened men” as he calls them—no wonder Thurlow is jealous of them. When they get through at St. Louis they may move to Albany, and set up a rival job-shop to Thurlow's. That would be bad, wouldn't it? I wonder if they have done anything smarter than the hiring of the Cataline? I doubt. A friend tells me of an experience with rotten army cloth, lately imported from England, at Quartermaster Vinton's in New York city, which I think must rival the operations of the ill-omened men from California. Gen. Thomas's official report must be as valuable as Weed's. The Western papers have already told us of Thomas's loud-mouthed hostility to Fremont, while he was on his Western tour. One of the charges seems to be that his army is badly equipped and supplied. So is the rebel army; yet it fights well. There is a good deal of testimony, or rather rumor, against Fremont; and I am not unprepared to see it proved that he has done many things badly. But I think this fact is evident enough, viz: that all or nearly all the resources of the Administration in the way of ferreting out abuses have been directed to the Western Department. Fremont has been followed by a relentless spirit of hostility ever since he went to St. Louis, and especially ever since he issued his proclamation of freedom. Of this there can be no question whatever in the minds of impartial men. The Cabinet is full of jealous politicians, and the army is full of pro-slavery men. Russell tells us all about these last, and I judge from what he says that a goodly number of them ought to be shot or sent to Fort Lafayette as traitors. In one thing at least Fremont has the advantage over many other officers in the army. He has an enthusiasm and zeal and belief in the righteousness of the Northern cause, and appreciation of the crisis, which other Generals and members of the Cabinet might well emulate. And these qualities compensate for many deficiencies. And as for practical results, when Virginia is as free of rebellion as Missouri is, and Washington as safe as St. Louis, we may pay attention to the complaints against Fremont. One thing is to be noticed about Fremont's army. It may be filled and surrounded by adventurers and contractors, but, thus far, we have heard of no traitors or spies in its ranks. This cannot be said of the Potomac army, or any other branch of the service.— Bost. Cor. Springfield Republican .

CONFISCATION OF THE PROPERTY
OF TRAITORS .

From The Springfield Republican.

THE Confiscation Act passed by Congress, after being toned down to suit the Kentucky Unionists, is found to amount to nothing practically. The rebel property confiscated under it will not pay the expense of the legal proceedings. The Kentucky Unionists, now that the rebels are ruthlessly pillaging their State, are the first to find fault with this half-way measure, and to demand something more effective. The Louisville Journal says that the Union men robbed by the Confederate banditti must be paid out of the property of citizens in rebellion against the government. It is evident that Congress will be called upon at its next session to pass a confiscation law that amounts to something, and probably the President will feel less hesitation in signing it than he manifested in respect to the present emasculated and useless law.

The idea of limiting the confiscation of the property of a rebel, whether that property is goods, money or negroes, to such articles as are in actual use in the service of treason is absurd. The money of a rebel, which is in bank, or otherwise invested, the proceeds of which he devotes to his own support while fighting in the rebel ranks, is quite as serviceable to the rebellion, and indeed much more so, than if carried about on his person. The slaves who cultivate the plantation and keep the revenues of the master good, while he leads a rebel regiment against Washington or assists in plundering the loyal Kentuckians, are quite as useful to the rebellion as if they were employed in digging in the trenches or cooking in the rebel camps. The distinction made by the act of Congress is a distinction without a difference, and a distinction that manifestly defeats the object of the law, for there cannot be in one case out of fifty any sufficient legal proof that a slave, or any other piece of property, is actually used in the service of the rebellion. The collection of evidence and the following out of the ordinary legal formalities are only possible in a state of peace, and therefore not suited to the real state of the case. Either let the government abandon the idea of confiscation altogether, and allow to the rebels the same advantages as if their treason were a perfectly legitimate operation, which the government must handle as delicately as if it were a diplomatic complication, or let them establish a system of confiscation that amounts to something. Let the property of all rebels be declared forfeit, whether it consists in land, money, or negroes. There is certainly no valid reason why negroes should not be subject to the same liabilities as other property, and as the government cannot sell them, it should employ them in whatever way they may be made most serviceable in accomplishing the object of the war.

We find support for these views of the true policy of the government in a letter of a Kentucky clergyman, chaplain to one of the national regiments, published in the Washington Republican . His purpose is to show that the government and the people of the free States still underrate the power of the rebels, and that the vague hope that the rebellion will die of itself—which still paralyzes exertion, is doomed to be disappointed. He asserts that up to the present time the rebel leaders have not suffered from any lack of money, although for the future they must be greatly embarrassed in this respect; that there is no such scarcity of shoes and leather in the South as has been represented, and that the rebel soldiers are generally well clad, and there have been only isolated exceptions to this, just as there have been in our own army; that the horses of the Southern army are greatly superior to ours, and generally each man brings with him and takes care of his horse; that the rebel troops are generally well fed, and the Confederates have large stores of provisions on hand; and that there is no lack of ammunition in the South; in fact, that all expectations that the South will be obliged to stop fighting for lack of food or fighting material, must be abandoned. The writer proceeds to argue that the North is still more radically mistaken in considering slavery an element of weakness in the South. He says on this point:

“Slavery has been regarded, and is generally regarded, in this city and the North, as an element of weakness in this war. This is the greatest of all the mistakes made. It is an element of strength. It gives the South a great advantage over the North. There is no danger from insurrection. The slaves out of the vicinity of the Federal army are working better than formerly. The women are the managers of them, and successful managers, better than the men, because more moral, being continually with them, and using kindness more and severity less. The slaves are also more healthy under their management. It is a well-known fact that the women-planters of the South have always been the most successful. The slaves are the sappers and miners of the army. They are the producers for the army, no less essential for war than they who fight. Slavery is the element of strength in this war. The sooner this fact is realized the better—that the slaves are the producers —the women are the superintendents of these producers, and the whole male force can thus constitute their grand army, and that the whole South is now under drill. Friends of the Union, Liberty and the Constitution, look these facts fully in the face. Reason upon them, and do right. Slaves must, in this war, be regarded as property. The property of all rebels must be confiscated. Let this edict go forth, and the doom of the rebels is sealed . Protect all property of Union men, especially the slave property of the South, of Union men. No abolition war, but a just war; a war to maintain the Union, but a sensible war; a war neither pro-slavery nor abolition, but an effective and conclusive war. Let us look this whole matter in the face, and act before it is too late.”

THE SLAVEHOLDERS DISLOYAL .

THE public mind is becoming slowly pervious to the fact not only that slaves may be made useful to the cause that identifies itself with the vindication of their humanity, but that slaveholders, as a class, will not fight for the Union . Up to this hour, with thousands who love the Union even in South Carolina, with millions of loyalists in the revolted States, and with four slave States that have never seceded, and are still wholly or mainly in the grasp of the Nation, how many slaveholders, think you, have volunteered to defend the National flag? A thousand? a hundred? Who knows a dozen? The President justly thought it a fact deserving of special record in his Message that no private soldier had imitated the many distinguished officers of the American army who had gone over to the Confederate traitors. Will he next tell us how many slaveholders have taken up arms for the Union?

A clear-sighted correspondent of the N. Y. Times , who is accompanying Gen. Rousseau's advance toward the rebel front in Southern Kentucky, thus, for the second or third time, bears testimony (Oct. 23d) to a vital truth, already proclaimed by a Kentucky correspondent of The Tribune:

“The Unionism of the professed loyalists in these parts is certainly a very curious sort of affair. At the first glance, the whole country seems to be enthusiastic in its devotion to the Union. One reason for this seeming unanimity is the fact that all who were Secessionists in the late political campaign have fled. But of those who remain, I am satisfied that fully one-half are at heart Secessionists, though they are all very loud in their professions of loyalty. A good many recruits are coming in, all things considered; but I have noticed that the recruiting ground, which is to do such wonders, always keeps its distance , advancing as we advance. When we were at Muldraugh's Hill, it was here; now it is in the next County below. Still, I suppose, it is all right. Our Union papers insist that it is, and the North believes them. However, there is one trifling fact which is unpleasant to contemplate and rather inconvenient in its results. The greatet pains have been taken to exclude from the camp all except the most tried and undoubted Unionists. No other class can get within the lines, which embrace a considerable extent of country, upon any pretext whatever, no matter what. Yet the enemy are kept thoroughly posted as to everything that takes place here; and sometimes we find them in possession of facts which it is surprising that they should obtain. The painful truth is, that the public mind is resolved not to see this great rebellion in its true light , and will hear of nothing but what chimes with its humor. But the day is coming when the nation will see, as with seared eye-balls, the real facts; but if she insists that her heart shall be wrung and her brain racked before she will see them, no one has the right to object. ”

—Perhaps not, if no “heart” or “brain” suffers but of those who obstinately refuse to see; but it is not quite so clear that those who will and do see should suffer with them. But if the National preservation can be no otherwise accomplished, let all endure together until we see eye to eye. Righteousness is the only sure basis of genuine Peace.— Horace Greeley, in The Independent .

E. M. DAVIS'S DEFENCE .

THE explanation of Capt. E. M. Davis in relation to the charge made against him in the report of Adjutant-General Thomas shows that there were good grounds for our apprehensions, that in the haste of a flying visit to the Western Department, Gen. Thomas had unwittingly permitted himself, in this case at least, to be imposed upon by hearsay evidence. The charge of Gen. Thomas was, that Gen. Fremont gave contracts to members of his own Staff, and that one had been given for blankets to Capt. Davis. Capt. Davis denies that he had any contract whatever, but states that, in accordance with his duties in the Quartermaster's Department, he purchased certain blankets. It was further charged by Gen. Thomas that these blankets were rotten and worthless, and were so pronounced by a Board of Examiners, but were nevertheless accepted by Gen. Fremont and used in the hospitals. Capt. Davis replies that when the goods were reported against, Gen. Fremont demanded with “great displeasure” that they be returned. The Assistant-Quartermaster, however, whose business it is to understand such matters, believed that the blankets were worth all he gave for them, and called for another examination, the result of which was that the original decision was reversed, and the blankets accepted as worth their cost, and fitted for certain purposes. It seems that all that Gen. Fremont had to do with the affair was, at one stage of it, to express “great displeasure” and to administer a rebuke to his Assistant-Quartermaster. For the rest—it seems that there were some cheap goods bought, the purpose of which somebody mistook and condemned them, but which were afterward found to be worth all they cost, and capable of being put to a good use. It was a question about the quality of an article such as might arise anywhere where large purchases were being made, but had nothing whatever to do with contracts. It is very easy to see, however, how the case might have been misunderstood and misrepresented by one only imperfectly acquainted with the facts. If the information in regard to Gen. Fremont was furnished to Gen. Thomas by persons inimical to the former, the poverty of the evidence against him is very strikingly illustrated by so innocent a case as this.— Tribune .

SECRETARY SEWARD'S POLICY .

THE various newspaper correspondents at Washington seem to agree in imputing to the Secretary of State the policy of compromising with the rebels, and then diverting the martial energy of the nation into the channel of a foreign war. We put little confidence in the on dits of Washington society; but there is something in that popular instinct which ascribes certain measures and certain phases of opinion or policy to the astute diplomacy of the Secretary of State; and the recent circular of Mr. Seward to the Governors, and his correspondence with Lord Lyons, give a color of truth to these rumors of his designs. If we could gain the ear of the Secretary, we would say to him that such a policy is a hallucination that may mislead himself and his immediate partisans, but cannot mislead the people. The men of the North and West, the men who furnish the materials of our army and who provide the means for its equipment and sustenance, are resolved to have no compromise, upon any terms, with the authors and abettors of this rebellion. The complete extinction of this rebellion by force of arms is a determination in which the people of the North are inflexibly united. Nor Mr. Seward, with all his reputation for sagacity and statesmanship, could lead the people one step in the direction of compromise with the rebels.

As to the relations of the government with foreign powers, while the people would resent to the utmost any wanton interference of foreign governments in our conflict, and would defend to the last the honor and integrity of the nation, they would none the less resent, and would visit indignantly upon the head of its author, any needless provocation of foreign animosities by our own government. The people will stand by the government to the last in defending the life of the nation and the permanence of the Union, against every foe; this they are resolved to do, whether at home or abroad; but they will not approve of any word or act of the government at Washington that might lead to a war with foreign powers, without just provocation on their part. Least of all will the people be diverted from the work of subduing the rebellion by ill-considered menaces against foreign powers. As persistent friends of Mr. Seward, we have a right to speak thus emphatically against the policy now so widely imputed to him.— Independent .