especially noted also for similar caution in dealing with the negro. Burnside and other officers to whom slaves applied to be protected returned them to their masters, or refused to accept them in the camps, and in West Virginia McClellan appeared as a very champion of slavery, and seemed to be willing to turn his bayonets upon slaves who dared to mistake his army as the way to freedom.. In this matter General McClellan had a policy, if the Administration and nobody else seemed to have.

But Congress entered its protest against engaging the army in the business of catching and returning fugitive slaves, and this infernal subject was evidently not to be quieted at the beginning of a war started on its account.

In May General Benjamin F. Butler, who had so effectually squelched the Rebellion in Maryland, but who had not done it in accordance with General Scott's very politic and conciliatory views, was sent down to Fortress Monroe, in some respects the most important military post in the Nation. In returning from his first warlike excursion from Hampton, after taking possession of that place his army was followed by many slaves, who had been deserted by their masters, or who had been employed in the rebel works, and these General Butler at once declared to be "contraband of war," and refused to deliver them to rebel owners. This matter, so easily disposed of at first by this lawyer-general, became in a short time a complex and serious question. And, recognizing the lack of any policy on the part of the Adminis

1

tration covering the matter, in the forms in which it was likely to appear, on the 30th of July, 1861, Butler wrote to the Secretary of War, fully presenting the "contraband" question as it occurred to him then, and as he believed the Administration would have to see sooner or later. He said that a large number of slave men, women, and children had collected at Hampton, and he had employed the men on the fortifications, and the women washed and marketed for the camp; that when Hampton was abandoned, all these blacks appealed to him for protection; and that nine hundred of them were then in the camp. He then asked: What shall be done with them? What is their state and condition? Are they slaves? Are they free? Is their condition that of men, women, and children, or of property? or is it a mixed relation? He said their status under the Con

stitution and laws asked, what was the effect of a state of war and rebellion on that status? He stated that in adopting the plan of treating them as "contraband of war," on the ground of being property to be used in aid of the Rebellion, he considered the matter as standing on a right and legal basis.

was well known; but then, he

Were

But the case now presented new aspects. they property? Their owners had run away and deserted them to starve, themselves to engage in the Rebellion. If they were still property, were they not the property of their saviors, against whom the rebellious owners were at war? But these saviors had different views about the matter, and would not

hold them as property. Then, did not their property status cease? His reasoning led him, he said, to regard them as free. He referred to the order in General McDowell's army forbidding slaves entering the lines, or being harbored in any way, and wanted to know if this was to be the practice of all the armies for the war. If so, there then would arise questions as to who were slaves, who were not, how the many difficulties arising would be decided, and who would decide them. If the rule was to be general, as a soldier he would enforce it as best he could. But in a loyal State he would put down slave insurrections; in a rebellious one he would confiscate the slaves, and all else which the rebel would use as a force against the power of the Government, and if it turned out that these confiscated slaves went free, it would be a matter little to be regretted or discussed.

On the 8th of August Mr. Cameron answered this letter. He said the President desired all existing rights of the States to be respected; that the war was for the preservation of the Union, with all the rights of the States intact; hence there could be no question as to these fugitives from labor in States where the authority of the Union was in full force. But in rebellious States, the military exigencies stood before the rights of States and citizens, if these rights were not wholly forfeited by the Rebellion; and that by the act of the session of Congress, just closed, the right of persons in rebellion to slaves used in furthering the Rebellion was discharged.

The fourth section of this Confiscation Act read :

"Whenever hereafter, during the present insurrection against the Government of the United States, any person claimed to be held to labor or service under the law of any State, shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or by the lawful agent of such person, to take up arms against the United States, or shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or his lawful agent, to work or to be employed in or upon any fort, navy-yard, dock, armory, ship, intrenchment, or in any military or naval service whatsoever, against the Government and lawful authority of the United States, then, and in every such case, the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due shall forfeit his claim to such labor, any law of the State or of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding. And whenever thereafter the person claiming such labor or service shall seek to enforce his claim, it shall be a full and sufficient answer to such claim that the person whose service or labor is claimed had been employed in hostile service against the Government of the United States, contrary to the provisions of this Act."

The Secretary acknowledged the great inconvenience which might surround the case in determining between the loyal and the disloyal, and concluded that, on the whole, the rights of all would be best subserved by receiving all "contrabands" that came. of necessity or without invitation, and employing them as the circumstances might require, at the same time keeping a record of them, to enable Congress at the end of the war to compensate the deserving and amicably adjust the whole matter. According to

this timid and impossible plan General Butler was requested to conduct himself, not allowing any interference with the slaves of loyal masters, or preventing any who might desire returning to their old homes.

General Wool, who took command at Fortress Monroe, a month or two afterwards issued an order requiring these slaves to be paid, the men eight, and the women four dollars per month and fed and clothed, while they were employed by the Government. This plan was soon, for a time, adopted throughout the army; and to General Butler the credit of putting the Administration in the way to any policy at all on this evil subject was due. From his fruitful brain at Fortress Monroe sprang the exceedingly convenient term "contraband," which went into the general speech of the country as the conciliatory and humorous designation of the fugitive slave, indeed of the whole of the "peculiar institution" of the South. The plan of employing these slaves, registering their names, names of their owners, time of service, and so on, was one of immense labor, and one which, after occupying the time of a good-sized army itself, would have led ultimately to inextricable difficulties to the country. But all this ended by the famous Emancipation Proclamation and the continuation of the Rebellion.

The war had scarcely begun, indeed, until a great change came over the "institution." It was to be readily seen that a separation of the Union was not going to bind the slave forever, or rear an impene