Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1861-08-14


"dEADQUARTERs DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA, I
FORTRESS MONROE, July 80, 1861.
"Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of Var
SIR By an order received on the morning of
the Goth July, from Major General Dix, by a
Geographic order from Lieutenant General
Scott, 1 was commanded to forward of the
troops of this department, four reg giments and
half, including Colonel Bakers California
regiment, to Washington via Baltimore. This
order reached me at 2 O'Clock A. NJ, by spec
lal boat from Baltimore. Believing that it
emanated because of some pressing exigency
for the defence of Washington, | issued my
orders before daybreak for the embark alton
of the troops, sending those who were among
the very best regiments L had. In the course
of the following day they were all embarked
for Baltimore with the exception of some 400
for whom had not transportation, although L
had all the transport force in the hands of the
Quartermaster here, to aid the Bay line of
steamers, which: by the same order from the
Lieutenant General was directed to furnish
transportation. Up to and at the time of the
order, had been preparing for an advance
movement by which hoped to cripple the
resources OF the enemy at Yorktown, and es-
2ecially by seizing large quantity of ne
groes who were being pressed into their SER
vice in building the intrenchments there.
had five days previously been enabled to mount
tor the first time, the first company of Light
raise, and they had but single rifed cannon,
an iron six FOUNDER. OF course, everything
must and did yield to the supposed eXigency
and the orders. This ordering away these
troops from this department, while it weaken
ed the posts at Newport News, necessitated
the withdrawal of the troops from Hampton,
where L was then throwing up intrenched
works to enable me to hold the town with
small force, while l advanced up the York or
James river. In the village Of Hampton there
were large number Of negroes, composed in
great measure of women and children of the
men who had fed thther within my lines for
protection, who had escaped from marauding
parties of rebels who had been gathering up
able-bodied blacks to aid them in construc-
ting their batteries on the James and York
rivers. l had employed the men in Hampton
in throwing up entertainments. and they were
working zealously and efficiently at that duty,
saving our soldiers from that labor under the
CLEAN of the midday sun. The women were
earning substantially their own subsistence in
washing, marketing, and taking care of the
clothes of the soldiers, and ratious were being
served out to the men who worked for the
support of the children. But by the evacua-
tion of Hampton, rendered necessary by the
withdrawal of troops, leaving me scarcely
5000 men outside the Fort including the
force at Newport News, all these black peo-
pie were obliged to break up their homes at
uteiHS dCTOSS Tue Creek Wltnlu my
lines for protection and support. Indeed it
was a most distressing sight, to see these poor
creatures, who had trusted to the protection
of the arms of the United States, and who aid
ed the troops of the United States in their en-
terprise. to be thus obliged to fee from their
homes, and the homes of their masters, who
had deserted them, and become not fugitives
from fear of the return of the rebel soldiery,
who had threatened to shoot the men who
had wrought for US, and to carry off the wo-
men, who had served us to worse than Egyt-
tian bondage. l have, therefore, now within
the Peninsula, this side of Hampton Creek,
900 negroes, 800 of whom are able bodied,
30 of whom are substantially past hard labor,
l75 women, 225 children under the age of 10
years, and ITO between 10 and is years, and
many more coming in. The questions which
this state of facts present are very embar-
RAISING.
ssFirst-What shall be done with them and
Second-What is their state and condition
ssUpon these questions desire the instruc-
tions of the Department.
ssThe first question, however, may perhaps
be answered by considering the last. Are
these men, women and children slaves Are
they Tree? Is their condition that of men,
women and children, or of property, or is it a
mixed relation What their status was under
the Constitution and laws we all know. What
has been the effect of rebellion and state of
war upon that status ? When l adopted the
theory of treating the able bodied negro fit to
work in the trenches, as property liable to be
used in aid of rebellion, and so contraband of
war, that condition OF things was in so far met
as then and still believe, on legal and con-
Stitutional basis. But now a new series of
questions arise. Passing by women, the chill
dren certainly cannot be treated on that ba-
sis; If property, they must be considered the
ncumbrance, rather than the auxiliary of an
army, and, of course, ir no possible legal re-
lation, could be treated as contraband. Are
they property? If they were so they have
been left by their masters and owners, deser-
ted, thrown away, abandoned, like the wrecked
vessel upon the ocean. Their former posses
sors and owners have causeleSsly, traitorous-
ly, rebeliously, and to carry out the figure,
practically abandoned them to be swallowed
up by the Winter storm of starvation. If
property do they not become the property of
the SavOrs but we, their salvorS, do not need
and will not hold such property and will as
sumo no such ownership has not therefore
all proprietary relation ceased Have they
not become thereupon men, women and chill
dren? No longer under ownership of any
kind, the fearful relicks of fugitive masters,
have they not by their masters acts, and the
state of war, assumed the condition, which
we hold to be the normal one, of those made
in Gods image. Is not every constitutional,
legal, and moral requirement, as we'll to the
runaway master as their relinquished slaves,
thus answered? / confess that my own mind
is compelled, by this reasoning, to look upon
them as men and women. IT not free born,
yet free, manumitted, sent forth from the hand
that held them never to be reclaimed.
GOT course if this reasoning thus imperfect
ly set forth is correct, my duty as a human
man is very plain. should take the same
care of these men, women and children, house,
less, homeless and unprovided for, as would
of the same number of men, women and chill
dren who, for their attachment to the Union,