Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 7.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[445] part of Alabama, and the whole sea-coast of Georgia and South-Carolina, and no inconsiderable part of the coast of Florida, are held by the United States. The insurgents, with the slaves whom they yet hold in defiance of the President's proclamation, are now crowded into the central and southern portions of Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, while the pioneer slaveholding insurgents beyond the Mississippi are cut off from the main force. On the other hand, although it is less than six months since the laws or customs of the United States would allow a man of African descent to bear arms in defence of his country, there are now in the field twenty-two thousand regularly enlisted, armed, and equipped soldiers of that class, while fifty regiments of two thousand each are in process of organization, and sixty-two thousand eight hundred persons of the same class are employed as teamsters, laborers, and camp followers. These facts show that, as the insurrection continues, the unfortunate servile population, which was at the beginning an element of its strength, is being transferred to the support of the Union.

You will use the facts presented in this paper in such a way as may be most effective to convince those who seek a renewal of commercial prosperity through the restoration of peace in America, that the quickest and shortest way to gain that desirable end is to withdraw support and favor from the insurgents, and to leave the adjustment of our domestic controversies exclusively with the people of the United States.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,