Xxxiii.
Still another milestone was about to be planted.
Although the
Generals in our army were continually receiving most valuable information from fugitive slaves, and many a disaster was prevented, as well as many a success obtained through their information of the positions, movements, and plans of the
Rebels, as well as from their indispensable services as faithful and intelligent guides,—still, the prevailing sentiment in the army was for the rendition of such fugitives.
Slave-holders were allowed to enter the camps of our
Generals, and search private quarters of officers for slaves.
This was particularly the case under
General Hooker's command; while
General McCook's conduct, by way of rendering extraordinary facilities to Slave-hunters, was widely applauded by a journal at
Nashville; and in many other instances.
Yet these officers could all plead, in behalf of their conduct, the infamous ‘
Order No. 3,’ of
Major-General Halleck, in which he said:
We will prove to them—Slave-holders—that we come to restore, not to violate, the Constitution and the laws. * * * It does not belong to the military to decide upon the relation of master and slave: such questions
[394]
must be settled by the civil courts.
No fugitive slaves will, therefore, be admitted within our lines or camps, except when specially ordered by the General commanding.
In
Horace Greeley's
American Conflict, the author well says:
Never was a therefore more misplaced.
How were the persons presenting themselves adjudged to be or known as fugitive slaves?
Plainly, by the color of their skins, and that only.
The sole end of this regulation was the remanding of all slaves to their masters,—seven-eighths of whom were most envenomed, implacable Rebels—by depriving them of refuge within our lines from those masters' power.
