reek while some of the camp-followers remained asleep on
the farther side, and these were picked up by Wheeler's cavalry.
Some of them, in their fright, were drowned in trying to swim over,
and others may have been cruelly killed by Wheeler's men, but this
was a mere supposition. At all events, the same thing might have
resulted to General Howard, or to any other of the many most humane
commanders who filled the army. General Jeff. C. Davis was
strictly a soldier, and doubtless hated to have his wagons and
columns encumbered by these poor negroes, for whom we all felt
sympathy, but a sympathy of a different sort from that of Mr.
Stanton, which was not of pure humanity, but of politics. The
negro question was beginning to loom up among the political
eventualities of the day, and many foresaw that not only would the
slaves secure their freedom, but that they would also have votes.
I did not dream of such a result then, but knew that slavery, as
such, was dead forever, and did not suppose that the former slaves
would be suddenly, without preparation, manufactured into voters,
equal to all others, politically and socially. Mr. Stanton seemed
desirous of coming into contact with the negroes to confer with
them, and he asked me to arrange an interview for him. I
accordingly sent out and invited the most intelligent of the
negroes, mostly Baptist and Methodist preachers, to come to my
rooms to meet the Secretary of War. Twenty responded, and were
received in my room up-stairs in Mr. Green's house, where Mr.
Stanton and Adjutant-General Townsend took down the conversation in
the form of questions and answers. Each of the twenty gave his
name and partial history, and then selected Garrison Frazier as
their spokesman:

First Question. State what your understanding is in regard to the
acts of Congress and President Lincoln's proclamation touching the
colored people in the rebel States?

Answer. So far as I understand President Lincoln's proclamation to
the rebel States, it is, that if they will lay down their arms and
submit to the laws of the United States, before the 1st of January,
1863, all should be well; but if they did not, then all the slaves
in the Southern States should be free, henceforth and forever.
That is what I understood.

Second Question. State what you understand by slavery, and the
freedom that was to be given by the President's proclamation?

Answer. Slavery is receiving by irresistible power