f the black refugees declared themselves freemen, others showed that
their masters had deserted them, and still others were captured with
forts and plantations. Evidently, too, slaves were a source of
strength to the Confederacy, and were being used as laborers and
producers. "They constitute a military resource," wrote Secretary
Cameron, late in 1861; "and being such, that they should not be turned
over to the enemy is too plain to discuss." So gradually the tone of
the army chiefs changed; Congress forbade the rendition of fugitives,
and Butler's "contrabands" were welcomed as military laborers. This
complicated rather than solved the problem, for now the scattering
fugitives became a steady stream, which flowed faster as the armies
marched.

Then the long-headed man with care-chiselled face who sat in the White
House saw the inevitable, and emancipated the slaves of rebels on New
Year's, 1863. A month later Congress called earnestly for the Negro
soldiers whom the act of July, 1862, had half grudgingly allowed to
enlist. Thus the barriers were levelled and the deed was done. The
stream of fugitives swelled to a flood, and anxious army officers kept
inquiring: "What must be done with slaves, arriving almost daily? Are
we to find food and shelter for women and children?"

It was a Pierce of Boston who pointed out the way, and thus became in a
sense the founder of the Freedmen's Bureau. He was a firm friend of
Secretary Chase; and when, in 1861, the care of slaves and abandoned
lands devolved upon the Treasury officials, Pierce was specially
detailed from the ranks to study the conditions. First, he cared for
the refugees at Fortress Monroe; and then, after Sherman had captured
Hilton Head, Pierce was sent there to found his Port Royal experiment
of making free workingmen out of slaves. Before his experiment was
barely started, however, the problem of the fugitives had assumed such
proportions that it was taken from the hands of the over-burdened
Treasury Department and given to the army officials. Already centres
of massed freedmen were forming at Fortress Monroe, Washington, New
Orleans, Vicksburg and Corinth, Columbus, Ky., and Cairo, Ill., as well
as at Port Royal. Army chaplains found here new and fruitful fields;
"superintendents of contrabands" multiplied, and some attempt at
systematic work was made by enlisting the able-bodied men and giving
work to the others.

Then came the Freedmen's Aid soci