th
this order.

"Your obedient servant,
"A. LINCOLN."[86]

Gen. Fremont's removal followed speedily. He was in advance of the
slow coach at Washington, and was sent where he could do no harm to
the enemy of the country, by emancipating Negroes. It seems as if
there were nothing else left for Gen. Fremont to do but to free the
slaves in his military district. They were the bone and sinew of
Confederate resistance. It was to weaken the enemy that the general
struck down this peculiar species of property, upon which the enemy of
the country relied so entirely.

Major-Gen. David Hunter assumed command at Hilton Head, South
Carolina, on the 31st of March, 1862. On the 9th of May he issued the
following "General Order:"

"HEADQUARTERS DEP'T OF THE SOUTH,
"HILTON HEAD, S. C., May 9, 1862.

"_General Order_, No. 11.

"The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina,
comprising the Military Department of the South, having
deliberately declared themselves no longer under the United
States of America, and, having taken up arms against the United
States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under
martial law.

"This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862.
Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether
incompatible. The persons in these States--Georgia, Florida, and
South Carolina--heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared
forever free."[87]

But the President, in ten days after its publication, rescinded the
order of General Hunter, in the following Proclamation:

"_And whereas_, The same [Hunter's proclamation] is producing
some excitement and misunderstanding, therefore, I, Abraham
Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim and declare
that the Government of the United States had no knowledge or
belief of an intention on the part of Gen. Hunter to issue such a
proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that the
document is genuine: and, further, that neither Gen. Hunter nor
any other commander or person have been authorized by the
Government of the United States to make proclamation declaring
the slaves of any State free; and that the supposed proclamation
now in questio