ves' as soldiers, could any such be found in this department.
No such characters, however, have yet appeared within view of our
most advanced pickets, the loyal slaves everywhere remaining on
their plantations to welcome us, aid us, and supply us with food,
labor, and information. It is the masters who have in every
instance been the 'fugitives,' running away from loyal slaves as
well as loyal soldiers, and whom we have only partially been able
to see--chiefly their heads over ramparts, or, rifle in hand,
dodging behind trees--in the extreme distance. In the absence of
any 'fugitive-master law,' the deserted slaves would be wholly
without remedy, had not the crime of treason given them the right
to pursue, capture, and bring back those persons of whose
protection they have been thus suddenly bereft.

"To the third interrogatory it is my painful duty to reply that I
never have received any specific authority for issues of
clothing, uniforms, arms, equipments, and so forth, to the troops
in question--my general instructions from Mr. Cameron to employ
them in any manner I might find necessary, and the military
exigencies of the department and the country being my only, but,
in my judgment, sufficient justification. Neither have I had any
specific authority for supplying these persons with shovels,
spades, and pickaxes, when employing them as laborers, nor with
boats and oars when using them as lightermen; but these are not
points included in Mr. Wickliffe's resolution. To me it seemed
that liberty to employ men in any particular capacity implied
with it liberty also to supply them with the necessary tools; and
acting upon this faith I have clothed, equipped, and armed the
only loyal regiment yet raised in South Carolina.

"I must say, in vindication of my own conduct, that had it not
been for the many other diversified and imperative claims on my
time, a much more satisfactory result might have been hoped for;
and that in place of only one, as at present, at least five or
six well-drilled, brave, and thoroughly acclimated regiments
should by this time have been added to the loyal forces of the
Union.

"The experiment of arming the blacks, so far as I have made it,
has been a complete and even marvellous success. They are sober,
docile, at