e fortifications of
the South were sent back to the cotton-fields and the plantations to
till the soil to supply the needs of the confederate soldiers who were
fighting to keep them in bondage. But when the policy of the North was
changed and union and _liberty_ were made the issues of the struggle, as
against slavery and disunion, and the Union forces began to slay their
enemies, the Confederate Government realized the necessity of calling
the negroes from the hoe to the musket,--from the plantations to the
battle-fields.

In the incipiency of the struggle, many of the States made provision for
placing the negro at the disposal of the Confederate Government; but
elated at their early victories, the leaders deemed the enforcement of
the laws unnecessary, negro troops not being needed. As the change came,
however, and defeats, with great losses in various ways depleted the
armies, the necessity of the aid of the negroes became apparent.
Stronghold after stronghold, city after city, States in part, fell
before the march of the Union troops. The negro had become a soldier in
the Union army, and was helping to crush the rebellion. President
Lincoln had declared all slaves in rebeldom free, and thousands of black
soldiers were marching and carrying the news to the slaves.

This state of affairs lead President Davis and his cabinet to resign to
the inevitable, as had the North, and to inaugurate the policy of
emancipating and arming the slaves, knowing full well that it was sheer
folly to expect to recruit their shattered armies from the negro
population without giving them their freedom.

It was therefore in the last days of the confederate authorities, and it
was their last hope and effort for success. Despair had seized upon
them. The army was daily thinned more by desertion than by the bullets
of the Union soldiers, while Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea had
awakened the widest alarm. In the winter of 1864 and 1865 the question
of arming the slaves was presented as a means of recruiting the depleted
and disordered ranks of the army, and it soon assumed an importance that
made it an absorbing topic throughout the Confederacy. There was no
other source to recruit from. The appeal to foreigners was fruitless.
"The blacks had been useful soldiers for the northern army, why should
they not be made to fight for their masters?" it was asked. Of course
there was the immediate query whether they would fight to keep
thems