t some of them be useful in loading, swabbing, and
firing the musket?"

On the 10th of February, 1864, Mr. Stevens (Republican) of Pennsylvania,
in the House of Representatives, moved an amendment to the Enrollment
Act. Says the same authority before quoted:

The Enrollment Bill was referred to a Conference Committee,
consisting of Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, Mr. Nesmet of
Oregon, and Mr. Grimes of Iowa, on the part of the Senate;
and Mr. Schenck of Ohio, Mr. Deming of Connecticut, and Mr.
Kernan of New York, on the part of the House. In the
Conference Committee, Mr. Wilson stated that he never could
assent to the amendment, unless the drafted slaves were made
free on being mustered into the service of the United
States. Mr. Grimes sustained that position; and the House
committee assented to it. The House amendment was then
modified so as to read, "That all able-bodied male colored
persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five years,
whether citizens or not, resident in the United States,
shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this act,
and of the act to which this is an amendment, and form part
of the national forces; and, when a slave of a loyal master
shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the United
States, his master shall have a certificate thereof; and
thereupon such slave shall be free; and the bounty of a
hundred dollars, now payable by law for each drafted man,
shall be paid to the person to whom such drafted person was
owing service or labor at the time of his muster into the
service of the United States. The Secretary of War shall
appoint a commission in each of the slave States represented
in Congress, charged to award, to each loyal person to whom
a colored volunteer may owe service, a just compensation,
not exceeding three hundred dollars, for each such colored
volunteer, payable out of the fund derived from commutation;
and every such colored volunteer, on being mustered into the
service, shall be free."

"The report of the Conference Committee was agreed to; and
it was enacted that every slave, whether a drafted man or a
volunteer, shall be free on being mustered into the military
service of the United States, not by the act of the master,
but by the authority of the Federal Government."

[Illu