litary court as the President
may direct, and in such manner and under such regulations as
the President shall prescribe; and after conviction, the
President may commute the punishment in such manner and on
such terms as he may deem proper.

"SEC. 7.--All negroes and mulattoes who shall be engaged in
war, or be taken in arms against the Confederate States, or
shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the Confederate
States, shall, where captured in the Confederate States, be
delivered to authorities of the State or States in which
they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to such
present or future laws of such State or States."

In March, 1863, this same Confederate Congress enacted the following
order to regulate the impressment of negroes for army purposes:

"SEC. 9.--Where slaves are impressed by the Confederate
Government, to labor on fortifications, or other public
works, the impressment shall be made by said Government
according to the rules and regulations provided in the laws
of the States wherein they are impressed; and, in the
absence of such law, in accordance with such rules and
regulations not inconsistent with the provisions of this
act, as the Secretary of War shall from time to time
prescribe; _Provided_, That no impressment of slaves shall
be made, when they can be hired or procured by the owner or
agent.

"SEC. 10.--That, previous to the 1st day of December next,
no slave laboring on a farm or plantation, exclusively
devoted to the production of grain and provisions, shall be
taken for the public use, without the consent of the owner,
except in case of urgent necessity."

Thus it is apparent that while the Confederate Government was holding
aloft the black flag, even against the Northern Phalanx regiments
composed of men who were never slaves, it was at the same time engaged
in enrolling and conscripting slaves to work on fortifications and in
trenches, in support of their rebellion against the United States, and
at a period when negro troops were not accepted in the army of the
United States.

Soon after the admission of negroes into the Union army, it was reported
to Secretary Stanton that three negro soldiers, captured with the
gunboat "Isaac Smith," on Stone river, were placed in close confinement,
whereupon he ordered three confederate prisoners