, too, slaves were a source
of strength to the Confederacy, and were being used as laborers and
producers. "They constitute a military resource," wrote the Secretary of
War, late in 1861; "and being such, that they should not be turned over
to the enemy is too plain to discuss." So the tone of the army chiefs
changed, Congress forbade the rendition of fugitives, and Butler's
"contrabands" were welcomed as military laborers. This complicated
rather than solved the problem; for now the scattering fugitives became
a steady stream, which flowed faster as the armies marched.

Then the long-headed man, with care-chiseled face, who sat in the White
House, saw the inevitable, and emancipated the slaves of rebels on New
Year's, 1863. A month later Congress called earnestly for the Negro
soldiers whom the act of July, 1862, had half grudgingly allowed to
enlist. Thus the barriers were leveled, and the deed was done. The
stream of fugitives swelled to a flood, and anxious officers kept
inquiring: "What must be done with slaves arriving almost daily? Am I to
find food and shelter for women and children?"

It was a Pierce of Boston who pointed out the way, and thus became in
a sense the founder of the Freedmen's Bureau. Being specially detailed
from the ranks to care for the freedmen at Fortress Monroe, he afterward
founded the celebrated Port Royal experiment and started the Freedmen's
Aid Societies. Thus, under the timid Treasury officials and bold army
officers, Pierce's plan widened and developed. At first, the able-bodied
men were enlisted as soldiers or hired as laborers, the women
and children were herded into central camps under guard, and
"superintendents of contrabands" multiplied here and there. Centres
of massed freedmen arose at Fortress Monroe, Va., Washington, D. C.,
Beaufort and Port Royal, S. C., New Orleans, La., Vicksburg and Corinth,
Miss., Columbus, Ky., Cairo, Ill., and elsewhere, and the army chaplains
found here new and fruitful fields.

Then came the Freedmen's Aid Societies, born of the touching appeals for
relief and help from these centres of distress. There was the American
Missionary Association, sprung from the Amistad, and now full grown for
work, the various church organizations, the National Freedmen's Relief
Association, the American Freedmen's Union, the Western Freedmen's
Aid Commission,--in all fifty or more active organizations, which sent
clothes, money, school-books, and teachers southward.