gions, the slaves were more
numerous and still flocked to the roadsides, seeking and desiring
to follow the army. All believed the "Yankee army" had come solely
to free them.

Colonel John Beatty was made Provost-Marshal and President of a
Board of Administration for Huntsville.

Huntsville was a beautiful, aristocratic little Southern city. A
feature of it was a large spring near its centre which furnished
an abundant supply of water for the men and animals of a large
army. It was the home of the Alabama Clays, all disloyal; of ex-
Senator Jerry Clemens, who had early been a Union man, but later
was disposed to accept secession as an accomplished fact; then, on
the Union occupancy of Northern Alabama, he boldly advocated a
restoration of the State to the Union. Colonel Nick Davis, likewise
an original Union man, at first opposed secession; then, after Bull
run, accepted a colonelcy in an Alabama rebel regiment; then declined
it, and thereafter tried to remain loyal to the Union. The conduct
of such strong men as Clemens and Davis is not to be wondered at
when their surroundings are considered. There were many who,
feeling bound to continue their residence in the South, and believing,
after Bull Run, that the Confederacy was established, yielded their
opposition to it.

Reverend Frederick A. Ross, a distinguished Presbyterian minister,
who preached the divinity of slavery, resided here.( 5) Reverend
Ross was arrested by General Rousseau and sent north to prison for
publicly _praying_ in his church at Huntsville (while occupied by
the Union Army) for the success of the Confederacy, the overthrow
of the Union, and the defeat of its armies.

There were some men, among whom were Hon. George W. Lane (later
appointed a United States Judge), who adhered firmly to the Union.
That part of Alabama north of the Tennessee had opposed secession.

Clement Comer Clay, a lawyer, who had been a soldier in the Creek
Indian War, Chief-Justice of his State, and had served in both
branches of Congress and as Governor of Alabama, was arrested and
tried at Huntsville, when seventy-three years of age, by a military
commission of which I was president. There were several charges
against him, the most serious of which was for aiding and advising
guerillas to secretly shoot down Union soldiers, cut telegraph
lines, and wreck trains. This charge he vehemently denied until
a letter in his own handwriting was produced, recently writt