o apt at retort as General Butler was.
Thus it came to pass that each general, being without instructions,
carried out his own ideas, and confusion ensued. Democratic commanders
returned slaves; Abolitionist commanders refused to do so; many were
sadly puzzled what to do. All alike created embarrassing situations for
the administration.

General Fremont led off. On August 30, being then in command of the
Western Department, he issued an order, in which he declared that he
would "assume the administrative powers of the State." Then, on the
basis of this bold assumption, he established martial law, and
pronounced the slaves of militant or active rebels to be "free men." The
mischief of this ill-advised proceeding was aggravated by the "fires of
popular enthusiasm which it kindled." The President wrote to Fremont,
expressing his fear that the general's action would "alarm our Southern
Union friends, and turn them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair
prospect in Kentucky." Very considerately he said: "Allow me, therefore,
to ask that you will, as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as
to conform to" the Act of August 6. Fremont replied, in substance, that
the President might do this, but that he himself would not! Thereupon
Mr. Lincoln, instead of removing the insubordinate and insolent general,
behaved in his usual passionless way, and merely issued an order that
Fremont's proclamation should be so modified and construed as "to
conform with and not to transcend" the law. By this treatment, which
should have made Fremont grateful and penitent, he was in fact rendered
angry and indignant; for he had a genuine belief in the old proverb
about laws being silent in time of war, and he really thought that
documents signed in tents by gentlemen wearing shoulder-straps were
deserving of more respect, even by the President, than were mere Acts of
Congress. This was a mistaken notion, but Fremont never could see that
he had been in error, and from this time forth he became a vengeful
thorn in the side of Mr. Lincoln.

Several months later, on May 9, 1862, General Hunter proclaimed martial
law in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, and said: "Slavery and
martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons
in these States, heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared
forever free." At once, though not without reluctance, Mr. Lincoln
revoked this order, as unauthorized. He further said that, if he