Carolina.
The total number of prisoners of war parolled by
General Schofield, at Greensboro', North Carolina,
as afterward officially reported, amounted to ........ 38,817
And the total number who surrendered in Georgia
and Florida, as reported by General J. H. Wilson,
was .................................................. 52,458
Aggregate surrendered under the capitulation of
General J. E. Johnston ............................... 89,270
On the morning of the 5th I also received from General Schofield
this dispatch:
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, May 5, 1866.
To Major-General W: T. SHERMAN, Morehead City:
When General Grant was here, as you doubtless recollect, he said
the lines (for trade and intercourse) had been extended to embrace
this and other States south. The order, it seems, has been
modified so as to include only Virginia and Tennessee. I think it
would be an act of wisdom to open this State to trade at once.
I hope the Government will make known its policy as to the organs
of State government without delay. Affairs must necessarily be in
a very unsettled state until that is done. The people are now in a
mood to accept almost anything which promises a definite
settlement. "What is to be done with the freedmen?" is the
question of all, and it is the all important question. It requires
prompt and wise notion to prevent the negroes from becoming a huge
elephant on our hands. If I am to govern this State, it is
important for me to know it at once. If another is to be sent
here, it cannot be done too soon, for he probably will undo the
most that I shall have done. I shall be glad to hear from you
fully, when you have time to write. I will send your message to
General Wilson at once.
J. M. SCHOFIELD, Major-General.
I was utterly without instructions from any source on the points of
General Schofield's inquiry, and under the existing state of facts
could not even advise him, for by this time I was in possession of
the second bulletin of Mr. Stanton, published in all the Northern
papers, with comments that assumed that I was a common traitor and
a public enemy; and high officials had even instructed my own
subordinates to disobey my lawful orders. General Halleck, who had
so long been in Washington as the chief of staff, had been sent on
the 21st of April to Richmond, to command the armies of the Potomac
and James, in place of General Grant, who had transferred his
headquarters
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