sanctioned by the comptroller general.

About this time General Meade was appointed to rule in Georgia in place
of General Pope, and he found this matter unsettled when he took charge.
So he wrote to Governor Jenkins, and requested him to draw his warrant
on the treasury for forty thousand dollars. The governor could find no
authority in law for paying over this sum, and he therefore refused.
But civil government was not of much importance to the military at that
time; so, when he had received the governor's letter, General Meade drew
a sheet of paper before him, called for pen and ink, and issued
"General Order No. 8," in which the announcement is made that "the
following-named officers are _detailed for duty_ in the district of
Georgia: Brevet Brigadier General Thomas H. Ruger, Colonel 33d Infantry,
_to be Governor of the State of Georgia_; Brevet Captain Charles F.
Rockwell, Ordnance Corps U. S. Army, _to be Treasurer of the State of
Georgia_."

In this way the rag-tag-and-bobtail convention got its money, but it
got also the hatred and contempt of the people; and the Republican
party,--the party that had been molded and made by the wise policy of
Lincoln,--by indorsing these foolish measures of reconstruction, and
putting its influence behind the outrages that were committed in the
name of "loyalty," aroused prejudices in the minds of the Southern
people that have not died away to this day. Some of the more vicious
of the politicians of that epoch organized what was known as "The Union
League." It was a secret political society, and had branches in every
county of the State. Through the medium of this secret organization,
the basest deception was practiced on the ignorant negroes. They
were solemnly told that their old masters were making arrangements to
reenslave them, and all sorts of incendiary suggestions were made to
them. It was by means of this secret society that the negroes were made
to believe that they would be entitled to forty acres and a mule for
voting for the candidates of the carpet-baggers.

The effect of all this was to keep the blacks in a constant state of
turmoil. They were too uneasy to settle down to work, and too suspicious
to enter into contracts with the whites: so they went wandering about
the State from town to town and from county to county, committing all
sorts of crimes. As the civil system had been entirely overthrown by the
military, there was neither law nor order; and this condi