HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Camp on Big Black, September 7, 1863.
H. W. HILL, Esq.,
Chairman of Meeting of Citizens, Warren Co., Miss.:
SIR: The
communication addressed to General Grant, myself, and other officers, in the
nature of a petition* is received. I think it proper and right that the
property-holding classes of Warren County, and indeed of the whole State of
Mississippi, should meet in their capacity as citizens to talk over matters, so
that they may take any steps they deem to their interest, and if such meetings
be open and with the knowledge of the nearest military commander, I will
protect them whilst so engaged.
Your preamble,
however, starts out with a mistake. I do not think any nation ever undertook to
feed, supply, and provide for the future of the inhabitants of an insurgent
district. We have done so here and in other instances in this war, but my
reading has discovered no parallel cases. If you know of any, I will thank you
for a copy of the history which records them. I know it is the purpose of the
controlling generals of this war to conduct it on the most humane principles of
either ancient or modern times and according to them. I contend that after the
firing on our steam-boats navigating our own rivers after the long and
desperate resistance to our armies at Vicksburg, on the Yazoo, and in
Mississippi generally, we are justified in treating all the inhabitants as
combatants and would be perfectly justifiable in transporting you all beyond the
seas if the United States deemed it to her interest; but our purpose is not to
change the population of this country, but to compel all the inhabitants to
acknowledge and submit to the common laws of the land. When all or a part of
the inhabitants acknowledge the just rights of the United States, the war as to
them ceases. But I will reply to your questions in the order you put them.
First. The duty of
the Government to protect and the inhabitants to assist is reciprocal. The
people of Warren County have not assisted the United States much as yet, and
are therefore not entitled to much protection. What future protection they
receive will depend on their own conduct.
Second. The negroes,
former slaves by inheritance or purchase, that now fill the country have been
turned loose upon the world by their former owners, who by rebelling against
the only earthly power that insured them the rightful possession of such
property have practically freed them. They are a poor, ignorant class of human
beings, that appeal to all for a full measure of forbearance. The task of
providing for them at present devolves on the United States because, ex
necessitate, the United States succeeds by act of war to the former lost
title of the master. This task is a most difficult one, and needs time for
development and execution. The white inhabitants of the country must needs be
patient, and allow time for the work. In due season the negroes at Roach's and
Blake's will be hired, employed by the Government, or removed to camps where they
can be conveniently fed; but in the mean time no one must molest them, or
interfere with the agents of the United States intrusted with this difficult
and delicate task. If any of them are armed it is for self-defense, and if they
mistake their just relation to the Government or the people, we will soon
impress on them the truth.
Third. Your third
inquiry is embraced in the above. I don t know that any fixed and determined
plan is matured, but some just and proper provisions will be made for the negro
population of this State.
Fourth. Congress
alone can appropriate public money. We cannot hire servants for the people who
have lost their slaves, nor can we detail negroes for such purposes. You must
do as we do, hire your servants and pay them. If they don't earn their hire,
discharge them and employ others. Many have already done this and are satisfied
with the results.
Fifth. I advise all
citizens to stay at home, gradually put their houses and contiguous grounds in
order, and cast about for some employment or make preparations on a moderate
scale to resume their former business and employment. I cannot advise any one
to think of planting on a large scale, for it is manifest no one can see far
enough in the future to say who will reap what you sow. You must first make a
government before you can have property. There
is no such thing as property without government. Of course, we think
that our Government (which is still yours) is the best and easiest put in full
operation here. You are still citizens of the United States and of the State of
Mississippi. You have only to begin and form one precinct, then another; soon
your country will have such organization that the military authorities would respect
it. The example of one county would infect another, and that another, in a
compound ratio, and it would not be long till the whole State would have such
strength by association that, with the assistance of the United States, you
could defy any insurgent force. The moment the State can hold an open, fair
election, and send Senators and Members to Congress, I doubt not they would be
received, and then Mississippi would again be as much a part of our Government
as Indiana and Kentucky now are, equal to them in all respects, and could soon
have courts, laws, and all the machinery of civil government. Until that is
done, it is idle to talk, about little annoyances, such as you refer to at Deer
Creek and Roach's. As long as war lasts these troubles will exist, and, in
truth, the longer the war is protracted, the more bitter will be the feeling,
and the poor people will have to bear it, for they cannot help themselves.
General Grant can
give you now no permanent assurance or guaranties, nor can I, nor can anybody.
Of necessity, in war the commander on the spot is the judge, and may take your
house, your fields, your everything, and, turn you all out, helpless, to
starve. It may be wrong, but that don't alter the case. In war you can't help
yourselves, and the only possible remedy is to stop war. I know this is no easy
task, but it is well for you to look the fact square in the face and let your
thoughts and acts tend to the great solution. Those who led the people into war
promised all manner of good things to you, and where are their promises? A
child may fire a city, but it takes a host of strong men to extinguish it. So a
demagogue may fire the minds of a whole people, but it will take a host like
ourselves to subdue the flames of anger thus begotten. The task is a mammoth
one, but still you will in after years be held recreant if you do not lend your
humble assistance. I know that hundreds and thousands of good Southern men now
admit their error in appealing to war, and are engaged in the worthy effort to
stop it before all is lost. Look around you and see the wreck. Let your minds
contemplate the whole South in like chaos and disorder, and what a picture!
Those who die by the bullet are lucky compared to those poor fathers and wives
and children who see their all taken and themselves left to perish, or linger
out their few years in ruined poverty. Our duty is not to build up; it is
rather to destroy both the rebel army and whatever of wealth or property it
rounded its boasted strength upon. Therefore don't look to any army to help
you; act for yourselves. Study your real duties to yourselves and families, and
if you remain inert, or passively friendly to the power that threatens our
national existence, you must reap the full consequences, but if, like true men,
you come out boldly, and plainly assert that the Government of the United
States is the only power on earth which can insure to the inhabitants of
America that protection to life, property, and fame which alone can make life
tolerable, you will have some reason to ask of us protection and assistance,
otherwise not.
General Grant is
absent. I doubt if he will have time to notice your petition as he deals with a
larger sphere, and I have only reduced these points to writing that your people
may have something to think about, and divert your minds from the questions of
cotton, niggers, and petty depredations, in which the enemies of all order and
all government have buried up the real issues of this war.
I am, &c.,
W. T. SHERMAN,
Major-General, Commanding.
_______________
* See Grant to Halleck, September 19, p. 732.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume
30, Part 3 (Serial No. 52), p. 401-4
No comments:
Post a Comment