Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Major-General Ulysses S. Grant to Major-General James B. McPherson, July 7, 1863

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE,        
Near Vicksburg, July 7, 1863.
Maj. Gen. J. B. MCPHERSON,
        Commanding Seventeenth Army Corps:

Give instruction that no passes are to be given to negroes to accompany their masters in leaving the city. The negroes may be informed that they are free by any one who may choose to give the information, and, if they still wish to go, no force need be used to prevent. In the particular case where I gave the reply that force would not be used to prevent negroes accompanying their masters, the officer said he had a family and children, and could not get along without a nurse; further, that the nurse had been raised in the family and was like one of them, and would take as hard to be separated as would an actual member of the family.

If there is any indication that a suspicious number of blacks are going to accompany the troops out, then all should be turned back except such as are voluntarily accompanying families, not more than one to each family.

Very respectfully,
U. S. GRANT.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 3 (Serial No. 38), p. 483

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