Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume II.

I have ordered troops to cross the river. They come as your friends and your brothers — as enemies only to armed Rebels who are preying upon you. Your homes, your families, and your property, are safe under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected.

Notwithstanding all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to believe that our advent among you will be signalized by interference with your slaves, understand one thing clearly — not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part.

Those volunteer officers, however, who had not been blessed with a West Point training, did not always view the matter in precisely this light. Directly after¹ Gen. Butler's accession to command at Fortress Monroe, three negro slaves came within his lines from the Rebel lines adjacent; stating that they were held as property by Col. Mallory, of the Confederate forces in his front, who was about to send them to the North Carolina seaboard, to work on the Rebel fortifications there in progress, intended to bar that coast against our arms. Gen. Butler heard their story, was satisfied of its truth, and said: “These men are contraband of war:² set them at work.” He was, very soon afterward, invited to a conference by Maj. Carey, commanding opposite; and accordingly met the Major (in whom he recognized an old political compatriot) a mile from the fort. Maj. Carey, as agent of his absent friend Mallory, demanded a return of those negroes; which Gen. Butler courteously but firmly declined; and, after due debate, the conference terminated fruitlessly. Very naturally, the transit of negroes from Slavery to Fortress Monroe was thenceforth almost continuous.

Gen. Butler wrote³ forthwith to Lt.-Gen. Scott, soliciting advice and direction. In this letter, he said:

Since I wrote my last, the question in regard to slave property is becoming one of very serious magnitude. The inhabitants of Virginia are using their negroes in the batteries, and are preparing to send their women and children south. The escapes from them are very numerous; and a squad has come in this morning,⁴ and my pickets are bringing in their women and children. Of course, these can not be dealt with upon the theory on which I designed to treat the services of able-bodied men and women who might come within my lines, and of which I gave you a detailed account in my last dispatch.

I am in the utmost doubt what to do with this species of property. Up to this time, I have had come within my lines men and women, with their children — entire families — each family belonging to the same owner. I have, therefore, determined to employ — as I can do very profitably — the able-bodied persons in the party, issuing proper food for the support of all; charging, against their services the expense of care and sustenance of the non-laborers; keeping a strict and accurate account, as well of the services as of the expenditures, having the worth of the services and the cost of the expenditure determined by a board of survey hereafter to be detailed. I know of no other manner in which to dispose of this subject, and the questions connected therewith. As a matter of property, to the insurgents it will be of very great moment — the number that I now have amounting, as I am informed, to what in good times would be of the value of $60,000.

Twelve of these negroes, I am informed, have escaped from the erection of the batteries on Sewell's Point, which fired upon my expedition as it passed by out of range. As a means of offense, therefore, in the enemy