Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[591] that the Confederate commissioner, however, has so far modified his claim, that officers in command of colored troops and free negroes, although both may be serving in company with slaves as soldiers in the army of the United States, are to be treated as prisoners of war, so that the question of difference between us now is not one of color, because it is admitted now that free black men of the loyal States are to be treated as prisoners of war. But the claim is that every person of color who ever was a slave in any of the eleven Confederate States, shall not be treated as prisoners of war, but when captured are to be deemed to be slaves, and may be turned over to their masters as such, by the Confederate government.

Now, as the United States Government has by the proclamation of the President, and by the law of Congress, emancipated all slaves that have sought refuge within the lines of the Union army, declared that they shall never be returned to their masters, and as men heretofore slaves, when duly enrolled in the United States army must be deemed and taken to be within the Union lines, therefore, we have no slaves in our army, and the question is whether we shall permit the belligerents opposed to us to make slaves of the free men that they capture in our uniform, simply because of their color; because upon no ground of national law, so far as I am advised, can it be claimed for a moment that to any slave from any State when found within our lines, any right of property can attach in behalf of his former master, because treating the slave as property, only his captured by us from a belligerent would give the captor the right of property, the jus disponendi, and we have exercised that right of disposition by making him free.

But suppose we had not done so, recapture on land by the Confederate forces, treating them as representatives of a government, would make the slave as an article of property, the property of the government that captured him, and would by no means revest the title in the former owner.

To use an illustration which has occurred to my mind, suppose on land we captured from the rebels a horse belonging to “A” ; that horse is disposed of by our government taking it into its own service, and it is afterwards recaptured by the Confederate forces; would there be any doubt that the property in the animal would have been divested from the original owner A, by the first capture, and come to the United States, and then been taken from the United States and given to the Confederate government by the recapture?

Further, to permit this would be a violation of the laws of some of these very Confederate States. Virginia has emancipated her slaves by provisions