“I shall also have within ten days a regiment, one thousand strong, of native guards (colored), the darkest of whom will be about the complexion of the late Mr. Webster.”

All these efforts were made under implied, rather than expressed provisions of law, and encountered more or less embarrassment in obtaining pay and supplies, because they were not distinctly recognized in the army regulations.  This could not well be done so long as the President considered the policy premature.  His spirit of caution in this regard was set forth by the Secretary of War in a letter of instruction dated July 3, 1862: 

“He is of opinion,” wrote Mr. Stanton, “that under the laws of Congress, they [the former slaves] cannot be sent back to their masters; that in common humanity they must not be permitted to suffer for want of food, shelter, or other necessaries of life; that to this end they should be provided for by the quartermaster’s and commissary’s departments, and that those who are capable of labor should be set to work and paid reasonable wages.  In directing this to be done, the President does not mean, at present, to settle any general rule in respect to slaves or slavery, but simply to provide for the particular case under the circumstances in which it is now presented.”

All this was changed by the final proclamation of emancipation, which authoritatively announced that persons of suitable condition, whom it declared free, would be received into the armed service of the United States.  During the next few months, the President wrote several personal letters to General Dix, commanding at Fortress Monroe; to Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee; to General Banks, commanding at New Orleans; and to General Hunter, in the Department of the South, urging their attention to promoting the new policy; and, what was yet more to the purpose, a bureau was created in the War Department having special charge of the duty, and the adjutant-general of the army was personally sent to the Union camps on the Mississippi River to superintend the recruitment and enlistment of the negroes, where, with the hearty cooeperation of General Grant and other Union commanders, he met most encouraging and gratifying success.

The Confederate authorities made a great outcry over the new departure.  They could not fail to see the immense effect it was destined to have in the severe military struggle, and their prejudice of generations greatly intensified the gloomy apprehensions they no doubt honestly felt.  Yet even allowing for this, the exaggerated language in which they described it became absolutely ludicrous.  The Confederate War Department early declared Generals Hunter and Phelps to be outlaws, because they were drilling and organizing slaves; and the sensational proclamation issued by Jefferson Davis on December 23, 1862, ordered that Butler and his commissioned officers, “robbers and criminals deserving death, ... be, whenever captured, reserved for execution.”