The progress of the Union armies was so far checked during the second half of 1862, that Military Governor Phelps, appointed for Arkansas, did not assume his functions; and Military Governor Stanley wielded but slight authority in North Carolina.  Senator Andrew Johnson, appointed military governor of Tennessee, established himself at Nashville, the capital, and, though Union control of Tennessee fluctuated greatly, he was able, by appointing loyal State and county officers, to control the administration of civil government in considerable districts, under substantial Federal jurisdiction.

In the State of Louisiana the process of restoring Federal authority was carried on a step farther, owing largely to the fact that the territory occupied by the Union army, though quite limited, comprising only the city of New Orleans and a few adjacent parishes, was more securely held, and its hostile frontier less disturbed.  It soon became evident that considerable Union sentiment yet existed in the captured city and surrounding districts, and when some of the loyal citizens began to manifest impatience at the restraints of martial law, President Lincoln in a frank letter pointed the way to a remedy: 

“The people of Louisiana,” he wrote under date of July 28, 1862, “who wish protection to person and property, have but to reach forth their hands and take it.  Let them in good faith reinaugurate the national authority and set up a State government conforming thereto under the Constitution.  They know how to do it, and can have the protection of the army while doing it.  The army will be withdrawn so soon as such State government can dispense with its presence, and the people of the State can then, upon the old constitutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking.”

At about this date there occurred the serious military crisis in Virginia; and the battles of the Peninsula, of the second Bull Run, and of Antietam necessarily compelled the postponement of minor questions.  But during this period the President’s policy on the slavery question reached its development and solution, and when, on September 22, he issued his preliminary proclamation of emancipation, it also paved the way for a further defining of his policy of reconstruction.

That proclamation announced the penalty of military emancipation against all States in rebellion on the succeeding first day of January; but also provided that if the people thereof were represented in Congress by properly elected members, they should be deemed not in rebellion, and thereby escape the penalty.  Wishing now to prove the sincerity of what he said in the Greeley letter, that his paramount object was to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery, he wrote a circular letter to the military governors and commanders in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, instructing them to permit and aid the people within the districts held by them to hold elections for members of Congress, and perhaps a legislature, State officers, and United States senators.