“There was a colored woman at Davis’ Bend, when our forces took possession of that place—afterward sent to Cincinnati—who can be proved, by the testimony of hundreds, to have been the kept mistress of Jeff. Davis; and she is universally reputed to be the daughter of Joe Davis, the Rebel insurgent leader’s brother. We know, also, of at least six persons, the offspring of white Southern women by colored men. One of these children of white women, after narrowly escaping death by drowning at the hands of his maternal uncles, is now a Presiding Elder in the Methodist Church. Another was once sold into slavery by his mother, for a ‘flitch of bacon.’ “Moreover, in the course of their official action during the past year, my assistants have become cognizant of four marriages of Southern white men to colored women. One of them was formerly a negro-trader. His quadroon slave and mistress would not live with him without marriage, because, as she said, she had now become free, and it was no longer right to submit to that to which she had been helplessly subjected in slavery. A chaplain, altogether unwilling to assist at mixed marriages, was induced to perform the ceremony in this instance, by the man’s saying that he had ‘married her in the sight of God five years ago!’”—_Official Report of Colonel John Eaton, General Superintendent Freedmen, Department of the Tennessee and State of Arkansas, for 1864, to the Adjutant General U. S. A._ Footnote 38: In the Helena (Ark.) District, negro lessees, cultivating small farms, were in numerous cases comparatively successful. Ten of them, to whom land had been allotted by direction of Mr. Mellen, realized from their crops an aggregate of $31,000. The following were favorable specimens: “Jerome Hubbard and George West leased sixty acres—planted forty in cotton; their expenses were about $1,200; they sold their crop for $8,000. Napoleon Bowman leased twenty-four acres; he had some capital to begin with, and borrowed some; he employed one hand; his expenses were less than $2,000; sold his crop for $6,000—realizing over $4,000 clear profit. Robert Owens leased seventeen acres; having nothing to start with, he borrowed his capital; he earned by the season’s work enough to purchase a good house, with a residue of $300. Samuel Beaden leased thirteen and a half acres; expended about $600 in its cultivation, and sold his crop for $4,000.” They averaged, according to an official report, about $500 profit on every ten acres cultivated. CHAPTER XXIX. Vicksburg to Louisville.