"This Rebellion has assumed the character of a war; as such it should be regarded; and it should be conducted upon the highest principles known to Christian civilization. It should not be a war looking to the subjugation of the people of any State, in any event. It should not be at all a war upon populations, but against armed forces and political organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of persons, territorial organization of States, nor forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a moment." But the drift of the sentiment of the army was in the direction of compromise with the slavery question. Nearly every statesman at Washington--in the White House and in the Congress--and nearly every officer in the army regarded the Negro question as purely political and not military. That it was a problem hard of solution no one could doubt. Hundreds of loyal Negroes, upon the orders of general officers, were turned away from the Union lines, while those who had gotten on the inside were driven forth to the cruel vengeance of rebel masters. Who could solve the problem? Major-Gen. Benjamin F. Butler banished the politician, and became the loyal, patriotic _soldier_! In the month of May, 1861, during the time Gen. Butler commanded the Union forces at Fortress Monroe, three slaves made good their escape into his lines. They stated that they were owned by Col. Mallory, of the Confederate forces in the front; that he was about to send them to the North Carolina seaboard to work on rebel fortifications; and that the fortifications were intended to bar that coast against the Union arms. Having heard this statement, Gen. Butler, viewing the matter from a purely military stand-point, exclaimed: "These men are _contraband_ of war; set them at work." Here was a solution of the entire problem; here was a blow delivered at the backbone of the Rebellion. He claimed no right to act as a politician, but acting as a loyal-hearted, clear-headed _soldier_, he coined a word and hurled a shaft at the enemy that struck him in a part as vulnerable as the heel of Achilles. In his letter to the Lieut.-Gen. of the Army, Winfield Scott, 27th of May, 1861, 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, 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.