"Colonel Smith and Mr. Slack say that they made the statement at the express request of Major Darr of the Commanding General's staff. A simple inquiry by the Major would have saved me the necessity of writing this long letter." It is due to General Rosecrans to say that although he had been anything but an anti-slavery man before the war, he made no pressure upon me to violate my own sense of right in these or similar cases, and they ended with my reports of the facts and of my reasons for the course I pursued. The side lights thrown upon the situation by the letter last quoted will be more instructive than any analysis I could now give, and the spice of flavor which my evident annoyance gave it only helps to revive more perfectly the local color of the time. In the case of Mr. Smith's "negro boy Mike," I had the satisfaction of finding in the intercepted correspondence of his son the major, the express recognition of the man's right to liberty by reason of his use in the enemy's service, and could not deny myself the pleasure of calling attention to it in my letters to headquarters. My experience during the winter begot in me a rooted dislike for the military administration of the border districts, and strengthened my wish to be in the most active work at the front, where the problems were the strictly military ones of attack and defence in the presence of the armed enemy. [Footnote: I did not lack evidence that a steady rule, based on principles frankly avowed and easily understood, was rapidly bringing the people to be content to be in the Union, even those most inclined to secession. This result I am gratified to find attested by General Lee and General Floyd, who in dispatches very lately printed confessed the effect my administration had in quieting the valley during the first months of my occupation. Official Records, vol. li. pt. ii. pp. 220, 225.] Not that the winter was without compensating pleasures, for we were recipients of much social attention of a very kindly and agreeable sort, and carried away cherished memories of refined family circles in which the collision of opinions and the chafing of official relations were forgotten in hearty efforts to please. With the unconditionally loyal people our sympathies were very deep, for we found them greatly torn and disturbed in the conflict of duties and divided affections, where scarce a single household stood as a unit in devotion to the cause, and where the triumph of either side must necessarily bring affliction to some of them. CHAPTER IX VOLUNTEERS AND REGULARS