The knowledge of the real state of political affairs, which the negroes have acquired through this organization, is astonishingly accurate; their leaders possess every essential of leadership,--except, it may be, military skill,--and they are fully able to cope with the whites. The negro whom I call Scipio, on the day when Major Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie, and before he or I knew of that event, which set all South Carolina in a blaze, foretold to me the breaking out of this war in Charleston harbor, and as confidently predicted that it would result in the freedom of the slaves! The knowledge of this organization I acquired by gaining the confidence of some of the blacks, who knew me to be a Northern man, and supposed I sympathized with them. Having acquired it in that manner, I could not communicate it; but now, when our troops have landed in South Carolina, and its existence is sure to be speedily developed, no harm can result from this announcement. The fact of its existing is not positively known (for the black is more subtle and crafty than anything human), but is suspected, by many of the whites; the more moderate of whom are disposed to ward off the impending blow by some system of gradual emancipation,--declaring all black children born after a certain date free,--or by some other action that will pacify and keep down the slaves. These persons, however, are but a small minority, and possess no political power, and the South is rushing blindly on to a catastrophe, which, if not averted by the action of our government, will make the horrors of San Domingo and the French Revolution grow pale in history. I say the action of our government, for with it rests the responsibility. What the black wants is freedom. Give him that, and he will have no incentive to insurrection. If emancipation is proclaimed at the head of our armies,--emancipation for _all_--confiscation for the slaves of rebels, compensation for the slaves of loyal citizens,--the blacks will rush to the aid of our troops, the avenging angel will pass over the homes of the many true and loyal men who are still left at the South, and the thunderbolts of this war will fall only--where they should fall--on the heads of its blood-stained authors. If this is not done, after we have put down the whites we shall have to meet the blacks, and after we have waded knee-deep in the blood of both, we shall end the war where it began, but with the South desolated by fire and sword, the North impoverished and loaded down with an everlasting debt, and our once proud, happy and glorious country the by-word and scorn of the whole civilized world.