[8] General R. E. Lee emancipated his servants within eight days after the proclamation was issued. On the 8th of January, 1863, he wrote from his camp that he had executed and returned to his lawyer a deed of manumission which he had had prepared by him. He had discovered the omission of certain names and had inserted them. And he added that if any other names had been omitted, he wished a supplementary deed drawn up containing all that had been so omitted. “They are all entitled to their freedom,” he writes, “and I wish to give it to them. Those that have been carried away, I hope, are free and happy. I cannot get their papers to them and they do not require them. I will give them if they call for them.” See “Life of General R. E. Lee,” by Fitzhugh Lee. General Henry A. Wise, one of the most ultra-Democratic leaders in the South, states that, had the South succeeded in its struggle, he had intended to set his slaves free and canvass Virginia for the abolition of slavery. See Report of Joint Commission on Reconstruction, 1st Session, 39th Congress, p. 70. [9] The writer recalls vividly one such case when his father returned from Appomattox: “Ralph,” he said, as he dismounted at his door, “you are free. You have been a good servant. Turn the horses out.” Ralph is still living. [10] The total number of colored troops enlisted during the war was 186,097.—“Statistical Records of the Armies of the United States,” by Frederick Phisterer, late Captain, U. S. A. [11] There was a growing sentiment in favor of enlisting the Negroes to fight the Confederacy, and a number of regiments were enlisted. One of these was enlisted in New Orleans; two were enlisted in Virginia. [12] The writer never heard of a body-servant deserting, and he knows of sundry instances when they had abundant opportunity. In some cases they would vanish for days and then reappear, laden with spoils that they had gotten from the enemy. The body-servant of the writer’s father, having been punished for some dereliction of duty while before Petersburg, in 1865, ran away, but though he could easily have crossed through the lines not three miles away, he walked sixty miles and came home. [13] Trevellyan’s “History of the American Revolution,” Part 2, Vol. I. [14] During the disorders following the war, the older Negroes at the writer’s home were armed and stood guard over the ripened crops. CHAPTER II SOME OF ITS DIFFICULTIES AND FALLACIES Such was the relation between the whites and the blacks of the South when emancipation came. It remains now to show what changes have taken place since that time; how these changes have come about, and what errors have been committed in dealing with the Race-question which still affect the two races. The dissension which has come between the two races has either been sown since the Negro’s emancipation or is inherent in the new conditions that have arisen.