"To this demand, with its alternative of threats, President Lincoln was in no mood to make any definitive reply. In fact no reply at all was sent, for, as yet, the most far-seeing political augurs could not determine whether the bird seen in the sky of the Southern Department would prove an eagle or a buzzard. Public opinion was not formed upon the subject, though rapidly forming. There were millions who agreed with Hunter in believing that 'that the black man should be made to fight for the freedom which could not but be the issue of our war;' and then they were outraged at the prospect of allowing black men to be killed or maimed in company with our nobler whites.
"Failing to obtain any reply therefor, from the authorities at Washington, the Richmond people determined to pour out all their vengeance on the immediate perpetrators of this last Yankee atrocity; and forthwith there was issued from the rebel War Department a General Order number 60, we believe, of the series of 1862—reciting that 'as the government of the U. S. had refused to answer whether it authorized the raising of a black regiment by Gen. Hunter or not' said General, his staff, and all officers under his command who had directly or indirectly participated in the unclean thing, should hereafter be outlaws not covered by the laws of war; but to be executed as felons for the crimes of 'inciting negro insurrections wherever caught.'
"This order reached the ears of the parties mainly interested just as Gen. Hunter was called to Washington, ostensibly for consultation on public business; but really on the motion of certain prominent speculators in marine transportation, with those 'big things,' in Port Royal harbor,—and they were enormous—with which the General had seen fit to interfere. These frauds, however, will form a very fruitful and pregnant theme for some future chapters. At present our business is with the slow but certain growth in the public mind of this idea of allowing some black men to be killed in the late war, and not continuing to arrogate death and mutilation by projectiles and bayonets as an exclusive privilege for our own beloved white race.
"No sooner had Hunter been relieved from this special duty at Washington, than he was ordered back to the South, our Government still taking no notice of the order of outlawry against him issued by the rebel Secretary of War. He and his officers were thus sent back to engage, with extremely insufficient forces, in an enterprise of no common difficulty, and with an agreeable sentence of sus. per col., if captured, hanging over their devoted heads!
"Why not suggest to Mr. Stanton, General, that he should either demand the special revocation of that order, or announce to the rebel War Department that our Government has adopted your negro-regiment policy as its own—which would be the same thing.
"It was partly on this hint that Hunter wrote the following letter to Jefferson Davis,—a letter subsequently suppressed and never sent, owing to influences which the writer of this article does not feel himself as yet at liberty to reveal,—further than to say that Mr. Stanton knew nothing of the matter. Davis and Hunter, we may add, had been very old and intimate friends, until divided, some years previous to our late war, by differences on the slavery question. Davis had for many years been adjutant of the 1st U. S. Dragoons, of which Hunter had been Captain Commanding; and a relationship of very close friendship had existed between their respective families. It was this thorough knowledge of his man, perhaps, which gave peculiar bitterness to Hunter's pen; and the letter is otherwise remarkable as a prophecy, or preordainment of that precise policy which Pres't. Johnson has so frequently announced, and reiterated since Mr. Lincoln's death. It ran—with some few omissions, no longer pertinent or of public interest—as follows:
"TO JEFFERSON DAVIS, TITULAR PRESIDENT OF THE SO-CALLED CONFEDERATE STATES.
"Sir:—While recently in command of the Department of the South, in accordance with the laws of the war and the dictates of common sense, I organized and caused to be drilled, armed and equipped, a regiment of enfranchised bondsmen, known as the 1st South Carolina Volunteers.
"For this action, as I have ascertained, the pretended government of which you are the chief officer, has issued against me and all of my officers who were engaged in organizing the regiment in question, a General Order of Outlawry, which announces that, if captured, we shall not even be allowed the usual miserable treatment extended to such captives as fall into your hands; but that we are to be regarded as felons, and to receive the death by hanging due to such, irrespective of the laws of war.