tary Stanton, Gen. Boyle's order was revoked, and I never
delivered a fugitive, nor was I ever tried."

In Mississippi, in 1862, Col. James B. Steedman (afterward
major-general) refused to honor an order of Gen. Fry, delivered by the
man who wanted the slave in Steedman's camp. Col. Steedman read the
order and told the bearer that he was a rebel; that he could not
search _his_ camp; and that he would give him just ten minutes to get
out of the camp, or he would riddle him with bullets. When Gen. Fry
asked for an explanation of his refusal to allow his camp to be
searched, Col. Steedman said he would never consent to have his camp
searched by a _rebel_; that he would use every bayonet in his regiment
to protect the Negro slave who had come to him for protection; and
that he was sustained by the Articles of War, which had been amended
about that time.

Again, in the late summer of 1863, at Tuscumbia, Tennessee, Gen. Fry
rode into Col. Steedman's camp to secure the return of the slaves of
an old lady whom he had known before the war. Col. Steedman said he
did not know that any slaves were in his camp; and that if they were
there they should not be taken except they were willing to go. Gen.
Fry was a Christian gentleman of a high Southern type, and combined
with his loyalty to the Union an abiding faith in "the sacredness of
slave property." Whether he ever recovered from the malady, history
saith not.

The great majority of regular army officers were in sympathy with the
idea of protecting slave property. Gen. T. W. Sherman, occupying the
defences of Port Royal, in October, 1861, issued the following
proclamation to the people of South Carolina:

"In obedience to the orders of the President of these United
States of America, I have landed on your shores with a small
force of National troops. The dictates of a duty which, under
the Constitution, I owe to a great sovereign State, and to a
proud and hospitable people, among whom I have passed some of the
pleasantest days of my life, prompt me to proclaim that we have
come among you with no feelings of personal animosity; no desire
to harm your citizens, destroy your property, or interfere with
any of your lawful rights, or your social and local institutions,
beyond what the causes herein briefly alluded to may render
unavoidable."[77]

This proclamation sounds as if the general were a firm believer in
State so