Preston and I then reentered the
mansion.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: This transaction, improbable as it may seem to Northern
readers, occurred literally as I have narrated it.--The AUTHOR.]

ENLISTING!

There's not a trade agoing,
Worth knowing or showing,
Like that from glory growing!
Says the bold soldier boy.

THE FREED MEN OF THE SOUTH.

A question of great magnitude, concerning the fate of vast numbers of
freed men in the South, and affecting material interests of world-wide
importance, is looming up and shaping itself among the clouds which
surround us, and is daily growing more pressing in its demand for
solution, and for wise and beneficent action. The entire social and
industrial arrangements of the South are likely to be completely
disorganized, and more or less permanently broken up. The civil war
itself, in its very nature, from its avowed principles and purposes, was
well calculated to produce this result; but the proclamation of the
President, declaring emancipation after the 1st of January next, in all
the rebellious States, comes in at this critical moment speedily to
perfect the work which the madness of the rebels had already begun.

We do not propose to consider the legal effect of that measure; its
conformity to the Constitution, or to the laws of war; its necessity and
propriety under existing circumstances; or its bearing and probable
influence on the duration of the war and the ultimate restoration of the
Union. It would be worse than useless to embarrass and cripple ourselves
with these questions, at the present time, when it is wholly beyond our
power to arrest the march of events, and prevent the consummation to
which they inevitably tend. The thunderbolt has been launched; and
although it pauses in the air or moves slowly in its ominous path, it
has been seen of all men, and cannot be effectually recalled. Its
inevitable results are already to a great extent secured. The idea of
his liberation has been imparted to the slave, and it takes hold of his
mind as a spark would adhere to dry wood in a high wind. Every breath of
air causes it to spread; it cannot be extinguished.

Whatever view may be taken of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, and of its
effect on the mass of slaves in the rebellious States, a very large and
increasing number will certainly escape from bondage and force their way
into the lines of our army, with every advance which it makes into the