In the army of the Lord!'

"I am content, if such be the will of Providence to ascend
the scaffold made sacred by the blood of this martyr; and I
rejoice at every prospect of making our struggle more
earnest and inexorable on both sides; for the sharper the
conflict the sooner ended; the more vigorous and remorseless
the strife, the less blood must be shed in it eventually.

"In conclusion, let me assure you, that I rejoice with my
whole heart that your order in my case, and that of my
officers, if unrevoked, will untie our hands for the future;
and that we shall be able to treat rebellion as it deserves,
and give to the felony of treason a felon's death.

"Very obediently yours,
DAVID HUNTER, _Maj.-Gen._"

"Not long after General Hunter's return to the Department of
the South, the first step towards organizing and recognizing
negro troops was taken by our Government, in a letter of
instructions directing Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton--then
Military Governor of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida,
within the limits of Gen. Hunter's command--to forthwith
raise and organize fifty thousand able-bodied blacks, for
service as laborers in the quartermaster's department; of
whom five thousand--only five thousand, mark you--might be
armed and drilled as soldiers for the purpose of 'protecting
the women and children of their fellow-laborers who might be
absent from home in the public service.'

"Here was authority given to Gen. Saxton, over Hunter's
head, to pursue some steps farther the experiment which
Hunter--soon followed by General Phelps, also included in
the rebel order of 'outlawry'--had been the first to
initiate. The rebel order still remained in full force, and
with no protest against it on the part of our Government;
nor to our knowledge, was any demand from Washington ever
made for its revocation during the existence of the
Confederacy. If Hunter, therefore, or any of his officers,
had been captured in any of the campaigns of the past two
and a half years, they had the pleasant knowledge for their
comfort that any rebel officers into whose hands they might
fall, was strictly enjoined to--not 'shoot them on the
spot,' as was the order of General Dix, but to hang them on
the first tree; and ha