consin. All this I gathered from
Colonel Hegg, for Hobart seldom, if ever, talks about himself. I imagine
that even the most polished orator would obtain but little, if any,
advantage over Hobart in a discussion before the people. He has the
imagination, the information, and the oratorical fury in discussion
which are likely to captivate the masses. He was at one time opposed to
arming the negroes; but now that he is satisfied they will fight, he is
in favor of using them.

To-night Colonels Hays and Hobart held quite an interesting debate on
the policy of arming colored men, and emancipating those belonging to
rebels. Hays, who, by the way, is an honest man and a gallant soldier,
presented the Kentucky view of the matter, and his arguments, evidently
very weak, were thoroughly demolished by Hobart. I think Colonel Hays
felt, as the controversy progressed, that his position was untenable,
and that his hostility to the President's proclamation sprang from the
prejudice in which he had been educated, rather than from reason and
justice.

12. Old Tom, known in camp as the veracious nigger, because of a
"turkle" story which he tells, is just coming along as I wait a moment
for the breakfast bell. The "turkle," which Tom caught in some creek in
Alabama, had two hundred and fifty eggs in "him." "Yas, sah, two hunder
an' fifty."

Tom has peculiar notions about certain matters, and they are not, by any
means, complimentary to the white man. He says: "It jus' 'pears to me
dat Adam was a black man, sah, an' de Lord he scar him till he got
white, cos he was a sinner, sah."

"Tom, you scoundrel, how dare you slander the white man in that way?"

"'Pears to me dat way; hab to tell de truf, sah; dat's my min'. Men was
'riginally black; but de Lord he scare Adam till he got white; dat's de
reasonable supposition, sah. Do a man's har git black when he scared,
sah? No, sah, it gits white. Did you ebber know a man ter get black when
he's scard, sah? No, sah, he gits white."

"That does seem to be a knock-down argument, Tom."

"Yas, sah, I've argied with mor'n a hunder white men, sah, an' they
can't never git aroun dat pint. When yer strip dis subjec ob prejdice,
an' fetch to bar on it de light o' reason, sah, yer can 'rive at but one
'clusion, sah. De Lord he rode into de garden in chariot of fire, sah,
robed wid de lightnin', sah, thunder bolt in his han', an' he cried
ADAM, in de voice of a airthquake, sah, an' de 'fec on Adam w