s on this question.

[40] _Journal of Congress of Confederate States_, Vol. IV, p. 528 and
Vol. VII, p. 595; Jones, _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 431.

[41] _Richmond Dispatch_, February 24, 1865; Jones _Diary_, Vol. II,
p. 432.

[42] _Journal of Congress of Confederate States_, Vol. VII, p. 748.

[43] _Richmond Examiner_, December 9, 1864--Gov. Smith's Message.
Jones, _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 43; pp. 432-433. Schwab, _The Confederate
States of America_, p. 194.

[44] _Off. Reds. Rebell., Series_ IV, Vol. III, p. 1161.

_Ibid._, Series III, Vol. V, pp. 711-712; Davis, _Confederate
Government_, Vol. II, p. 660.

[45] Rhodes, _History of U. S._, Vol. V, 1864-1865, p. 81.

[46] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. III, pp. 1193-1194 and
Appendix.

[47] _Cf. Southern Correspondence throughout the Rebellion Records._

THE LEGAL STATUS OF FREE NEGROES AND SLAVES IN TENNESSEE

In 1790, the free colored population of Tennessee was 361, while the
slave numbered 3,417.[1] In 1787, three years previous, Davidson
County, which then, as now, comprised the most important and thickly
settled part of the Cumberland Valley, had a population of 105 Negroes
between the ages of 1 and 60.[2] Nashville was just a rough community
in the wilderness with a few settlers from the older districts of the
East, living in several hewed and framed log-houses and twenty or more
rough cabins. The census of 1790 gives Davidson County 677 Negroes, a
figure which compared with the 3,778 Negroes in the entire State at
that enumeration, means that this frontier region had already grown
important enough to draw to it nearly one-fifth of the Negro
population of the commonwealth. In 1800, there were in the State
13,893 Negroes, of whom 3,104, or nearly one fourth, were in Davidson
County. Thereafter, although the ratio between the county and State
did not increase in favor of the county, still it kept up so that by
1850 Davidson had the largest Negro population of any county in the
State. During the decade 1850-60 Shelby County, containing the
important center, Memphis, gained the ascendency in number of Negro
inhabitants, which it has since that time maintained. The likely cause
of this shifting was the steady growth of cotton-raising districts and
their rapid expansion toward the West and South. A general
intimidation of the Negroes of Nashville and vicinity occurred in
1856, probably having some influence on the decline of population for
that perio