| General David Hunter to Rev. Stephen H Tying President of the National Freedmen's Relief Association July 17, 1862 From The American Missionary, September 1862 |
| Headquarters Dept of the South, Hilton Head, Port Royal S. C. July 17, 1862 Rev. Stephen H. Tying, President of the National Freedmen’s Relief Association, New York City Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication dated June 2, 1862, expressing to me the approval of my course in regard to the freed slaves of this Department by the important and benevolent association of which you are President. Satisfied of having attempted, in the absence of instructions, to do my duty in the matter according to the best lights of my judgment and long experience, every assurance of sympathy from men whose characters I esteem is gratifying, and enables me to wait with more patience for those inevitable days which are to give a policy on the slavery question to our Government. It is my only fear that the lesson may not be understood and acted upon until read in characters of blood at the fireside of every Northern family. To attain wisdom we must suffer; but that wisdom on the Slavery question must finally be obtained, is my sustaining faith. Our people are not dull of comprehension in regard to matters about which free play is given to their common sense. When a fire is spreading through a block of houses, they do not hesitate to batter down an intermediate house to save the remainder of the block. When the plague occupies an infected district, the district is quarantined, and every resource of science and industry put forth to rid the locality of its presence. The soldiers of health are by no means ordered to mount guard over each smitten house and see that the vested interests of pestilence are protected. “Break open doors if they be not opened,� is the order on these occasions. “Let in fresh air and sunlight: let purity replace corruption.� But in presence of one great evil, which has so long brooded over our country, the intelligence of a large portion of our people would seem paralyzed and helpless. Their moral nerves lie torpid under its benumbing shadow. Its breath has been the pestilence of the political atmosphere in which our statesmen have been nurtured; and never, I fear, until its beak is dripping with the best blood of the country, and its talons tangled in her vitals, will the free masses of the loyal States be fully aroused to the necessity of abating the abomination at whatever cost and by whatever agencies. This is written, not politically, but according to my profession in the military sense. Looking forward, their looms up a possibility (only too possible) of a peace which shall be nothing but an armistice, with every advantage secured to the Rebellion. Nothing can give us permanent peace but a successful prosecution of the war, with every weapon and energy at our command, to its logical and legitimate conclusion. The fermenting cause of the Rebellion must be abated; the ax must be laid to the root of the upas tree which has rained down such bitter fruit upon our country, before anything like a permanent peace can be justly hoped. Already I see signs in many influential quarters, heretofore opposed to my views in favor of arming the blacks of a change of sentiment. Our recent disasters before Richmond have served to illuminate many minds. To speak of using, the Negroes merely for throwing up entrenchments is a step in the right direction, though far short of what must be the end. It has the advantage however, of making the further and final steps necessary; for men working in face of the enemy must have arms with which to protect themselves if suddenly attacked. On the whole, there is much reason to be satisfied with the progress made by public sentiment, considering how deeply-rooted were the prejudices to be overcome the general failure of the nation to realize at first the proportions of the war, and the impunity still extended to those Northern traitors who are plunderers of the Government by means of fraudulent army and navy contracts on the one hand, while using every energy of tongue and pen to excise discontent with our Government and sympathy with the more ? and courageous traitors of the South who are in arms against us. In conclusion, it may be not inappropriate to say that in transmitting the approval of the National Freedmans’ Relief Association of my course you were—doubtless unconsciously –indorsing views which your own earnest eloquence had no slight share in maturing. Through without the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I was, during a year, a member of your congregation, and take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my indebtedness to your teachings. Believe me, Sir, very truly, your obliged and obedient servant D. Hunter. P.S.—None of the carefully fostered delusions by which Slavery has sustained itself at the North is more absurd than the bugbear of “general migration of Negroes to the North,� as a necessary sequence of emancipation. So far as this from being the fact, that although it is well known that I give passes North to all Negroes asking them, not more than a dozen have applied to me for such passes since my arrival here, their local attachments being apparently much stronger than with the white race. My experience leads me to believe that the exact reverse of the received opinion on this subject would form the rule, and that nearly if not quite all the Negroes of the North would migrate South whenever they shall be at liberty to do so without fear of the block. N. Y. Tribune. |
| General David Hunter |
