Page:A memoir of the last year of the War of Independence, in the Confederate States of America.djvu/145

Rh helpless people. I have the pleasure of informing the Hon. Secretary of War, and the keeper of the "Archive Office," that the original letter is in my possession, beyond the reach of provost marshals and agents of the Freedman's Bureau, or even Holt with his Bureau of Military Justice and his suborners of perjury.

The census of the United States for 1860 showed an aggregate free population of 27,185,109; of this, 488,283 were free blacks, of which the larger proportion were in the Southern States, but it is not necessary to consider that element in this estimate, though to do so would make it more favourable for the Confederate States. Of the above 27,185,109 of free population, there were in the States forming the Southern Confederacy, as follows:—

Kentucky undertook to assume a neutral position, but she was soon overrun by Federal troops, and her government and a very large proportion of her population took sides with the North. Those of her citizens who were not awed by Federal bayonets, formed a state government and joined the Confederacy—many of her young men going into the Confederate army; but in fact, whatever may have been the sympathies of the people, her moral influence as well as the benefit of her physical strength were given to the Federal Government. The