Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/60

 48 Southern Historical Society Papers.

H'd Q'r Military Division of AIississippi.

In the Field, Sep. 21st, 1865. Raleigh, N. C. Gen'I J. E. Johnston.

Gen'l.

I send you a letter for Gen'I Wilson, which if sent by tele- graph, and courier will check his course. He may mistrust the telegraph, and therefore better send the original for he cannot mistake my handwriting with which he is familiar. He seems to have his blood up, and will be hard to hold. If he can buy food & rations down about Fort Valley it will obviate the ne- cessity of his going up to Rome or Dalton. It is reported to me from Cairo that Mobile is in our possession but it is not minute or ofificial.

Gen'I B — sent into me wanting to surrender his army, on the theory that the whole Confederate army had surrendered. I explained to him & to his Stafif Officer the exact truth, & left him to act as he thought proper. He seems to have disbanded his men, deposited a few arms about 20 miles from here & him- self awaits your action. I will not hold him, his men, or army subject to any condition other than the final one we may agree on. I shall look for Major Hitchcock back from Washington on Monday. & shall promptly notify you of the result. By the action of Gen'I Weitzel in relation to the V^a. Leg. I feel cer- tain we will have no trouble in the sense of reorganizing exist- ing State governments. It may be the Lawyers will want us to define quite minutely what is meant by the guarantee of Rights of Pensions, & Property. It may be construed into a compact for us to undo the past as to the rights of slaves, and leases of Plantations in the Mississippi, if vacant & abandoned plantations. I wish you would talk to the best men you have on these points, & if possible in the final convention make those points so clear as to leave no room for angry controversy. I believe if the South would simply, & publikly declare what we all feel that slavery is dead, that you would inaugurate an era