Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/323

Rh the stability of a government, and never improved the morals of a people.

A more substantial evidence of “returning loyalty” would be a favorable change of feeling with regard to the Government's friends and agents, and the people of the loyal States generally. I mentioned above that all organized attacks upon our military forces stationed in the south have ceased; but there are still localities where it is unsafe for a man wearing the Federal uniform or known as an officer of the Government to be abroad outside of the immediate reach of our garrisons. The shooting of single soldiers and Government couriers was not unfrequently reported while I was in the South, and even as late as the middle of September, Major Miller, assistant adjutant general of the commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama, while on an inspecting tour in the southern counties of that State, found it difficult to prevent a collision between the menacing populace and his escort. His wagon-master was brutally murdered while remaining but a short distance behind the command. The murders of agents of the Freedmen's Bureau have been noticed in the public papers. These and similar occurrences, however, may be looked upon as isolated cases, and ought to be charged, perhaps, only to the account of the lawless persons who committed them.

But no instance has come to my notice in which the people of a city or a rural district cordially fraternized with the army. Here and there the soldiers were welcomed as protectors against apprehended dangers; but general exhibitions of cordiality on the part of the popula-