Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/247

  of colored people should have met with fierce opposition, was natural. Unless under the immediate protection of Federal troops the negro schoolhouses were set on fire and the teachers driven away. The situation was pungently described in a report addressed to me by Colonel Samuel Thomas, Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for Mississippi, in these words: “The whites esteem the blacks their property by natural right, and, however much they may admit that the relations of masters and slaves have been destroyed by the war and by the President's emancipation proclamation, they still have an ingrained feeling that the blacks at large belong to the whites at large, and whenever opportunity serves, they treat the colored people just as their profit, caprice or passion may dictate.” I found evidence of this at every step; and the worst of it was, that, as I had to confess to myself, it was under existing circumstances as natural as it was terrible and distressing. At last I came again into contact with the President. Late in August I arrived in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and visited the headquarters of Major General Slocum, who commanded the Department of the Mississippi. I found the General in a puzzled state of mind about a proclamation recently issued by Mr. W. L. Sharkey, the provisional governor of that State appointed by President Johnson, calling “upon the people, and especially upon such as are liable to perform military duty and are familiar with military discipline,” and more especially “the young men of the State who have so distinguished themselves for gallantry,” to organize as speedily as possible volunteer companies in every county of the State, at least one company of cavalry and one of infantry, for the protection of life, property and good order in the State. This meant no more nor less an the organization, under the authority of one of the “States lately in rebellion,” of a large armed military force consisting