"After much discussion in Congress, a bill authorizing the President to ask for and accept from their owners such a number of able-bodied negro men as he might deem expedient subsequently passed the House, but was lost in the Senate by one vote. The Senators of Virginia opposed the measure so strongly that only legislative instruction could secure their support of it. Their Legislature did so instruct them, and they voted for it. Finally, the bill passed, with an amendment providing that not more than twenty-five per cent of the male slaves between the ages of eighteen and forty-five should be called out. But the passage of the act had been so long delayed that the opportunity was lost. There did not remain time enough to obtain any result from its provisions."

  Had the South been united, our independence could easily have been established, but  fortunately, the South furnished, probably as many native troops to the Federal army as  did the vast and populous North. [After counting up Southerners who fought for the  American government.] .. . and in all there were 400,000 native-born Southerners in the Yankee service. In this enumeration, I do not include the 250,000 negro troops who  fought nobly then, as they vote nobly now.

   [In discussing the balance of forces between the American government and the  Confederate government] I take no account of the colored troops, for, not with standing    we are told they "fought bravely," and though I decidedly prefer the negro to the carpet    bagger or the scalawag, "socially, morally, and politically," and 'without regard to race, color, or previous condition ofservitude," I do not believe that he "saved the Union."