'In case, therefore, of the proclamation of emancipation in any
slaveholding districts by our military chiefs, it will not be surprising
if, for a time, the results of that step shall seem to be feeble, and
shall be disproportionate to the expectations based upon it.
'The course of events will probably be this: The emancipation of slaves
by the proclamation of Northern generals will be followed by a partial
tendency on the part of the slave-population to flock to their camps in
a way similar to what has already happened in the neighborhood of
Fortress Monroe; and this, again, by mustering them into our service,
arming and drilling them as part of the regular and effective force of
our armies, after the example of General Jackson in the defence of New
Orleans, and other Southern generals on various occasions in the South.
A step like this will be met by a nearly or precisely similar expedient
of desperate necessity by the military chieftains of the South. Either
with or without the offer of emancipation, they will muster the blacks
in great numbers into their army, arming, equipping, and drilling them
as thoroughly as the same offices are performed for the white soldiers.
'Things may seem to stand much upon this footing, and no great advantage
have been gained by the North through emancipation, until, in the event
of some great battle, or successively through a series of local
contests, the blacks in the Southern army will fraternize with those of
the North, and go over in a body to their Northern allies, so soon as
the course of events shall have informed them somewhat of the true state
of the case, and have given them confidence in the earnest intention of
the Northern troops to stand by them in the assertion of their freedom.
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