9 8 May 27 8 What had been accomplished by the military operations of the year:-The State of Missouri 8 had been relieved from invasion by the Confederate force. Half of Arkansas had been 25 permanently occupied. The Confederate force 26 has been driven from the Mississippi River except at Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Western and Middle Tennessee were occupied, and the former and part of the latter held. Western 29 Virginia had been retained by the Federal Government. Maryland exhibited her preference. for the Union. Norfolk and Yorktown were taken and held. The cities and towns on the coast of North Carolina, with few excep 1 tions, were occupied by a Federal force. Fort Pulaski, commanding the entrance to Savannah, was captured, and the important points on the coast of Florida occupied. Pensacola and New Orleans were also taken, and nearly all of Louisiana brought under Federal control. The forces of the North slowly but firmly advanced 19 upon every side of the Confederacy, and per4manently held every important position which they had gained. The battle of Antietam secured the border States, and decided the physical supremacy of the Union in favor of the North. Washington (N. C.), captured.... Shiloh (Tenn.), battle.. March 25 Island No. 10, evacuated April Huntsville (Ala.), captured.. .April Decatur and Stevenson (Ala.), captured. .April Fort Pulaski (Ga.), captured.. .April 11 Fort Macon (N. C.), captured.. ..April New Orleans, captured... ..April Yorktown (Va.), evacuated. Memphis (Tenn.), surrenders. .June 6 Cross Keys, battle... ..June Cumberland Gap, occupied... Seven days before Richmond.. .June 25, &c. Malvern Hill, battle.. ...July The Emancipation Proclamation-Action of Congress-Oath of Office required-Organization of West Virginia as a State Proceedings relative to the exchange of Prisoners-The Cartel agreed upon-Difficulties-Officers in the Insurrec tionary Service-Condition of Gen. Lee's Army in the Autumn of 1862-Appeal to the Southern People-Condition of the Federal Army-Organization of a Provost Marshal's Department. ON January 1, 1863, the President issued his emancipation proclamation, and its principles were adopted as controlling the policy of the Government in the future. The proclamation was as follows: WHEREAS on the 22d day of September, in the year or our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixtytwo, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any States or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong counter. Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Or leans, including the city of New Orleans,) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight coun ties designated as West Virginia, and also the coun ties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one [L. S.] thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. Congress in the session of 1861-'62 had taken action looking to this object. An act was passed for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. It emancipated all persons of African descent held to service in the District immediately upon its passage; loyal owners of slaves only were allowed ninety days to prepare and present to commissioners appointed for that purpose the names, ages, and personal description of their slaves, who were to be valued by the commissioners. No single slave could be estimated to be worth more than three hundred dollars. The amount of these claims was to be paid to each owner after the final report of the commissioners at the end of nine months. One million of dollars was appropriated to carry the act into effect. The sum of one hundred thousand dollars was appropriated to colonize any of the liberated slaves who might desire to go to Hayti, Liberia, or any country beyond the limits of the United States, as the President might select. Slavery was forbidden in all the Territories of the United States. Liberia and Hayti were recognized as independent republics, and as belonging to the family of nations. A new treaty, relative to the slave trade, was ratified with Great Britain, which allowed to her the liberty of searching American vessels under certain circumstances. All persons in the army or navy were prohibited from returning slaves, or sitting in judgment on the claim of their masters. An act was also passed requiring every person afterwards elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States, either in the civil, military, or naval departments, except the President, to take the following oath before entering upon the duties of such office: I, A B, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought, nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God. Meantime steps had been taken to organize an independent State of that portion of Virginia west of the mountains. On a previous page it has been related that on the secession of Virginia a convention of loyal citizens assembled at Clarksburg. This convention declared the ordinance of secession to be null and void; that its provisión suspending the election of members of the Federal Government was a usurpation, and that if the ordinance of secession was ratified by a vote they recommended the election on June 4th of delegates to a general convention to be held on the 11th to devise such measures as the welfare of the people might demand. This convention met at Wheeling. Meantime nearly all the judicial and executive officers in that part of the State had fled to Richmond before the Federal forces. Legal protection to life, liberty, or property was given up. This convention declared the office of governor, &c., vacant, "by reason of those who occupied them having joined the rebellion,' and proceeded to fill those offices. The action of this convention was not confined to Western Virginia, but intended to embrace the whole State. The governor elected thus stated the object of the convention: set up any new government in the State, or separate It was not the object of the Wheeling convention to or other government than the one under which they had always lived. They made a single alteration in the Constitution of the State, which prescribes the shall be necessary to constitute a quorum. number of delegates in the General Assembly which A declaration was made by the convention, and an ordinance adopted for the reorganization of the State Government. According to this ordinance the Government to be reorganized, either in its executive or legislative departments, was not for a part of the State, but for all of Virginia. In conformity with this ordinance a State Government was reorganized in all its branches in every county of the State not occupied by an armed foe. On the 20th of August, 1861, the convention passed an ordinance "to provide for the formation of a new State out of a portion of the territory of this State." In compliance with its provisions delegates were elected to a constitutional convention which assembled at Wheeling, November 26, 1861, and proceeded to draft a Constitution, which was submitted to the people on the first Thursday of April, 1862. The vote in favor was 18,862, that against it was 514. The governor appointed by the convention of June, 1861, which declared the State offices vacant, now issued his proclamation convening an extra session of the Legislature, elected and organized under the same authority, and which claimed to be the Legislature of Virginia. This Legislature met on the 6th of May, 1862, and passed an act, giving its consent to the formation of a new State, and forwarded its consent to the Congress of the United States, together with an official copy of the Constitution adopted by the voters, and with the request that the said new State be admitted into the Union. On the 31st of December, 1862, the follow ing act of Congress was approved by the President: An act for the admission of the State of "West Virginia" into the Union, and for other purposes. Whereas the people inhabiting that portion of Virginia known as West Virginia did, by a convention assembled in the city of Wheeling on the twenty-sixth of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, frame for themselves a Constitution, with a view of becoming a separate and independent State; and whereas at a general election held in the counties composing the territory aforesaid on the third day of May last, the said Constitution was approved and adopted by the qualified voters of the proposed State, and whereas the Legislature of Virginia, by an act passed on the thirteenth day of May, eighteen hundred and sixtytwo, did give its consent to the formation of a new State within the jurisdiction of the said State of Virginia, to be known by the name of West Virginia, and to embrace the following named counties, to wit: Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Taylor, Tyler, Pleasants, Ritchie, Doddridge, Harrison, Wood, Jackson, Wirt, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmer, Barbour, Tucker, Lewis, Braxton, Upshur, Randolph, Mason, Putnam, Kanawha, Clay, Nicholas, Cabell, Wayne, Boone, Logan, Wyoming, Mercer, McDowell, Webster, Pocahontas, Fayette, Raleigh, Greenbrier, Monroe, Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Morgan; and whereas both the convention and the Legislature aforesaid have requested that the new State should be admitted into the Union, and the Constitution aforesaid being republican in form, Congress doth hereby consent that the said forty-eight counties may be formed into a separate and independent State. Therefore Be enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the State of West Virginia be and is hereby declared to be one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and until the next general census shall be entitled to three members in the House of Representatives of the United States: Provided, always, That this act shall not take effect until after the proclamation of the President of the United States hereinafter pro vided for. It being represented to Congress that since the convention of the twenty-sixth of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, that framed and proposed the Constitution for the said State of West Virginia, the people thereof have expressed a wish to change the seventh section of the eleventh article of said Consti tution by striking out the same and inserting the following in its place, viz.: "The children of slaves born within the limits of this State after the fourth day of and that all slaves within the said State who shall, at July, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be free; the time aforesaid, be under the age of ten years, shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-one years; and all slaves over ten and under twenty-one years, shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-five years; and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein:" Therefore, SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That whenever the people of West Virginia shall, through their said convention, and by a vote to be taken at an election to be held within the limits of the said State, at such time as the convention may provide, make and ratify the change aforesaid, and properly certify the same under the hand of the President of the Convention, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to isthis act shall take effect and be in force from and after sue his proclamation stating the fact, and thereupon sixty days from the date of said proclamation. Approved December 31, 1862. with by the citizens, and the President of the United States issued his proclamation accordingly. These conditions were subsequently complied The following is a provision of the Constitution of the United States: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the Congress. The following is the population of the counties embraced in this new State according to the census of 1860: |