The successful employment of negro soldiers by the enemy
aroused a sentiment in favor of the experiment in the Con-
federate army. Early in 1863 the governor was authorized
by an act of the legislature to impress all male slaves be-
tween the ages of eighteen and fifty, together with tools,
implements, wagons, teams, horses, timber, lumber, arms,
ammunition, ordnance stores, etc., "for the purpose of repel-
ling invasion and suppressing insurrection." The owners were
to be allowed the same pay for each slave as the pay of an
ordinary private soldier. The governor was authorized to
furnish the Confederate commanders in the state with such
number of slaves as might be necessary to give greater effi-
ciency to the operations. The owner of thirty slaves im-
pressed was allowed to send along an overseer to look after
their health and general welfare. Provision was also made
for indemnifying the owner of slaves killed while in the ser-
vice. ¹ With the approach of the year 1865 a sentiment
developed in favor of actually enlisting the slaves as regular
soldiers, and a few weeks before the collapse of the Confeder-
acy, Congress authorized the President in his discretion, if he
deemed it necessary to prosecute the war successfully, and
maintain the sovereignty and independence of the Southern
states, to call upon each state for its quota of three hundred
thousand troops in addition to "those subject to military ser-
vice under existing laws," to be raised from the whole popu-
lation, irrespective of color. None were recruited under the
act in Mississippi.

Occasional acts appear in the statutes of the time author-
izing owners to emancipate certain slaves for faithful attend-
ance upon their masters while in the army. The presence of
free negroes seems to have been tolerated so long as their
conduct was satisfactory to the Confederate authorities. ²

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