Confederacy, the embodiment of treason, cannot be treated with. The States can. The terms must be prescribed by Congress. I think that if you continue in armed resistance six months longer, you will have no slave property to quarrel about. It is now for you simply a question of time and of means. Accept the facts before you, let yourselves down easily and gradually, or go down by the run and find your State held by armed negro troops. Admit emancipation as a fact, an accomplished fact, and settle your own time for doing so and come back, or have it forced upon you peremptory, immediate, and armed, and take the consequences.

Mississippi is thoroughly broken-spirited.

7. I have sent for Judge Sebastian to see me. Arkansas, soon as relieved from Price and Holmes by the expedition now on foot, will come readily in, because it is not a plantation country, but one of small holders.

The terror inspired by General Thomas' MISSION of arming negroes will hasten all these results.

So far as lies in my power I will contribute to the regeneration, and if the faithful presentation of practical truths in distinct and fearless words will do it, I will effect it. I know these people in their strength and weakness, and have no hesitation in making them feel it.

Your obedient servant,

S. A. HURLBUT.

WASHINGTON, D. C., August 12, 1863.

Major-General GRANT, Vicksburg, MISS.:

GENERAL: I inclose herewith a slip taken from the Missouri Democrat.

The Secretary of War directs that you report any answer you may have received from General Taylor to your communication to him on the treatment of colored troops and of white officers of such troops. You will also report any reliable evidence you may have of the alleged ill-treatment of any of our troops by the enemy.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. W. HALLECK.

[Inclosure.]

[From the Missouri Democrat.]

REBEL BARBARISM-HOW THE OFFICERS OF THE NEGRO REGIMENTS AND THE NEGROES THEMSELVES WERE TREATED.

The following is given us upon the authority of Lieutenant Cole, of the Mississippi Marine Brigade:

The day after the battle of Milliken's Bend, in June last, the Marine Brigade landed some 10 miles below the Bend, and attacked and routed the guerrillas which had been repulsed by our troops and the gunboats the day previous. Major Hubbard's cavalry battalion, of the Marine Brigade, followed the retreating rebels to Tensas Bayou, and were horrified in the finding of skeletons of white officers commanding negro regiments, who had been captured by the rebels at Milliken's Bend. In many cases these officers had been nailed to the trees and crucified; in this situation a fire was built around the tree, and they suffered a slow death from broiling. The charred and partially burned limbs were still fastened to the stakes. Other instances were noticed of charred skeletons of officers, which had been nailed to slabs, and the slabs