abroad outside of the immediate reach of our garrisons. The shooting of
single soldiers and government couriers was not unfrequently reported
while I was in the south, and even as late as the middle of September,
Major Miller, assistant adjutant general of the commissioner of the
Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama, while on an inspecting tour in the southern
counties of that State, found it difficult to prevent a collision between
the menacing populace and his escort. His wagon-master was brutally
murdered while remaining but a short distance behind the command. The
murders of agents of the Freedmen's Bureau have been noticed in the public
papers. These, and similar occurrences, however, may be looked upon as
isolated cases, and ought to be charged, perhaps, only to the account of
the lawless persons who committed them.

But no instance has come to my notice in which the people of a city or a
rural district cordially fraternized with the army. Here and there the
soldiers were welcomed as protectors against apprehended dangers; but
general exhibitions of cordiality on the part of the population I have not
heard of. There are, indeed, honorable individual exceptions to this rule.
Many persons, mostly belonging to the first of the four classes above
enumerated, are honestly striving to soften down the bitter feelings and
traditional antipathies of their neighbors; others, who are acting more
upon motives of policy than inclination, maintain pleasant relations with
the officers of the government. But, upon the whole, the soldier of the
Union is still looked upon as a stranger, an intruder--as the "Yankee,"
"the enemy." It would be superfluous to enumerate instances of insult
offered to our soldiers, and even to officers high in command; the
existence and intensity of this aversion is too well known to those who
have served or are now serving in the south to require proof. In this
matter the exceptions were, when I was there, not numerous enough to
affect the rule. In the documents accompanying this report you will find