Nashville (Tenn.) Daily Union US
General Pillow's Slaves.
The correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette from Helena, Arkansas, gives information about negroes, and particularly about those of General Pillow's, concerning whose future that gentleman was so severely exercised live weeks ago:
"The sooty black man is continually escaping from his master in Mississippi and making his appearance within our lines. The other day, while leisurely wandering along the shore of the 'sad Mississippi,’ my attention was arrested by the appearance of a small craft near the opposite shore, apparently drifting toward me, while in it I could plainly discover some dozen bipeds. And, upon nearing me, I saw that I hey were Africans—sable sons making their escape from the land of bondage. And as the great Father of Waters did not give way that they might pass over, as did the Red Sea to the Israelites, they supplied that Providential interposition with their own genius by constructing a raft. And thus it is with hundreds. They have no idea of remaining longer with their rebel masters, but seek the lines of our army, where they can find work in relieving the soldier's hard labor.
"And as 1 see that General Pillow is much exercised in mind about his negroes, I will give him all the information I can on that point; and may they be words of comfort to his troubled soul. Prompted by curiosity, 1 visited his plantations the other day, and found occupants plenty, and his abundant crops of corn were serving a noble purpose, for they were extensively taken as feed for the Federal cavalry horses, and one or two fields of hundreds of acres began to look a little barren and deserted. And then it will be a still greater consolation to him lo learn that his negroes are doing a blessed work, for they are daily marched in squads to the landing and there are cheerfully permitted to relieve the Yankees by unloading boats of commissary stores, and many of them pride themselves by whirling a whip over a six-mule team; and, so far as outward appearances indicate, they are all cheerful and happy with their lot. Now if these, words of information will be of any consolation whatever to Gideon J., he is welcome to them, I am sure, for they have been written in tenderest regard for his