CHAPTER XII.
MEMPHIS TO ARKANSAS POST.
JULY, 1882 TO JANUARY, 1883 When we first entered Memphis, July 21,1862, I found the place dead; no business doing, the stores closed, churches, schools, and every thing shut up.

The people were all more or less in sympathy with our enemies, and there was a strong prospect that the whole civil population would become a dead weight on our hands.

Inasmuch as the Mississippi River was then in our possession northward, and steamboats were freely plying with passengers and freight, I caused all the stores to be opened, churches, schools, theatres, and places of amusement, to be reestablished, and very soon Memphis resumed its appearance of an active, busy, prosperous place.

I also restored the mayor (whose name was Parks) and the city government to the performance of their public functions, and required them to maintain a good civil police.
Up to that date neither Congress nor the President had made any clear, well-defined rules touching the negro slaves, and the different generals had issued orders according to their own political sentiments.

Both Generals Halleck and Grant regarded the slave as still a slave, only that the labor of the slave belonged to his owner, if faithful to the Union, or to the United States, if the master had taken up arms against the Government, or adhered to the fortunes of the rebellion.