Summary:
John Baldwin writes from Staunton to the Confederate Secretary of War in July, 1864, to ask that slaves in the Shenandoah Valley be exempted from calls to work on fortifications.

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Hon. SECRETARY OF WAR:

STAUNTON, VA.,

July 20, 1864.

SIR:

I respectfully suggest the importance, in view of the condition of the crops in the Valley, of suspending at least for a time the recent call for the slaves and free negroes of that region to work on fortifications or for other governmental purposes. I also submit whether there is any law authorizing a draft of slaves in Virginia except according to State law and through the Governor and the county courts. The practical fact is that now all the free negroes in the Valley are kept constantly and profitably at work under an efficient police, and that none can be spared without great mischief.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN B. BALDWIN.

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Bibliographic Information : Letter Reproduced from The War of The Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 4, Volume 3, Serial No. 129, Pages 547, Broadfoot Publishing Company, Wilmington, NC, 1997.