The reconnoissance of the day had more important results than were
anticipated. Three negroes, owned by Colonel Mallory, a lawyer of
Hampton and a Rebel officer, taking advantage of the terror prevailing
among the white inhabitants, escaped from their master, skulked during
the afternoon, and in the night came to our pickets. The next morning,
May 24th, they were brought to General Butler, and there, for the first
time, stood the Major-General and the fugitive slave face to face. Being
carefully interrogated, it appeared that they were field-hands, the
slaves of an officer in the Rebel service, who purposed taking them to
Carolina to be employed in military operations there. Two of them
had wives in Hampton, one a free colored woman, and they had several
children in the neighborhood. Here was a new question, and a grave one,
on which the Government had as yet developed no policy. In the absence
of precedents or instructions, an analogy drawn from international
law was applied. Under that law, contraband goods, which are directly
auxiliary to military operations, cannot in time of war be imported by
neutrals into an enemy's country, and may be seized as lawful prize when
the attempt is made so to import them.
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