I have given the subject of arming the negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the negro, is the heavyest blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a greatdeel about it and profess to be very angry. But they were united in their action before and with the negro under subjec­tion could spare their entire white population for the field. Now they complain that nothing can be got out of their negroes.

Letter to Abraham Lincoln (1863)