Mr. W. H. de Camp, of the Michigan Engineers and
Mechanics' Regiment, now with General Rosecranz in Ten- nessee, has given a curious report as to the result of his physical examination of the slaves whom he has passed for the negro enlistments. " These men," he says, " you might think were genuine blacks ; but I could not see it when I had them naked. When one sees standing before him a man of mature years, who possesses not the slightest trace of negro blood in a single feature or complexion, and hair straighter than you can generally find in the pure Anglo-Saxon race, and he tells you that his father is Colonel Higgins, now of the rebel army, and that he sold him to Mr. Mason, of Decatur, Alabama, when fourteen years old, I think it enough to demon- strate what was the ruling passion in the South that leads them to desire to be let depart from us in peace This is not an isolated case. In two others the most critical exami- nation by all present could not detect the slightest trace of negro blood, and yet one had been a slave 36 years and the other 42 years." Of 600 whom he has examined naked, one in five " showed the marks of him that ruleth, and in one case he had left over one thousand rule marks, of from six to eight inches in length, while scores showed numerous gashes that you could not cover the scars of with one and often two fingers."
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