Headquarters District of Texas
Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865
General Orders, No. 3.
The people are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor. — The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
By order of, Major-General Granger.
(Signed,) F. W. Emery, Maj. & A. A. G.
June 25, 1869 — “Emancipation Day,” by Judge Davis.
A correspondent at Montgomery speaks very favorably of the address delivered, on the 17th, by Hon. N. H. Davis Judge of the 13th District, before a large audience of colored folks who were celebrating “emancipation day.” He says the Judge assured them that the whites enjoyed their freedom from the cares and responsibilities of slaveholding about as much as the blacks could delight in their own liberty. He told them to cherish no fears of re-enslavement, as the whites would not re-establish slavery even if it were in their power to do so. He advised them in the most forcible terms to favor the adoption of the constitution, as securing them all the rights necessary to their security and improvement; and gave them a warning against carpet-baggers and scalawags, accompanied with a severe castigation of those classes, who, he said, were the objects of his most unutterable scorn and loathing. Much other good advice was given in the address, which, our correspondent thinks, will have a very salutary influence upon the freedmen.
It will be recollected that, during the session of the Convention, Judge Davis addressed a letter to Judge Caldwell, Chairman of the Crime Committee, bearing testimony that peace and good order prevailed in the nine counties of his District.
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