Confederate Congressmen responded swiftly to Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, condemning it as a heinous and offensive act, deliberately constructed to promote a bloody and horrific slave uprising.

Senator Thomas Jenkins Semmes of Louisiana saw horrors ahead. Lincoln’s proclamation “is a gross violation of the usages of civilized warfare, and outrage on the rights of private property, and an invitation to an atrocious servile war and therefore should be held up to the execration of mankind and counteracted by such severe retaliatory measures as in the judgment of the President [Jefferson Davis], may be best calculated to secure its withdrawal or arrest its execution.”

A few days later, legislation came before the Senate entitled “A Bill to repress the atrocities of the enemy.” Semmes invoked the patriots of the American Revolution, stating that Federal policies repudiated the principles of the Founders. The North had “commenced the present war to subjugate and enslave these states under the pretext of repressing rebellion and restoring the Union.” They had subjected the South to “inhuman miseries…exacting treasonable oaths, subjecting unarmed citizens, women and children to confiscation, banishment & imprisonment; burning their dwelling houses, ravaging the land, plundering private property, murdering men for pretended offences [sic]; organizing the abduction of slaves by government officials…promoting servile insurrection by tampering with slaves; and protecting them in resisting their masters.” And the list went on. The United States showed “the same spirit of barbarous ferocity” by issuing the preliminary proclamation, setting the slaves free in Confederate territory on January 1, 1863.  By doing so, Lincoln “made manifest that this conflict has ceased to be a war as recognized among civilized nations.” It was now a ruthless invasion of the South by “an organized horde of murderers and plunderers” who dared to have the “atrocious design of adding servile insurrection and the massacre of families to the calamities of war.” There was only one logical response on the part of the South, in Senator Semmes view: “repress the lawless practice and designs of the enemy by inflicting severe retribution.”

The fight months later at Milliken’s Bend would put both of these views – Lincoln’s and Semmes’ – to the test.

Source: The Negro in the Military Service of the United States 1639-1886. National Archives Microfilm  T-823, roll 5, vol. 7, chap. 8 – Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners of War, p. 4448-4452