sufficient for me to visit all the States above enumerated, except Texas.
I landed at Hilton Head, South Carolina, on July 15, visited Beaufort,
Charleston, Orangeburg, and Columbia, returned to Charleston and Hilton
Head; thence I went to Savannah, traversed the State of Georgia, visiting
Augusta, Atlanta, Macon, Milledgeville, and Columbus; went through
Alabama, by way of Opelika, Montgomery, Selma, and Demopolis, and through
Mississippi, by way of Meridian, Jackson, and Vicksburg; then descended
the Mississippi to New Orleans, touching at Natchez; from New Orleans I
visited Mobile, Alabama, and the Teche country, in Louisiana, and then
spent again some days at Natchez and Vicksburg, on my way to the north.
These are the outlines of my journey.

Before laying the results of my observations before you, it is proper that
I should state the _modus operandi_ by which I obtained information and
formed my conclusions. Wherever I went I sought interviews with persons
who might be presumed to represent the opinions, or to have influence
upon the conduct, of their neighbors; I had thus frequent meetings with
individuals belonging to the different classes of society from the highest
to the lowest; in the cities as well as on the roads and steamboats I had
many opportunities to converse not only with inhabitants of the adjacent
country, but with persons coming from districts which I was not able to
visit; and finally I compared the impressions thus received with the
experience of the military and civil officers of the government stationed
in that country, as well as of other reliable Union men to whom a longer
residence on the spot and a more varied intercourse with the people had
given better facilities of local observation than my circumstances
permitted me to enjoy. When practicable I procured statements of their
views and experience in writing as well as copies of official or private
reports they had received from their subordinates or other persons. It was
not expected of me that I should take formal testimony, and, indeed, such