prisoners of war to report who should in their opinion be longer held and upon what charges, and who should be released from confinement unconditionally or upon oath and bond. The board will report from time to time as the cases are disposed of and make such recommendations as they deem the public welfare requires. As the labors of the board may be somewhat protracted the officers selected by you should be those who are stationed at this post and who can perform this duty with the least inconvenience to the service. By order of Major-General Curtis: JNO. W. NOBLE, Lieutenant and Aide-de-Camp. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, Col. WILLIAM H. McCOWAN, Gratiot Street Prison, Saint Louis, Mo. SIR: In reply to your communication* of the 28th instant I am instructed by the major-general to say that he has information that you are the same Confederate officer who on a former occasion effected your escape from our prison by resorting to the unchivalric system of blacking your hands and face. Information has also been received by the general commanding that General Holmes, of your service, has placed in close confinement all his prisoners captured by him. However this may be this Government never resorting to retaliatory measures will only go so far in your case as to prevent a recurrence of your escape from your present confinement. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, N. P. CHIPMAN, Colonel and Chief of Staff. OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Col. JESSE HILDEBRAND, Commanding Military Prison, Alton, Ill. Gov COLONEL: Your letter of the 21st instant is received. ernor Yates has no authority to make any appointment at the military prison at Alton. In the future you will release prisoners who have been sent up from Saint Louis while their cases are being examined on the requisition of Colonel Gantt, provost-marshal-general at Saint Louis. Send to the depot at Sandusky 250 to 300 prisoners; select political prisoners or bushwhackers whose cases have been acted upon, including those under sentence unless they are to be kept in close confinement, and those whose cases are to be investigated. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. HOFFMAN, Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners. * Not found. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE OHIO, General BOYLE, Commanding U. S. Forces, Louisville: Paragraph II of General Orders, No. 49, October 26, was made general in terms intentionally but it must be executed with caution and discretion. No arrest should be made until proof is submitted to you sufficient to justify it, and the arrest should then only be made on your special order in each case. It is intended to get rid of all who have actually aided in the invasion, but the order should not be permitted to serve as authority for improper arrests or persecution of persons not guilty. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. M. WRIGHT, Assistant Adjutant-General. GENERAL ORDERS, WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, I. By a military commission which convened in Santa Fé, N. Mex., on the 14th day of July, 1862, pursuant to Special Orders, No. 119, dated Headquarters Department of New Mexico, Santa Fé, N. Mex., July 8, 1862, and of which Maj. Henry D. Wallen, Seventh Infantry, was president, was arraigned and tried JOSÉ MARIA RIVAS. CHARGE: Lurking or acting as a spy. Specification. In this, that the said José Maria Rivas did during the winter of 1861-62 and the spring of 1862 act as a spy against the Federal troops in New Mexicofirst for Colonel Baylor, then for General Sibley, and until caught as a spy and guide for Captain Coopwood, all of the Confederate forces. And the said Rivas did during the greater part of the time above mentioned continue to act as a spy and guide adversely to the Federal Government, to which he owed allegiance. To which the prisoner pleaded as follows: To the specification, "Not guilty." To the charge, "Not guilty." The commission after mature deliberation upon the testimony adduced found the prisoner as follows: Of so much of the specification as sets forth that he acted as a spy for the Confederate forces and against the Government of the United States in the winter of 1861-62, "Guilty." And of the charge, "Guilty." And the commission does therefore sentence him, José Maria Rivas, to be shot to death by a detachment of New Mexican volunteers at such time and place as the department commander may designate, two-thirds of the members concurring therein. II. In accordance with the fifth section of the act approved July 17, 1862, the proceedings of the military commission in the case of José Maria Rivas have been submitted to the President of the United States. The following is the order in the case: OCTOBER 25, 1862. Waiving the question of jurisdiction in the case the sentence is not approved because the accused is not shown to have been within our lines in disguise or by false pretense except by hearsay testimony, and because in his admission that he was a spy he may not have understood the technical term and may have meant no more than that he was a scout of the enemy. He clearly is a prisoner of war. By order of the Secretary of War: A. LINCOLN. L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General. Hon. E. M. STANTON: So. FORT MONROE, October 31, 1862. Mr. Wood is here and refuses to report to me though ordered to do If he were a military officer I would put him in the guard-house. As it is I send him on by the Baltimore steamer and with him a man by the name of Woodall, formerly a detective in the service of the rebels and probably so yet, as he is with Mr. Wood by their permission. We have evidence that no political prisoners have arrived at Richmond up to 3.30 o'clock yesterday. Mr. Wood has also brought with him a clergyman by the name of Conrad-a case which I think should be looked into at Washington where he has been confined. JOHN A. DIX, Major-General. Major-General DIX: WAR DEPARTMENT, October 31, 1862. You should have sent Wood to the guard-house. When you think any man deserves it "shoot him on the spot." EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Maj. Gen. B. F. BUTLER, Commanding Department of the Gulf, New Orleans, La. GENERAL: The commanding officer of Fort Pickens reports that there are more prisoners confined there than he can well take care of. I am directed by the Secretary of War to say that if any of these prisoners are of a class to be exchanged they must be ordered to New Orleans and thence sent up to Vicksburg to be paroled or exchanged according to the cartel. When prisoners are forwarded for exchange duplicate rolls should accompany them, both to be receipted by the Confederate officer who receives the prisoners; one of them he retains and the other should be sent to the Adjutant-General by the officer who delivers the prisoners. If there are more political prisoners at Fort Pickens than can be well cared for and there is no nearer place in your department where they may be held direct that they be sent to Fort Lafayette, N. Y. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. HOFFMAN, Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners. SAINT LOUIS, October 31, 1862. J. M. BASSETT, Esq., Provost-Marshal-General Northwest District of Missouri. SIR: Your report of prisoners arrested and discharged or forwarded to Saint Louis from the 13th to 24th of October, 1862, has been received. I remark that in the case of H. Hoverson you say he was "arrested and banished from the State as a suspicious and dangerous person." The banishment of a man from a State is a serious thing, especially when it is based on a charge so undefined. It is not within the power of a provost-marshal to give such a sentence. No one less than the commander of a district (formerly called division) can do this. In General Merrill's district where this power is exercised very liberally it is yet restricted to him. Indeed he has arrested several subordinates for assuming to exercise it. It is highly conducive to good order in other parts of the State to enforce this rule and for this purpose it is essential that it be made universal. Please report the particulars of this man Hoverson's case. In many other cases you mention that the prisoner was arrested charged with being in the rebel army and that he was discharged on oath and bond. The time when he was in the rebel army is very material. If he was in it prior to the 1st August, 1861, and not since, he is entitled to the benefit of Governor Gamble's proclamation. If he has not been in it since the 17th December, 1861, he is embraced in the amnesty offered by the convention. Again, in some cases for the charge of having been in the rebel army you discharge on oath and bond. In others you say "found guilty and sent to Saint Louis." Am I to understand that in the case in which you simply administer an oath and take a bond the charge is not sustained? If so, it seems that to exact a bond is hard measure. I have substituted a parole for the oath formerly required at this office. I supposed that you had received due notice of this change. I am satisfied that it is salutary. I inclose a form of the parole. I have commented thus frankly upon your report because I remark in your office a disposition (as I think) to do the duties incident to it with zeal and care and I am sure that fair criticism will not be misunderstood. I wish to bring about as much uniformity in the practice of the office of provost-marshals in this State as possible, and I make no doubt that you will co-operate with me in promoting an end so desirable. I remark that you arrest people in some cases for being "rebel sympathizers." I submit to you that this term is too vague to be proper. Some are called "Southern sympathizers" who are really guilty of nothing worse than regret for the calamities into which this rebellion has plunged the South. Others, however, so-called are very mischiev ous enemies of the Government. So long as a man does nothing to make his sympathy valuable to the cause with which he sympathizes he ought to be exempt from fine or imprisonment. Of course I do not mean that a blatant well-wisher of the cause of insurrection is to be allowed to talk treason without molestation. I hope, however, you will in future make the charges more definite. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, GENERAL ORDERS, No. 176. THOS. T. GANTT, Provost-Marshal-General for Missouri and Iowa. } WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, I. The commissary-general of prisoners has charge of the U. S. officers and men on parole and correspondence relating to them as well as all details concerning them will pass through him. II. Fort Delaware is announced as a chaplain post. By order of the Secretary of War: *Not found. L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General. WASHINGTON, November 1, 1862. His Excellency S. J. KIRKWOOD, Governor of lowa. GOVERNOR: Your letter of October 28 is just received. No one appreciates more highly than I do the gallantry and general good conduct of the lowa regiments, and it will always give me pleasure to gratify their wishes where proper discipline and the good of the service will permit. The attention of the commissioner for the exchange of prisoners has been called to cases of the Eighth, Twelfth and Fourteenth Iowa Regiments and no doubt their exchange will very soon be effected, when the proper measures will be taken for their reorganization. The question of sending home to their own States fragments of regiments now in the field is a much more serious question than you seem to consider it. There are regiments similarly situated from nearly every State in the Union, and to permit them to return home to recruit would very seriously weaken the armies in the field. One or two applications of the kind were inconsiderately granted and the withdrawal of the troops was near leading to very grave consequences. You refer to the services of the Iowa troops of such regiments in the recent battle of Corinth. Suppose they had been permitted to go home before the battle; the enemy might have defeated us. Very possibly the presence of these men turned the scale. When the officers and men of these regiments are exchanged they will be reorganized and such indulgence given them as the exigencies of the service will allow. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, H. W. HALLECK, HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, Brig. Gen. J. T. BOYLE. GENERAL: General Orders, No. 49, Headquarters Army of the Ohio, are modified in the following particulars: 1. Recruits from the rebel army who have delivered themselves up as deserters may on their claims as deserters being recognized be set at liberty on taking the oath of allegiance and giving bonds with proper security. 2. Recruits captured by our troops being prisoners of war will be treated as such and released on taking the oath of allegiance only in special cases. 3. Persons not connected with the rebel army but who are charged with having actively aided or abetted in an invasion of Kentucky by rebel troops within the last three months will be arrested and their cases at once reported to you with the proof in such cases for your decision. As a general rule such persons should be sent to Camp Chase instead of Vicksburg as political prisoners. 4. In any special cases arising under these orders and not included in the above you will exercise your discretion. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, H. G. WRIGHT, Major-General, Commanding. |