GENERAL ORDERS, ) HDQRS. FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS, No. 20. DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, It having come to the notice of the general commanding that arrests of citizens are carelessly made upon insufficient grounds and proof and without taking the necessary pains to inquire into the character of the informants or the truth of the allegations, and as great injustice is thereby done in individual cases and much suffering frequently occasioned to innocent persons, the following regulations are established and will hereafter be strictly enforced: I. All provost-marshals or officers acting in that capacity will report to the provost-marshal-general immediately after receiving a prisoner in custody and also semi-weekly the names, age, residences and offenses charged against all prisoners arrested or held in custody by them, together with the names and residences of their accusers and of the witnesses against them, and the names of the officers who ordered and of those who made the arrests. II. In order to comply with this regulation provost-marshals are in all cases on receiving a prisoner to exact the above information from those who turn them over for custody, and unless charges are furnished or they themselves are prepared to furnish them the prisoners must be released within three days. By command of Major-General Rosecrans: JULIUS P. GARESCHÉ, Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff. OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Col. W. E. DoSTER, Provost-Marshal. COLONEL: The Secretary of War has directed that no prisoners of war, civil or military, should be released without his authority. Please inform me if you have any orders which conflict with the above. If you have will you furnish me with a copy? Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. HOFFMAN, Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA, Fort Monroe, November 20, 1862. ROBERT OULD, Esq., Agent for Exchange of Prisoners. SIR: I send to you to day 107 prisoners of war. I am informed that you have some 400 or 500 ready for delivery at City Point and the officer in charge of those sent is instructed to bring them down. I accept your proposition,* which is hereto annexed, and orders have been issued and are now being executed to send all the prisoners at the West belonging to irregular organizations to Vicksburg for delivery to your agent there. Please send all the prisoners of war and political prisoners you have at or near Richmond, including Major Jordan, whose detention I have already brought to your notice. Permit me here as I have before to *Not found. protest against any detention of a prisoner of war on charges preferred against him by his enemies. I claim his delivery under the cartel and whatever charges there may be against him can be forwarded with him. If any wrong has been committed his Government is the proper one to notice and punish it. Since my interview with you I have declared exchanged all officers and men of Indiana troops captured at Munfordville, Ky., September 17, 1862, amounting to about 3,000 men; also officers and men belonging to Captains Rigby and Von Sehlen's Indiana batteries captured at Harper's Ferry, amounting to about 200 men. Also the officers and men of the Thirty-ninth, One hundred and eleventh, One hundred and fifteenth, One hundred and twenty-fifth and One hundred and twentysixth Regiments New York Volunteers, and Companies A and F of Fifth New York Artillery and detachment of Eighth New York Cavalry, captured at Harper's Ferry, amounting to about 5,000 men. The exact number I shall be able to give you at our next interview. This aggregate amount of 8,200 exceeds the balance struck between us on the 11th instant of 5,100, but since these deliveries have been made at Vicksburg and the officers and men of the irregular organizations are now on their way there all these will leave a balance in my favor. I hope you will send the Robinsons-father, son and son-in-law. I inclose a list of sixteen telegraph operators I have declared exchanged. They were all captured at various places in the Western Department. Please inform me at any time you desire to see me. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, WM. H. LUDLOW, Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners. CIRCULAR.] HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA, The body of Confederate troops known by the designation of Partisan Rangers and whose officers are commissioned by the Confederate Government and who are regularly in the service of the Confederate States are to be exchanged when captured. WM. H. LUDLOW, Lieutenant-Colonel and Agent for Exchange of Prisoners. SAINT LOUIS, November 20, 1862. Col. J. HILDEBRAND, Commanding at Alton, Ill. COLONEL: The military prisons here are overcrowded and sickness prevailing amongst the prisoners and is rapidly increasing. I desire to know the number of prisoners that the Alton Prison is capable of receiving and the number now confined there. There are many prisoners sent to Saint Louis under sentence of imprisonment for the war, and it has become necessary to remove them from Saint Louis to relieve the crowded condition of the prisons and to make room for other prisoners daily coming forward from the interior of the State. Will you let me know the number you can now receive, and also from time to time let me know when room has been made by discharges or removals to another point, stating the number that you can receive? Will you detain at * Omitted. Alton such prisoners as have been sent from here who have not been committed for the war until finally disposed of by me? In the future I will endeavor not to send any to Alton excepting those to be imprisoned for the war or a long term, but there are some prisoners now in Alton sent from here whose cases have not been finally acted upon. Have you any prisoners of war which you intend soon sending to Cairo to be forwarded to Vicksburg for exchange? I will send about fourteen from here in a few days, and if you send can it not be arranged to send them under the same guard from here? Please inform me if letters to prisoners are thoroughly examined before passing into their hands. I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant, F. A. DICK, Lieut. Col. and Provost-Marshal-General Dept. of the Missouri. Col. WILLIAM HOFFMAN, ALTON, ILL., November 20, 1862. Commissary-General of Prisoners, Washington, D. C. COLONEL: On Sunday night the prisoners set fire to the military prison, but the building was but very slightly damaged. During the night, which was exceptionally dark, four prisoners escaped. They procured a wooden ladder and reached the top of the wall and lowered themselves by means of a rope ladder made of bedding. Culpable neglect is shown by allowing a ladder to remain in the prison; want of vigilance in the sentinels in allowing the prisoners to lower themselves down within a few feet of the post. If they could not have seen they should have heard them. General neglect is shown by the authorities not being able to ascertain the names and number of prisoners who escaped until several hours after their escape was known. I inclose herewith a scrap from the Alton Telegraph relating to their escape. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, H. W. FREEDLEY, [Inclosure.] ALTON MILITARY PRISON. To-day J. B. Paxton was paroled from the military prison and ordered to report to Col. J. G. Lane, at Wellsville, Mo. Last night about 11 o'clock the room north of the prison hospital was discovered to be on fire. The room was used only to hold straw and must have been set on fire, as there was no fire used in it. The Alton fire engine was promptly on the ground and extinguished the flames before much damage was done. This morning about 6 o'clock this same room was discovered to be on fire, but the flames were immedi ately stopped. Some time during the night several prisoners (it is not known how many) made their escape from the prison by the use of a ladder and bed clothes torn into strips and made into a rope. They passed over the south wall just west of the big-gate entrance by ascending the ladder and letting themselves down by the clothes rope by tying a stone to one end, throwing it over the walls, thus making an easy and quick means of escape. There are stationed here not less than 1,300 U. S. troops as guards and there are but 522 prisoners in the prison. We presume, indeed we know, that the officers attached to the regiments are thoroughly competent for their position, but we submit that there is gross negligence somewhere; for prisoners to have or get ladders and climb over prison walls within ten steps of a sentinel certainly argues a laxity of discipline which demands instant reform. This is not the first nor second escape, but we hope it will be the last. Governor CURTIN: LIBBY PRISON, Richmond, November 20, 1862. I hope you will pardon me for trespassing on your valuable time about a question of vital importance to us. On the 4th day of October last two companies of the Fifty-fourth Regiment (Col. J. M. Campbell), stationed on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, were captured by the First Regiment Virginia Partisan Rangers, under Colonel Imboden, consisting of 900 infantry, 500 cavalry, and three pieces of artillery. The companies captured were Company K, Captain Newhard, Lieutenant Wagner, and 58 men; Company B, Captain Hite, Lieutenants Cole and Baer, and 89 men, making in all 152 officers and men. Yesterday we were officially informed that we were not fit subjects for parole or exchange, accompanied with the following note: All prisoners taken by our partisan rangers are held as hostages for our rangers, who are held by the Northern Government not as prisoners of war but outlaws. T. P. TURNER, Captain, Commanding C. S. Military Prison. Believing that the number of rangers thus held by the Government is less than the number held by the rebels as hostages I have ventured to ask Your Excellency (if consistent with your views in regard to the matter) to ask the General Government for the release of those rangers so that we may be exchanged and be made useful to our country. A six months' treatment as ours has been will kill eight out of every ten men. Forty more Pennsylvanians captured by rangers arrived here to-day. I hope Your Excellency will pardon me for asking so much of you. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, HARRY G. BAER, Lieutenant, Company B, Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Volunteers. [Indorsement.] DECEMBER 2, 1862. Respectfully referred to the Secretary of War. A. G. CURTIN, Governor of Pennsylvania. HEADQUARTERS PROVOST MARSHAL'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., November 20, 1862. Col. W. HOFFMAN, Commissary-General of Prisoners: Your communication* of this date is received and in reply the provost-marshal directs me to state he does not fully understand what you mean by civil prisoners of war, but supposes it refers to what we term prisoners of state. * See Hoffman to Doster, p. 738. Such parties have been heretofore released upon the verbal or written order of Brigadier-General Wadsworth, Military Governor, and as his own judgment should dictate. The same has been the case with prisoners of war, upon the principle that the parties who committed the prisoners had authority to order their release. The prison rules agreed upon by the Secretary of War, the Military Governor and the provostmarshal include nothing to conflict with this. I am, colonel, very respectfully, yours, &c., A. S. BAKER, Lieutenant and Assistant. ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE, November 21, 1862. His Excellency H. R. GAMBLE, Governor of Missouri. SIR: I have the pleasure to send you herewith the President's full pardon for Edwin W. Price. As it was granted solely upon your representation it is forwarded to you to be used and disposed of at your discretion. I think the proceeding was both humane and politic and I expect good results from it. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, MADISON, WIS., November 21, 1862. Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War: Can you not reply as to the disposal of prisoners referred to in dispatch of November 12? I am very anxious to be rid of them. Many were taken with arms in their hands. I am overwhelmed with applica tions for relief and discharge by men who have been drafted. They claim alienage, disability, over age and other causes, in many cases just. Cannot your mustering officer discharge them and furnish transportation from camps to their homes? Why cannot some commission attend to these cases? Will you instruct the chief mustering officer to pay the commissioners' bill for subsisting drafted men at county seat before starting for camp at rendezvous? No one seems authorized to pay these bills. I write fully to-day, but beg reply by telegraph at first moment possible. E. SALOMON, Governor. OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Maj. PETER ZINN, Commanding Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio. |