which I inclose herewith. A few days after I was assigned to the command of this district I asked General French if I had command of the prison-guard at Salisbury. He answered, "The prison guard at Salisbury is under your command." A copy of my order assuming com. mand of the district was then sent to the commanding officer. He was also required to send in regular returns of his guard and the names of the officers. But as the orders given by me did not affect the garrison in any respect I presume the one referred to in your telegram is the one given by General French, which explains itself.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. G. MARTIN,
Brigadier-General.

P. S.-In the letter inclosing General French's order to the commanding officer at Salisbury he was directed to report the number of prisoners there and what additional guard, if any, was necessary for the post after removing the company of the Fifty-seventh Regiment. J. G. M.

POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT, CONTRACT BUREAU,
Richmond, September 13, 1862.

Brig. Gen. JOHN H. WINDER, Richmond, Va.
GENERAL: Thanks to the permit which you had the kindness to
extend to me on the 11th instant I had an interview with Frank D.
Orme, who satisfied me as to the causes which had brought him into
our lines and which resulted in his capture together with that of some
sixty other Yankee civilians. He states to me that an order emanat-
ing from Stanton, the Secretary of War of the late United States, and
communicated by the corresponding heads of departments, directed
him in common with other Federal clerks to proceed to the fields of
Pope's victories to bury the dead and tend the wounded, for which
offices he could not spare his victorious soldiery. I have not the least
doubt that the poor devil was put in a dilemma between the sympathies
of his heart and the retention of office, which is but a convertible term
with many for the despotism of poverty. I know from personal experi
ence that had I not in June, 1861, on the return from my mission to
Central America had some hoarded means I would not only have been
unable to reach our Southern territory, but would most probably have
tenanted some of the Spielbergs or Bastiles of the constitutional
expounder of the law of despotism.

I take a great interest in the condition and fate of young Orme, who I beg to repeat stands so high in the estimation of myself and wife that when under a special passport from Seward granted to the wife and children of a returning minister (they had accompanied my lega tion abroad) they left Washington for Richmond in August of last year, Mrs. Dimitry in disseminating our personal property, which she was forbidden to remove, deposited much of it of great value with the subject of this note. That it is still safe I have abundant assurance and proof.

Now, general, without knowing or judging of the intents of our Government in relation to these captured civilians and aware at the same time that the proceedings usual in the case of prisoners of war can hardly be expected to be extended to them, theirs being a novel and exceptional case of capture, conscious of the danger which might result to our safety as belligerents from having a released and intelligent pris

oner in our midst, I would most respectfully suggest, if the disposition of these civilians has not been otherwise decided on and if it shall meet with your concurrence and the approval of the Secretary of War, that Frank D. Orme have, under his parole, my house in Petersburg assigned to him as a prison, with the understanding that I with any other known citizen of the Confederacy shall be sponsor for him, and that under such parole he shall neither leave my house nor hold converse with any one out of the presence of myself or of a controlling member of my family. Such a precaution in the case of Mr. Orme I do not deem necessary. I suggest it, however, out of abundant prudence and still more as an evidence of my conviction that no detriment shall accrue to the Confederacy for his temporary release should the favor for which I apply under the recited conditions commend itself to you and the Secretary's better decision. This proposition, of course, looks to the contingency of their being exchanged as prisoners of war at an opportune time. If, on the contrary, it should be the policy of our Government to look upon them, and Orme among the number, as persons fit to be hostages for the safety and freedom of our private citizens who have been ruthlessly dungeoned in U. S. fortresses and prisons I wish it to be clearly understood that this application must be looked upon as if it never had been made by yours,

With the very highest respect,

ALEX. DIMITRY.

MIDDLEBURG, VA., September 13, 1862.

Col. L. B. NORTHROP, Commissary-General, Richmond, Va. :

I am requested by Maj. B. P. Noland, commissary of subsistence, to inclose you a copy of a parole given by Mr. Samuel Field, who was arrested by the enemy in the county of Fauquier last May. Mr. Field was in the employment of Mr. Noland as purchaser of cattle, &c., from July, 1861, and at the time of his arrest was engaged in driving cattle out of the country within the lines of the enemy. Mr. Noland says Mr. Field was the most valuable and efficient agent he had and that it is very important to have his services at this time. He therefore desires that you will if possible have Mr. Field exchanged or in some other way released from the obligation of his parole. Mr. Field says that he was assured by the officer who took his parole that it would only bind him whilst he remained within their lines.

Very respectfully, &c.,

LAWRENCE B. TAYLOR.

[Indorsement.]

OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF SUBSISTENCE,

Richmond, Va., September 22, 1862.

Respectfully referred to Secretary of War with the request that Mr. Samuel Field be released from his parole by order, as he is not bound by equity.

L. B. NORTHROP, Commissary-General of Subsistence.

[Inclosure.]

HDQRS. DETACHMENT ELEVENTH PENNSYLVANIA VOLS.,

The Plains, Va., May 11, 1862.

I, Samuel Field, being held in arrest by the Eleventh Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, in consideration of being released from the

same, do hereby pledge my word of honor as a gentleman that I will not either directly or indirectly aid, assist or give comfort to any enemies of the United States of America.

SAMUEL FIELD.

SHIP ISLAND, MISS., September 13, 1862.

JEFFERSON DAVIS, President of the Confederate States.

SIR: A close prisoner on this desolate island with some fifty others of my fellow-citizens, I have thought it my duty at every risk to communicate to you some at least of the incidents of the administration of the brutal tyrant who has been sent by the United States Government to oppress, rob, assault and trample upon our people in every manner which the most fiendish ingenuity and most wanton cruelty could devise and in gross violation of all the laws and usages of the most remorseless wars between civilized and even savage nations and tribes. Previous to my committal to Ship Island as a close prisoner, where I was consigned with seven other respectable citizens to a small hut fifteen feet by twenty, exposed to rain and sun, without permission to leave except for a bath in the sea once or twice a week, I had prepared an elaborate statement of the outrages perpetrated by Butler upon our people or rather of the more flagrant ones which I committed to Reverdy Johnson, a commissioner of the United States who had been sent out to investigate and report upon certain transactions of Butler. Mr. Johnson received this document, but stated that his mission related exclusively to certain issues which had arisen between Butler and the foreign consuls. He manifested, however, some sympathy for our wronged people and some disgust for the excesses and villainies of Butler. Shortly after Mr. Johnson's departure I was sent to Ship Island. A description of the causes and circumstances of the imprisonment of our citizens who are now held on this island will afford some of the mildest illustrations of Butler's brutality. There are about sixty prisoners here, all of whom are closely confined in portable houses and furnished with the most wretched and unwholesome condemned soldiers' rations. Some are kept at hard labor on the fort; several in addition to labor are compelled to wear a ball and chain which is never removed. Among these is Mr. Shepherd, a respectable, elderly and weakly citizen, who is charged with secreting certain papers belonging to the naval officer of the Confederate States, which the latter left in his charge when he departed from New Orleans. Mr. Shepherd had the proof that the officer who had deposited these documents afterwards returned and took them and that they had been carried into the Confederate States. This testimony Butler would not receive and declared that if it existed it would make no difference in his case. Doctor Moore, a dealer in drugs, is also at hard labor with ball and chain, on the charge of having sent a few ounces of quinine into the Confederate States. There are five prisoners condemned and employed at hard labor on the charge of intending to break their parole as prisoners of war, captured at Fort Jackson. There is also a delicate youth from the country who is subjected to the same treatment on the charge of being a guerrilla, the term which Butler applies to the partisan rangers organized under the act of Congress of the Confederate States. Alderman Beggs, on the charge of denouncing those who, having taken the oath to the Confederate States, afterwards swore allegiance to the United States, and Mr. Keller, a vender of books, stationery and scientific apparatus, on the charge of permitting

a clerk to placard the word "Chickahominy" on a skeleton which was suspended in his show window for sale for the use of students of anatomy, are condemned also to close imprisonment and hard labor for two years. The others mentioned above are condemned for a longer period. A like condemnation and punishment were imposed upon Judge John W. Andrews, a most respectable citizen, recently a member of the judiciary of the State, of the Legislature, and of the city council, and a prominent merchant. This gentleman is advanced in years and in very delicate health. There is little hope that his health can long - sustain his present burdens and hardships. The circumstances of Mrs. Phillips' imprisonment are probably known to you. As, however, I desire this to be an authentic and studiously accurate statement of the facts I will here relate them.

In the raid of the U.S. troops near Warrenton, Miss., a young officer named De Kay was mortally wounded. He died in New Orleans and an attempt was made by the Federal authorities to get up a pompous funeral ceremony and procession in honor of so "gallant and heroic a young officer" who had fallen in an expedition which had no other purpose or object but the pillage of defenseless farms and villages. The efforts to excite the sympathies of our people on this occasion proved a ridiculous failure and the funeral ceremony had no aspect of solemnity or even propriety, a long line of carriages composing the cortege designed for the Union citizens being all empty. As this procession passed the residence of P. Phillips, esq., Mrs. Phillips, standing on the balcony with several lady friends, was observed by some Federal officer to smile, so it was charged. She was immediately arrested and taken before Butler, who in the most brutal and insolent manner sought to terrify the heroic lady. In this he did not succeed. Whilst denying that her gaiety had any reference whatever to the funeral ceremony Mrs. Phillips I refused to make any apologies or concessions to the vulgar tyrant. Thereupon she was condemned to close imprisonment in a filthy guardroom, thence to be transported to Ship Island, where she was to be held in close confinement for two years with no other fare but soldiers' rations; no intercourse or correspondence with any person except through General Butler. This sentence was published in the newspapers, accompanied by words of the grossest insult and most vulgar ribaldry, in which Mrs. Phillips was denounced as "not a common but i an uncommon bad woman," referring to his proclamation, denounced by Lord Palmerston and the whole civilized world as "so infamous," in which his soldiers are authorized to treat "as common women plying their profession" all who may manifest any contempt or discourtesy toward them. To add further insult, in the order condemning Mr. Keller it was made part of his sentence to permit him to hold converse and intercourse with Mrs. Phillips, to which condition this honest man was induced to protest from the belief that his fellow prisoner was a notorious courtesan of the city who bore the name of Phillips. This protest was published in the paper with Butler's order granting the request of Keller, so as to convey to the world the idea that a poor vender of perio odicals declined association with a lady of the highest respectability, the wife of a distinguished lawyer and ex-Member of Congress.bobrani bear personal testimony to the rigorous execution of theusentenceo against Mrs. Phillips, having been imprisoned for weeks in a building I adjoining to that which she was never allowed to leaveus Such was the treatment of a delicate lady of the highest refinement, the inothersofs nine children. The case of Judge Andrews présents another strikingt example of the brutality and dishonesty of Butler. The charge against 56 R R-SERIES II, VOL IV

him imputed the horrid crime of having received and exhibited, nine months before the arrival of Butler in the city, a cross which had been sent to him by a young friend in our army at Manassas and which it was represented was made of the bones of a Yankee soldier. No proof whatever was adduced that such exhibition had ever been made by Judge Andrews in exultation, and the cross after being received was destroyed before Butler arrived in the city. In his first interview with the authorities of the city Butler had declared that he would take no cognizance of any acts committed before he occupied the city and established martial law therein. This solemn and oft-repeated pledge he has violated in a thousand instances.

Of the other prisoners there are three captains in the Confederate service who have copies of their parole as prisoners of war and who are sent here upon no specific charge, but as suspicious persons who might break the lines and go into the Confederate service. They are Captain McLean, late of the McCulloch Rangers; Captain Losberg, who commanded the De Feriet Guards of the Chalmette Regiment, captured and paroled by Commodore Farragut in the attack upon the forts below the city, and Captain Batchelor, of the Third [First] Regiment of the Louisiana Regulars. There is also a young creole, the sole protector of his family, his father having recently died, who is sentenced to an indefinite punishment on the charge, supported by the testimony of his own slave, a negro boy, of having thrown a revolver into the river after Butler's order requiring the citizens to deliver up their arms had been published. This is the case of Mr. Le Beau, of one of the oldest and most respectable Creole families in the State. The other prisoners here are impris oned upon like frivolous charges. Some eight or ten of them for the publication of cards denying that they had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States, their names having been published in Butler's journal among those who had taken that oath. In the case of Mr. Davidson, a gallant young lawyer who has not yet recovered from a severe wound received at Shiloh, the offense consisted in his publishing a card stating that he was not the person of the same name who was published as having taken the oath. So much for the prisoners at Ship Island, with the facts of whose cases I am personally acquainted. I refrain from any reference to my own case, hard as my doom is, closely confined on this island with all my property appropriated by the enemy and my family placed under strict espionage and subject to many annoyances, insults and discomforts. With all its trials and hardships the condition of the prisoners here is quite easy and endurable compared with that of those who are confined in the damp and unwholesome casemates of Forts Jackson and Saint Philip, on the Mississippi, and in Fort Pickens, on Santa Rosa Island. Among the latter is the mayor of the city, who has been imprisoned for four months for the offense of writing a letter to Butler protesting against his order relative to the treatment of the ladies of the city and declaring his inability to maintain the peace of the city if the Federal soldiers were thus authorized to insult and outrage our women at their own pleasure and will. The secretary of the mayor, who wrote the letter signed by the mayor, was included in the same committal and imprisonment. Several members of the council for like or smaller offenses suffer the same punishment. Doctor Porter, a wealthy dentist and citizen, is imprisoned for requiring the Citizens' Bank, the pet bank and place of deposit of Butler and his agent in his vast schemes of corruption and extortion, to pay checks in the currency which Butler alone allowed the banks to pay. George C.