and I have acted on these, but I respectfully submit that immediate notice should be brought home to department and district commanders of exchanges, so we may know who to detail for duty. Exchanged or not exchanged should they not return to their rendezvous! I have the honor to be, general, your obedient servant, S. R. CURTIS, Major-General. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE, Maj. Gen. W. S. ROSECRANS, Commanding U. S. Forces, Nashville, Tenn. GENERAL: I inclose for your information the following papers, viz: 1. General Orders, No. 84, from the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, Richmond, in reference to Federal military violations of the laws and usages of war, with retaliatory provisions, special and general. 2. An extract of a communication from Clarksville, Tenn., giving a statement of the outrages committed upon private citizens and their deplorable condition under the military authority as administered there. 3. A copy of a report from the commanding officer of my picket forces in your front detailing the depredations which marked the route of one of your reconnoitering parties a few days since, under the orders and sanction of its officers. 4. Extract from the report of another picket officer on the Lebanon road, in which he gives the statement of a reliable citizen as to the system of rapine indulged in by another one of your reconnoitering parties. I deem it unnecessary to enlarge upon the subject as presented in the papers submitted to you. I could multiply almost indefinitely authentic complaints from widely separated parts of my department setting forth a similar condition of affairs, as consequent upon a visit or occupation by your troops. Inasmuch, however, as in your highly esteemed favor of the 29th ultimo* you foreshadowed a correction of the previous existing causes of complaint by declaring your intention to observe the usages and laws of war I shall place a generous construction upon the late occurrences and hope that they were without your knowledge and will meet with a prompt correction and punishment. Awaiting your reply I shall abstain from the disagreeable duty of considering the steps which a suffering people and an outraged civilization will demand in order to put a stop to such an extended and uniform system of unparalleled and savage warfare. I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, [Inclosure No. 1.] General, Commanding. GENERAL ORDERS, No. 84. ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, I. The following orders are published for the information and guidance of the Army: II. Whereas, reliable information has been received that Colonel Lowe and Col. A. C. Harding, Eighth Illinois Regiment, U. S. Army, have been engaged in a series of wanton cruelties and depredations in Clarksville, *See Series I, Vol. XX, Part II, p. 109. Tenn., and the surrounding counties, which in many instances have resulted in the arrest, incarceration and maltreatment of non-combatants and peaceful citizens of the Confederate States, and in others in the unjustifiable destruction of private property without compensation and contrary to the rules and practice of civilized warfare: Therefore, it is ordered that the aforesaid Colonel Lowe and Col. A. C. Harding, Eighth Illinois Volunteers, U. S. Army, be and they are hereby declared no longer entitled to be regarded as soldiers, and that they have forfeited all claim to the benefits of the cartel existing between the Governments of the Confederate States and the United States for the exchange of prisoners of war, and further that in the event of their capture they shall be kept in close confinement and treated as felons until otherwise ordered by the President of the Confederate States. III. And whereas, other officers of the U. S. Army yet unknown to the Confederate Government are represented and believed to have participated in the wrongs and outrages before referred to: Therefore, it is also ordered that the provisions of the first paragraph of this order shall be applicable to any other officers of the Federal Army in the State of Tennessee, upon proof of their guilt deemed satisfactory by the commanding officer of the department in which they may be captured and held. Extract from a communication from Clarksville, Tenn. The commander above named and others have been and still are engaged in arresting many of the citizens of this portion of country and placing them in a loathsome dungeon and keeping them there unless they take the oath of allegiance, these citizens being in no way connected with the Confederate Army. They have gone to the premises of many citizens seizing them and destroying or carrying away all their property of every description. In some cases they burn everything before them. They have taken away hundreds of negroes; they have visited houses insulting ladies and threatening to shoot, stab, bayonet and even burn them. They have robbed them of their wardrobes-not only of men, but those of women and children. They are also in the habit of taking all the negroes. We in this city have been visited by these men and treated in a savage and brutal manner, and they daily threaten to return and utterly destroy the city and imprison all the citizens who do not take the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. The aforesaid Harding visited a church in the country and arrested two ministers of the gospel and placed them in prison, where they still are. He also took the horses and carriages from the congregation and required the persons present, both male and female, to take the oath or go to prison, and he proclaims that every man in the country shall be arrested and either take the oath or go to the dungeon. This is our present condition. Now we are wholly unprepared to repel these insults and oppressions. It is true there are still many men here who are willing to meet them, but we are wholly destitute of both arms and ammunition, nor is there any military force in this vicinity that is able to repel them. [Inclosure No. 3.] [GEORGE WM. BRENT. HEADQUARTERS CAVALRY Brigade, La Vergne, Tenn., December 1, 1862. COLONEL: I have the honor to state that the enemy have been for the last month burning all unoccupied houses between La Vergne and Nashville. Up to this time they have to my knowledge burned more than twenty houses. At and near La Vergne last Thursday they burned several under the immediate direction of their officers. They stated that they did not intend to leave any shelter for rebels. They take special care to burn houses near which our pickets have been stationed, but by no means confine themselves to these. Respectfully, colonel, your obedient servant, JOS. WHEELER, Brigadier-General and Chief of Cavalry. [Inclosure No. 4.] Extract from report of officer commanding pickets on the Lebanon road, December 1. He says they are destroying and burning everything in their route, taking even the shoes from the feet of the women. They have a large number of wagons and are evidently on a marauding expedition. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE, Maj. Gen. W. S. ROSECRANS, Commanding U. S. Forces, Nashville, Tenn. GENERAL: I inclose you a copy marked A of reports made by medical officers of my command in regard to the indignities to which they were subjected while they were in the hands of your predecessor. As the officer from whom they received such severe and unjustifiable treatment is probably not within your jurisdiction I beg that you will forward the papers with a copy of this communication as far as pertains to the case to his proper commander. The rumor which was made the pretext for the confinement of these officers in violation of the cartel existing between the two Governments was wholly unfounded. would be most painful to me to be compelled to resort to retaliation for such acts of cruelty or bad faith, but if their committal is encouraged in subordinate officers by allowing them to go unpunished or unremarked there will be but one course left me. It I desire also to call your attention to the case of Surgeon Horton, Tenth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, who is reported to me as confined on parole within the limits of the city of Nashville and prohibited from communicating with his Government. You will oblige me by informing me of the reasons of this exceptional course toward this officer. The case of Private R. K. Kerchival, Fourth Tennessee Volunteers, imprisoned in Nashville by General Negley and refused an exchange, as set forth in the inclosed statement marked B, is submitted also to your special attention. It will afford me unalloyed pleasure to learn that in these cases of great apparent hardship and abuse "the laws and usages of war” have been enforced and the parties guilty of violating them brought to just and merited punishment. I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, General Braxton BragG. [Inclosure A.] General, Commanding. NICKAJACK, November 10, 1862. SIR: In company with K. C. Divine, brigade surgeon, Fourth Brigade, Second Division, Left Wing, Army of the Mississippi, I left our hospitals near Perryville, Ky., October 20, and proceeded to Harrodsburg to confer with Surgeon Moore, left in charge. On the 21st we left Harrodsburg for Danville, at which place we arrived in the evening and found General Buell and a large part of his forces just arrived from Crab Orchard en route for Lebanon, Ky. Having been refused permission to pass out of Kentucky by any other route than via Somerset, I obtained through the instrumentality of my personal friend, Dr. Robert Murray, General Buell's medical director, passes for myself and Doctor Divine to rejoin our command by that route, but on starting that way was deterred from continuing by the information that the Knob counties of Kentucky and Tennessee were infested by gangs of Union bushwhackers and thieves and the report that several persons on that route had been shot and plundered, a Confederate surgeon among the number. We therefore went to Lebanon, Ky., disposed of our horses and took the cars for Louisville, to which place General Buell had gone. We were insulted by Yankee officers in the cars and threatened with arrest. On our arrival at Louisville on Saturday night, October 25 (in a violent snow-storm), we put up at the Galt House, registering our names as surgeons, C. S. Army. On examining the register after supper we discovered the letters C. S. A. had been erased. In the morning after breakfast I saw Lieutenant Bush, aide to General Buell, and asked him to procure us permits to pass down the river to Vicksburg on a boat that was to leave that night with paroled Confederate prisoners. He promised to see General Buell and procure passes for us and leave a note for me at the hotel office. We left the hotel in the morning for the house of a friend. In the evening we were informed by a friend in the Federal service that the boat would leave that night and that he understood we were to be sent to the military prison. At my request he went to the office of the Galt House and brought me a note from Lieutenant Bush (herewith annexed) referring us to General Boyle. Upon repairing at once to General Boyle we were referred to Colonel Dent, provostmarshal, who informed us we were under arrest and must go to the prison hospital "as hostages for a Federal surgeon who was reported to be confined in a dungeon at Knoxville, Tenn., on bread and water." We were courteously allowed by Colonel Dent to return to our friend's house to supper and report at the prison at 8 p. m., which we did, protesting, however, against our imprisonmeut. We were assigned beds in the hospital wards and ate at the surgeons' table. We found in the hospital as hostages like ourselves Surgeons Alexander and Leak and Assistant Surgeon Meux, C. S. Army, who had been confined to the prison but transferred to the hospital. We found many of our wounded soldiers in the hospital, whom we took charge of and attended to their wounds. On the following [day] after our imprisonment we addressed a joint note to General Boyle (copy annexed), to which we received no reply. On Wednesday evening, the 29th instant, we were ordered by Surgeon Head, U. S. post surgeon at Louisville, to be transferred from the military hospital to the military prison, in which were confined some 500 Confederate soldiers (paroled), political prisoners and others, among whom we found three more Confederate surgeons who had that day been imprisoned, viz, Assistant Surgeons Phillips, Fenner and Clark. I addressed a note to Doctor Murray, General Buell's inedical director, and through his interference we were released and ordered to report on the evening of the 30th to Doctor Cowan, C. S. Army, at the Louisville Hotel, where we found he had been furnished with transportation for us to Cairo, via railroad through Indiana and Illinois. At Cairo we reported to the general in command (General Tuttle), who telegraphed to General Grant for permission to send us through the Federal lines at Memphis. General Grant replied, ordering General Sherman at Memphis to "pass through the lines rebel surgeons." We left Cairo on the Belle Memphis on the evening of Saturday, November 1, transportation given us, and arrived at Memphis on Monday morning, the 3d instant, where we procured a pass from General Sherman and conveyance to Hernando. Thence next day to Coldwater, where we took the cars, and I proceeded via Grenada, Jackson, Mobile and Atlanta hither. Please find notes, &c., annexed. Surgeon Jones, C. S. Army, who was also imprisoned at Louisville, was sent down on the boat to Vicksburg with our paroled men, on his parole to return in forty days. Surgeons Leak, Fenner and Clark were robbed by the Federals of their knives, pocket instruments and some clothing. Deeming it proper to communicate the above facts to the general commanding, I remain, very respectfully, H. HINKLEY, HEADQUARTERS 121ST REGIMENT OHIO VOLUNTEERS, The guard will pass the bearer, H. Hinkley, brigade surgeon, First Brigade, Second Division, Army Mississippi, Left Wing, through our lines. W. P. REID, Colonel, Commanding Post [Sub-inclosure No. 2.] HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF OHIO, Pass Surgeon Hinkley, C. S. Army, through our lines south via Somerset, he having given his parole not to divulge anything to the prejudice of the U. S. service. By order of Major-General Buell: T. J. BUSH, First Lieutenant. [Sub-inclosure No. 3.] OCTOBER 24, 1862. Doctor HINKLEY. SIR: The general has given directions to General Boyle about your getting South. You will find him at his headquarters on Seventh street near Broadway. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, T. J. BUSH. |