OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, Maj. W. S. PIERSON, Comdg. Depot of Prisoners, Johnson's Island, Sandusky, Ohio. MAJOR: I this morning telegraphed you to suspend the transfer of prisoners to Fort Warren, and the movement will only be made at a future day on reliable evidence of its urgent necessity and then singling out the leading spirits. Don't mention this. For individual cases of turbulence you have a remedy at hand in your prison. I referred Mr. Johnson to you in relation to the washing for the hospital and prisoners. Establish rates by the month for the hospital and by the piece for the prisoners who are able to pay for their own washing. For those who are destitute of money make some arrangements for them to wash for themselves at the bay. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. HOFFMAN, Lieut. Col. Eight Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners. HDQRS. DETACH. 13TH REGT. CAV., MISSOURI STATE MILITIA, Colonel BOYD. Camp at Rolla, June 24, 1862. COLONEL: I have the honor to make the following report of trip to Texas County: Arrested Colonel Best, from Livingston County, Mo. (in citizen's dress), with package of letters from Confederate Army. I herewith send package. They tell us of officers and men who have come back in different parts of State. Colonel Chiles' letter intimates, besides I get from Colonel Best, that most of the Missouri troops were coming to Mississippi River with Texas and Arkansas troops. The col ́onel has passes as William Morris, but before I found his name in letters found men that knew him. Passes inclosed. Found Confederate money on him, here inclosed. I arrested also Moses Bradford, the noted guerrilla. He has caused us much trouble to run after him. He will cause us no more. I have James W. Tinsley, fed Coleman's men; I have John M. Richardson, fed Coleman's men; I have J. S. Halbert, Southern Army; knew of Coleman's men; did not give information. I shall keep these three for information and may yet fasten enough on them to shoot them. I will not trouble you with the real ones. I arrested a minister and congregation at the place where the Reverend Wood, who was shot by Kansas Fifth, was to have preached, and preached first to the minister then to the congregation. A more attentive audience never listened to man. I told them that they had to prove by acts that they loved our Government and we would protect them and their property. I drew more tears than the minister. Left my men (eighty) at Crow's Station to bring in all who have made threats about Reverend Wood's death. Will read orders to them to-night. Will go to Hartville, Wright County, and read orders. There is a rebel force there. They have shot two Union men there. I make the rebels I shoot tell me all. I came in with letters and for more provisions and comparing information. Will shoot Best after get all from him. I have the honor to be, colonel, your obedient servant, [Indorsement.] Respectfully considered and forwarded to Brigadier-General Schofield, with many letters, &c. S. H. BOYD, Colonel, Commanding. 128 BROADWAY [NEW YORK CITY], June 24, 1862. Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. MY DEAR SIR: On yesterday Jules, the colored servant of Mr. Soulé, now confined at Fort Lafayette, called upon me complaining that he could not have access to his master and desiring me to aid him in that behalf. I therefore addressed a note to Mr. Soulé stating that I would see him whenever the authorities gave permission, my object being to explain to him my views that the Government was right in refusing to permit him to hold levees in Fort Lafayette. On the same day Mr. Henry Harrise, a Frenchman who has a desk in my office and who is as I am informed a personal friend of Mr. Soulé, obtained from Reverdy Johnson a dispatch for Mr. Stanton, of the War Office, stating that Soulé was sick and desiring that Jules and himself might have permission to be with him. The servant Jules at the same time stated to me that he had then just returned from Fort Lafayette with the information that Soulé was well. I think it will be found that there will continue to be a regular correspondence between Soulé and his friends in this city and New Orleans so long as any parties excepting only the officers of the Government shall be permitted to have access to him. Some of his relations are now here on their way to Europe. His son, Nelvil Soulé, formerly a colonel in the Confederate Army and like his father present at Bull Run, is expected here from New Orleans in a few days. If correspond.. ence between Pierre Soulé and his Southern friends continue to be carried out either through Harrise or others the Government will have only itself to blame. It will not be possible to stop such correspondence so long as the servant and others shall be permitted to run to and fro between here and the fort. Yours, respectfully and confidentially, JOHN LIVINGSTON. WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, June 25, 1862. Governor TOD, Columbus, Ohio: I beg leave to call your attention to the following telegram just received: Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON: HEADQUARTERS, Columbia, June 24, 1862. There has lately arrived in this vicinity a large number of escaped prisoners from Camps Douglas and Chase by bribing the guards at Camp Douglas. A young man by the name of Smith who lives in Chicago furnishes assistance. The sutler in the camp knowingly sells them clothing to disguise themselves. What disposition shall Imake of these prisoners should I arrest them again? JAS. S. NEGLEY, Brigadier-General, Commanding. I would request that you make an immediate investigation and report upon the facts above stated and take measures if in your power to prevent the mischief. EDWIN M. STANTON, HEADQUARTERS MOUNTAIN DEPARTMENT, Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.: Walter Cool, Matthew Corbitt, Frederick Chewning and Harrison C. Rollins were recently sentenced to death by military commission at Clarksburg. The last named called himself Captain Spriggs but I am informed is not the man. The sentence is not yet approved. Have you any orders in these cases? J. C. FREMONT, Major-General, Commanding. HEADQUARTERS, Fort Monroe, Va., June 25, 1862. Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. SIR: In October last I was authorized* by the Secretary of State to arrest Judge R. B. Carmichael, of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, if I should deem it expedient, and if necessary in his own court. In the communication by which this authority was conferred was inclosed a printed memorial addressed to the Legislature of Maryland, signed by him and expressing the most disloyal sentiments. I did not on full consideration deem it advisable to make the arrest at that time. Soon afterwards a military arrest was made on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in a county in Judge Carmichael's district by an officer of the Second Regiment of Delaware Volunteers. At the next term of the court the judge charged the grand jury that it was their duty to present all persons concerned in such arrest and all persons who had given information on which such arrest had been made. His charges in other counties as well as this were of a most disloyal and offensive character, and it was represented to me by Governor Hicks and the most respectable citizens of the Eastern Shore that the hostile feeling to the Government prevailing there was kept up by himself and a few associates. Under the charge referred to the Hon. Henry H. Goldsborough, president of the Senate of Maryland, and several officers of the Second Delaware Regiment were presented by the grand jury and I was informed that bills of indictment had been found against them. The trial of the honorable Mr. Goldsborough was expected to take place in the month of May last and four officers of the Delaware regiment were summoned as witnesses in his behalf. They came to me and expressed a great unwillingness to obey the summons as they had been presented by the grand jury and apprehended that they would be arrested if they made their appearance in the county. It was under these circumstances and after the repeated and earnest solicitations of the principal Union men in Judge Carmichael's judicial district that I dispatched Mr. McPhail, deputy provost-marshal of the Baltimore military police, with four policemen to Easton, in Talbot County, where the court was in session, to accompany the four officers who were summoned as witnesses, with instructions to arrest Judge Carmichael if on consultation with the honorable Mr. Goldsborough it should be thought expedient. He bore a letter from me to Mr. Goldsborough † requesting him (Mr. G.) to advise as to the propriety of making the arrest. * See Seward to Dix, October 3, 1861, Vol. II, this Series, p. 85. It was on full consideration deemed expedient that the arrest should be made in court in order that the proceeding might be the more marked. The bold, open and defiant hostility of the judge to the Government from the very commencement of the rebellion and his known efforts to place Maryland on the side of the insurgent States; to embarrass the officers of the Government in the measures they deemed necessary for the maintenance of its authority and to keep alive a spirit of disaffection in his judicial district were alone deemed sufficient to warrant his arrest as a measure of public security. The prostitution of his judicial authority to the prosecution of loyal men and of public officers who had only performed their duty is considered as fully justifying the manner in which it was decided to make the arrest. When Mr. McPhail accompanied by two of the policemen ascended the bench and respectfully announced to the judge the order to take him into custody by the authority of the United States he denied the authority of the Government and made a violent attack upon one of the policemen. Mr. McPhail was thus compelled to use force to secure him, and he unluckily received a superficial wound on the head before he ceased to resist. It is worthy of consideration that although the court-room was crowded and although the judge appealed to the officers of the court to aid him not one of them or of those who sympathized with him came forward in his defense, a fact which would seem to indicate that the act of the Government after so long and patient an endurance of his treasonable conduct was considered neither arbitrary nor unjust by his own neighbors. To guard against the contingency of an armed opposition to the police officers I sent two companies of infantry to Talbot County, but they did not reach Easton until an hour after the arrest was made and their services were not put into requisition. It is proper to add that I addressed a letter to the Governor of Maryland some weeks before the arrest stating that I was strongly disposed to make it and that my wish was to send the judge beyond the limits of the State. The Governor gave me no advice, but preferred to leave the matter where it was, trusting to my discretion to make a prudent use of the power which had been intrusted to me by the Government. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, JOHN A. DIX, Major-General. SPECIAL ORDERS, HEADQUARTERS MIDDLE DEPARTMENT, I. By direction of the Secretary of War Maj. G. B. Cosby and Capt. V. Sheliha, Confederate Army, will be sent to Fort Delaware. Maj. H. Z. Hayner, aide-de-camp, U. S. Army, will accompany these prisoners thither to-day, turn them over to the commanding officer of that post, take a receipt for them and return to these headquarters. ** * By command of Major-General Wool: * WM. D. WHIPPLE, Assistant Adjutant-General. * Omitted here; Dix to Bradford, February 10, 1862, Vol. II, this Series, p. 213. OFFICE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF PRISONERS, COMMANDING OFFICER, Military Prison, Alton, Ill. SIR: Will you please furnish me for the War Department with a list of all prisoners of war who have been or are now in confinement at the Alton Prison and please furnish a duplicate of the same for this office. Citizens and soldiers should not be entered on the same list. 1 will send you blank rolls for this purpose by express and also blank monthly returns of prisoners, with the request you will furnish a return monthly to this office. The roll called for above will take the place of those required in General Orders, No. 54, of May 17, from War Department, and if other rolls have been called for you need not furnish them till you have further instructions. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. HOFFMAN, Colonel Third Infantry, Commissary-General of Prisoners. (Same sent to other commandants of military prisons.) FORT HAMILTON, N. Y. Harbor, June 25, 1862. Brig. Gen. L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General U. S. Army, Washington, D. C. SIR: Your telegraphic dispatch allowing Mr. Soulé, prisoner at Fort Lafayette, to keep his servant was received. The servant was sent to Fort Lafayette and Lieutenant Wood, my officer commanding that post, received the proper orders on the subject. The inclosed note from him states that Mr. Soulé did not wish his servant to remain with him. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, MARTIN BURKE, Lieutenant-Colonel Third Artillery. [Inclosure.] FORT LAFAYETTE, N. Y. Harbor, June 25, 1862. COLONEL: Jules saw his master in my presence and he told him to go back to New Orleans. Nothing passed between them more than above. I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant, First Lieutenant, Ninth Infantry, Commanding Post. HEADQUARTERS, Fort Hamilton, N. Y. Harbor, June 25, 1862. L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General U. S. Army, Washington. GENERAL: I have the honor to report that owing to a spirit of insubordination on the part of the privateer prisoners now confined at Fort Lafayette in refusing to police their quarters and the space in front of their quarters unless their officers were made to do the same and by crying out in favor of Jeff. Davis and numerous other evidences of insubordination they have been put in irons. The work required of them was that a detail of ten men should turn out each day for the space of about a quarter of an hour to do the necessary policing which 5 R R-SERIES II, VOL IV |