Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/309

by the Secretary of War of the United States, under the order of the President of the United States, the military commanders of that Government within the States of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, are directed to seize and use any property, real or personal, belonging to the inhabitants of this Confederacy, which may be necessary or convenient for their several commands, and no provision is made for any compensation to the owners of private property thus seized and appropriated by the military commanders of the enemy:
III. And whereas, by General Order, No. 11, issued on the 23d July, 1862, by Major-General Pope, commanding the forces of the enemy in Northern Virginia, it is ordered that all "commanders of army corps, divisions, brigades and detached commands, will proceed immediately to arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines or within their reach, in rear of their respective commands. Such as are willing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and will furnish sufficient security for its observance, shall be permitted to remain at their homes and pursue in good faith their accustomed avocations. Those who refuse shall be conducted South, beyond the extreme pickets of this army, and be notified that if found again anywhere within our lines, or at any point in rear, they will be considered spies, and subjected to the extreme rigor of military law. If any person, having taken the oath of allegiance as above specified, be found to have violated it, he shall be shot, and his property seized and applied to the public use":
IV. And whereas, by an order issued on the 13th July, 1862, by Brigadier-General A. Steinwehr, Major William Steadman, a cavalry officer of his brigade, has been ordered to arrest five of the most prominent citizens of Page county, Virginia, to be held as hostages, and to suffer death in the event of any of the soldiers of said Steinwehr being shot by "bushwhackers," by which term are meant the citizens of this Confederacy who have taken up arms to defend their homes and families:
V. And whereas it results from the above orders that some of the military authorities of the United States, not content with the unjust and aggressive warfare hitherto waged with savage cruelty against an unoffending people, and exasperated by the failure of their effort to subjugate them, have now determined to violate all the rules and usages of war, and to convert the hostilities hitherto waged against armed forces into a campaign of robbery and murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers of the soil:
VI. And whereas this Government, bound by the highest obligations of duty to its citizens, is thus driven to the necessity of adopting just such measures of retribution and retaliation as shall seem adequate to repress and punish these barbarities; and whereas the orders above recited have only been published and made known to this Government since the signature of a cartel for exchange of prisoners of war, which cartel, in so far as it provides for an exchange of prisoners hereafter captured, would never have been signed or