J. H. Hammond, September 15, 1862
September 15, 1862.
No. 82. Memphis, September 15, 1862.
All seizures of personal property, contraband or otherwise, by brigade guard and pickets, provost guard, or other parties in the service of the United States will hereafter be sent to the provost-marshalâs office, who will forthwith, after entering the same in his register of such property, turn the same over to the post quartermaster, taking his duplicate receipt therefor, one of which will be sent to the Quartermaster-General. The provost-marshal will caution the post quartermaster not to part with the horses, saddles, mules, &c., of prisoners taken until after a trial, if a doubt exists as to whether they are certainly confiscated, in which cases such horses, &c., may be used, but not issued to regiments until after conviction.
The post quartermaster will keep a separate account of all such seizures, and will issue them to the department to which they may be appropriate: Arms and ammunition to the ordnance officer; provisions to the division commissary; medicines to the division surgeon; and wagons, carriages, horses, mules, harness, &c., he will transfer to other quartermasters or take up on his own returns, according to the necessities of services, the object being to place all captured property in the hands of a proper Government agent in the first instance that it may be traced. The quartermaster may give preference to the brigade or regiment that effects the capture and seizure, provided that there be no other more pressing demand. But any officer or soldier who takes and appropriates to his own use or that of his associates any horse, wagon, or other article of captured property will be deemed guilty of peculation or pillage and tried by a general court-martial. :
Any officer or soldier who now has possession of any property hitherto captured of the enemy or of persons trying to evade our police regulations will, through his brigade quartermaster or commanding officer, see that the same is turned in as above directed, and may afterward draw
it according to the Army Regulations, if so entitled. The Government of the United States pays its agents salaries which compensate them in full, and the Government is of course entitled to the benefit of all property captured of the enemy. If any articles be captured such as are not needed by any one of the army departments the post quartermaster will submit a list of the same from time to time to the commanding officer, who will order the sale thereof at Memphis, Saint Louis, or elsewhere, but no sale will be valid without such order.
All requisitions for captured property must be approved the same as if the articles had been procured by purchase.
The provost-marshal, if in need of money or property, will make accounts against the Government, which accounts, when approved by the commanding general, will be paid by the post quartermaster and charged against the fund in his hands arising from sale as above or the rents of houses seized for account of the Government. Butin no event will the provost-marshal, or any one in his employ, sell, convert, or give away any article whatever coming into his possession from the provost guard or from any of the guards, pickets, or sentinels of the command. When rewards are offered they can be paid as other accounts and not otherwise.
By order of Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman:
Assistant Adjutant-General.