James A. Seddon to E. K. Smith, March 19, 1864

General E. K. SMITH, Commanding, &c.:

GENERAL: The letter of Brigadier-General Greer of the 7th of December last* with your indorsement of the 18th of January has been received.

This Department has experienced much embarrassment from the eccentric decisions of inferior judges who have had the power to issue writs of habeas corpus, and can appreciate the difficulties that General Greer has had to encounter on that subject.. His opinion as to the liability of deputy clerks and deputy marshals is concurred in, and the late act of Congress to organize forces for the war will enable him to apply a corrective to some of the evils he complains of. A copy of that act with the orders and regulations will be sent to you with this letter. The act embraces two distinct subjects—the organization of the existing Army and the recruiting of its ranks by conscription. The act continues in service all men between eighteen and forty-five now belonging to the Army till the end of the war. You will observe that it does not abridge the term of service of those who belong to the Army. It does not provide for the discharge of any until their legal term of service has expired. Persons over forty-five will serve for that term, whatever it may be. The act also provides for the transfer of certain companies and men to other organizations, but the mass are continued in their existing organizations.

Congress, before the passage of this act, had adopted a special act repealing the exemption of principals who had put in substitutes and who had no other cause of exemption. By the act of Congress of the 17th of February they repealed all existing exemptions and provided that all men between seventeen and fifty years of age should be placed in service under the limitations and exceptions embraced in that act. General Orders, No. 26, contains the act and the regulations of the Department for its execution. Besides these acts the superintendent of the Bureau of Conscription has made in the form of instructions more detailed arrangements for their complete enforcement. ‘These orders and regulations will accompany this letter. By the act of Congress of the 27th of September, 1862, the disposition to be made of conscripts is declared. They were to be appropriated, first, to the filling up of the regiments in existence prior to the 16th of April, 1862, and then to the completion of the regiments formed between that date and the ist of October, 1862. No new companies were contemplated to be made from men liable to conscription, except in those districts

*See Series I, Vol. XXVI, Part II, p. 493.

in which the conscription act could not be enforced, and no other agencies were to be employed except those of the conscription service. General Orders, No. 82, series of 1862, were framed with this object. This Department has deviated from this plan under a supposed necessity in some instances, but experience has convinced it that a strict adherence to the law and the regulations would have been productive of greater benefit to the service. It now discards all plans for recruiting outside of those regular agencies, and refuses authorities to raise companies except under very special circumstances, and those are limited to the country occupied by the enemy.

The act of Congress before mentioned, as you will perceive, greatly diminishes the classes of persons entitled to detail for special service. The act, the orders, and the instructions of the Bureau of Conscription will place you in possession of the general views of the Department relative to the manner of performing these functions. They involve considerations of the gravest import, and in intrusting the discharge of similar functions to you the Department is fully aware of the magnitude and difficulty of the trust. The general principles it has adopted it recommends to you—that you cause the Bureau of Conscription to be organized with care and managed with efficiency ; that the principal aim should be to recruit the existing organizations and to decline the issuing of any special authorities or the creation of independent agencies. If is proper that the regiments of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas on the east of the Mississippi River should be recruited, and that new regiments should not be formed until this be done. The service of the Army proper should as far as practicable be performed by inen fit for duty in the field, and the Bureau and civil service should be supplied by the persons designated in the eighth section of the act. Reserve forces should be organized and made as efficient as the circumstances of the country will warrant, and care should be employed and discrimination exercised to provide sufficiently for the maintenance of the industrial operations of the country. A broad, statesmanlike administration is necessary for the fulfillment of the duties imposed by this act.

General Orders, No. 31, contains the act for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The bill itself imposes upon you the duty of its execution in your department. You will find in the orders what the Department has done for its execution in the Cis-Mississippi Department. Commissioners of the highest character and professional ability have been selected for the performance of the duties charged upon them, and they have been authorized to detail from the class between forty-five and fifty adequate assistance. Congress failed to make an appropriation to carry into execution this act, but that omission will probably be supplied in May next. The compensation of the commissioners has not been settled, but the Department will be disposed to fix it upon a liberal footing. The country is naturally jealous of any suspension of this writ, and the Department has been anxious to impress upon its administration under it the evidence of professional ability, sound discretion, and personal honor, so as to avoid any appearance of evil. The most ordinary case in which the act will be required is that in which persons seek to avoid military service, and your attention is directed to that section as affording a cure for some of the evils of which Brigadier-General Greer complains. Another important branch of your duties will arise under the act imposing regulations upon the foreign trade, with the view to obtain foreign supplies. The scheme of this act is to prohibit the exportation of cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, molasses, and military and naval stores, except under the regulations of the President. A prohibition is laid upon the import of many articles of luxury. The regulations framed by the President were designed to secure the application of all these articles mentioned in the act of Congress to the accumulation of supplies for the Army and necessaries for the people. Congress also passed a bill to create two bureaus, one for either side of the Mississippi River, for the carrying into effect this act, but owing to some inattention or inadvertence it failed to be signed by the officers of the two branches of Congress, and was not carried to the President. It did not therefore become a law. There will be required in your department some special agency for the purchase, transportation, export, sale, and investment of the proceeds of the articles belonging to the Government, and for the oversight of the transactions of individuals under the act of Congress and regulations. The bill which failed to become a law, under the circumstances before mentioned, provided such an agency to be subject to your control, and in the absence of adequate agencies of administration in the Treasury Department in that district, and in consequence of the absorption by the military department of so much of the active business population and the machinery of government, it is not perceived how the act can be efficiently executed otherwise than by the establishment of a similar agency to that provided. The regulations that have been adopted furnish an outline of the method of proceeding under the act. It will be necessary for you to fill up that outline by practical measures to give efficiency to the system. Copies of the regulations both for the sea and the land will be sent to you. I recommend that the officers employed in this business be required to give bonds, and that they be selected with discrimination, so as to secure men who will not abuse their positions to promote any personal or individual object. The country requires that all its resources be husbanded with solicitude and that none should be expended except to promote the public good. At the same time a liberal consideration of the convenience and comfort of the people at large is proper, so as to obtain their cordial co-operation and support.

Congress revised its act concerning impressments and provided for the employment of free negroes and slaves in certain branches of the public service. It may be that your circumstances will require the employment of slaves in the operations of your department. The act provides that 20,000 slaves may be impressed, provided that free negroes cannot be obtained, and slave labor cannot be contracted for. The Department has directed the enrollment of free negroes and will probably impress some 10,000 or 15,000 slaves in the various departments on this side of the Mississippi River. The same power is extended to your department. You are at liberty to call into service, if they are needed, 6,000 slaves to perform the duties that the act of Congress contemplates. We have determined here to employ the Bureau of Conscription to obtain them as the most diffused of the agencies under our control. In the General Orders, No. 138, of 1863, you will find some leading directions as to the methods of proceeding, but some of the details of these orders have been modified by General Orders, No. 32, of the present series, especially those in reference to the compensation to be paid to the overseers.

Finally, I will call your attention to the act and orders for the establishment of the invalid corps—General Orders, No. 34. The persons retired under these orders should obtain their orders from the headquarters, and the roll of officers and men should be preserved there. No person should be permitted to have the benefit of that act except under the order of the department commanders. Much confusion and fraud have been the consequence of allowing to subordinate officers to determine finally upon the condition of officers and men in service.

The delicacy and difficulty of the duties cast on you by these various laws and orders are sensibly felt, but full confidence is placed in your discretion, zeal, and ability for their faithful discharge.

I have the honor to remain, general, very truly, yours,