Jno. A. Rawlins to Orders, Headquarters Fifth Division, July 24, 1862

Memphis, Tenn., July 24, 1862.

SAMUEL SAWYER, Esq., Union Appeal:

DEAR Sie: It is well I should come to an understanding at once with the press as well as the people of Memphis, which I am ordered to command, which means control for the interest, welfare, and glory of the whole Government of the United States.

Personalities in a newspaper are wrong and criminal. Thus, though you meant to be complimentary in your sketch of my career. you make more than a dozen mistakes of facts, which I need not correct as 1 don’t desire my biography till Iam dead. Itis enough for the world to know that I live and am a soldier, bound to obey the orders of my superiors, the laws of my country, and to venerate its Constitution; that when discretion is given me I should exercise it and account for it to my superiors.

I regard your article headed “City Council, General Sherman, and Colonel Slack” as highly indiscreet. Of course no person who can jeopardize the safety of Memphis can remain here, much less exercise buble authority, but I must take time and be satisfied that injustice be not done.

If the parties named be the men you describe, the fact should not be published to put them on their guard and encourage their escape. The evidence should be carefully collected, authenticated, and then placed in my hands.

But your statement of facts is entirely qualified in my mind and loses its force by your negligence of.very simple facts within your ieach as to myself. I had been in the army six years in 1846; am not related at all to any member of Lucas, Turner & Co.; was associated with them six years instead of two; am not colonel of the Fifteenth Infantry, but of the Thirteenth.

Your correction this morning, as to the acknowledged error as to General Denver, is still erroneous.

General M. L. Smith did not belong to my command at Shiloh at all, but was transferred to me just before reaching Corinth.

I mention these facts in kindness, to show you how wrong it is to speak of persons.

I will attend to the judge, mayor, board of aldermen, and pol cemen all in good time.

Use your influence to re-establish system, order, government. You may rest easy that no military commander is going to neglect internal safety as well as to guard against external danger, but to do right requires time, and more patience than I usually possess is necessary. If I find the press of Memphis actuated by high principle and a sole devotion to their country I will be their best friend; but if I find them personal, abusive, dealing in innuendoes and hints at a blind venture, and looking to their selfish aggrandizement and fame, then they had better look out, for I regard such as greater enemies to their country and mankind than the men who, from a mistaken sense of State pride, have taken muskets and fight us about as hard as we care about.

In haste, but in kindness, yours, &c., W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General

SPECIAL aman Hpqrs. DISTRIOT OF WEST TENNESSEE, No. 143. Corinth, Miss., July 24, 1862. * * * * * * 2 Il. Brig. Gen. J. B. S. Todd, at his own request, is hereby relieved from duty with this army. He will report in person or by letter to the Adjutant-General of the Army. The next officer in rank in his division will immediately take command. * * & ® * * %

By order of Maj. Gen. U. S. Grant:

Assistant Adjutant-General.

ORDERS, HEADQUARTERS FIFTH DIvIsIon,

No. 61. Memphis, July 24, 1862.

Travel] into and out of Memphis by carriage, wagon, horse, or foot

in the usual course of business will be as free and unobstructed as is

consistent with a state of war. To farmers, planters, and business men,

with their families and servants, free intercourse will be permitted without passes or any hinderance, save the right of examination and even