Joseph Hooker to Seth Williams, April 10, 1863

No. 40. Camp near Falmouth, Va., April 10, 1863.

I. Unnecessary delay has occurred in forwarding to these headquarters deserters, contrabands, and prisoners captured or coming into the lines of this army.

It is the duty of all to see that every prisoner, deserter, contraband, or citizen, also all newspapers, communications, or other articles, wherever received, whether captured or coming from the enemy, are sent, without delay, to the provost-marshal-general, at these headquarters.

I. I. The commanding general regrets that it has become necessary for him to reprimand, in general terms, officers who send incorrect information from the picket lines.

The outposts of an army are its safeguards, and this duty must be so performed that the camps are not unnecessarily disturbed. Officers of outposts are expected to inform themselves accurately of all events transpiring in their vicinity, and those whose fears magnify trifling squads into large bodies of the enemy as richly deserve death as the base wretch who deserts his country’s flag or his comrades in battle. It has been too much a practice, upon outposts and battle-fields, to send back reports and calls for re-enforcements, founded upon imagination or the tales of a frightened or cowardly shirk. The fate of battle may be changed by such reports.

Officers will be held responsible that their reports from the front are perfectly reliable. Their a.tention is called to the Forty-ninth Article of War. Corps and division commanders are required to see that any officer or soldier, guilty of conduct in conflict with its provisions, or of the character reterred to in this order, is brought before a court-martial without delay.

III. Upon the march straggling must not be permitted. Corps commanders will take effectual measures to prevent it. Officers who fail to prevent it in their respective commands must be relieved and sent to the rear, and their names and the number of their regiments forwarded for publication in orders. Leaves of absence and fufloughs must also be withheld from regiments in which straggling is tolerated. Drum-head courts-martial, if necessary, can be held, for the punishment of this class of offenders.

I. V. Corps and division commanders, and assistant inspectors-general, should watch the conduct and behavior of officers and men on the march as well as in battle. Regiments not moving promptly, as ordered, permitting straggling, or where the officers show a lack of capacity and zeal in pushing forward and overcoming obstacles, must be specially reported for such neglect, in addition to other measures that may be taken by commanders in such cases for the enforcement of discipline.

By command of Major-General Hooker: