William T. Sherman to Eeee, February 23, 1863

_ HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Camp near Vicksburg, February 23, 1863.

Col. Joon A. RAWLINS, Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Tennessee : COLONEL: General Orders, No. 13, from your headquarters, of date February 19, 1863, involves certain principles that I think should be settled by the highest authority of our Government, and I beg most respectfully their reference, through the Judge Advocate-General, to the Commander-in-Chief. The findings on the third charge, first specification, are, the facts

proven as stated, but attaches no criminality thereto,” viz, that the accused knowingly and willfully disobeyed the lawful command of the — proper authority by accompanying the expedition down the Mississippi below Helena. The inference is that a commanding officer has no right to prohibit citizens from accompanying « military expedition, or, if he does, such citizens incur no criminality by disregarding such command. The finding of the first specification, first charge, ‘Guilty, except the words ‘thereby conveying to the enemy an approximate estimate of its strength, in direct violation of the Fifty-seventh Article of War,’” involves the principle that publication of army organization and strength in a paper having the circulation South and North of the New York Herald does not amount to an indirect conveyance of intelligence to an enemy.

I regard these two points as vital to our success as an army contending against an enemy who has every advantage of us in position and means of intelligence. I do not expect that any court-martial or any officer should do, or attempt todo, an unlawful act, but I do believe the laws of Congress and of war clearly cover both these points, and believing that the true interest of the Government and of our people demand a radical change in this respect, I avail myself of this means to invite their earnest consideration of the issues involved.

If a commanding officer cannot exclude from his camp the very class of men which an enemy would select as spies and informers, and if to prove the conveyance of indirect information to the enemy it be necessary to follow that information from its source to the very armies arrayed against us, whose country thus far our hundreds of thousands o1 men have been unable to invade, and yet whose newspapers are made up of extracts from these very Northern papers, then it is fruitless to attempt to conceal from them all the data they could need to make successful resistance to our plans, and to attack our detached parties and lines of communication. To this cause may well be attributed the past reverses to our armies and the failure of almost every plan devised by our generals. I believe this cause has lost us millions of money, thousands of lives, and will continue to defeat us to the end of time, unless some remedy be devised.

with great respect,

Major-General, Commanding.
—EEEE

Milliken’s Bend, La., April 6, 1863.
Major-General SHERMAN:
Inclosed please find copy of the order of the President authorizing
me to return to this department, and to remain, with General Grant’s