PROCLAMATION OF MARTIAL LAW IN MISSOURI, HEADQUARTERS, WESTERN Department, CIRCUMSTANCES, in my judgment, are of sufficient urgency to render it necessary that the commanding general of this department should assume the administrative powers of the State. Its disorganized condition, helplessness of civil authority, and the total insecurity of life and devastation of property by bands of murderers and marauders who infest nearly every county in the State, and avail themselves of public misfortunes in the vicinity of a hostile force, to gratify private and neigh borhood vengeance, and who find an enemy wherever they find plunder, finally demand the severest measures to repress the daily increasing crimes and outrages which are driving off the inhabitants and ruining the State. In this condition the public safety and success of our arms require unity of purpose, without let or hindrance, 'to the prompt administration of affairs. In order, therefore, to suppress disorders, maintain the public peace, and give security to the persons and property of loyal citizens, I do hereby extend and declare established martial law throughout the State of Missouri. The lines of the army occupation in this State are for the present declared to extend from Leavenworth, by way of posts of Jefferson City, Rolla, and Ironton, to Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi river. All persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within these lines shall be tried by court-martial, and if found guilty will be shot. Real and personal property of those who shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have taken an active part with their enemies in the field, is declared confiscated to public use, and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men. All persons who shall be proven to have destroyed, after the publication of this order, railroad tracks, bridges, or telegraph lines, shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law. All persons engaged in treasonable correspondence in giving or procuring aid to the enemy, in fomenting turmoil, and disturbing public tranquillity, by creating or circulating false reports or incendiary documents, are warned that they are exposing themselves. All persons who have been led away from allegiance, are required to return to their homes forthwith. Any such absence, without sufficient cause, will be held presumptive evidence against them. The object of this declaration is to place in the hands of military authorities power to give instantaneous effect to the existing laws, and supply such deficiencies as the conditions of the war demand, but it is not intended to suspend the ordinary tribunals of the country where law will be administrated by civil officers in the usual manner, and with their customary authority, while the same can be peaceably administered. The commanding general will labor vigilantly for the public welfare, and by his efforts for their safety hopes to obtain not only acquiescence, but active support of the people of the country. J. C. FREMONT, Major-General, Commanding Western Department. TREATMENT OF SUSPECTED UNION MEN IN VIRGINIA. TESTIMONY before the Committee on the Conduct of the War of S. A. Pancoast, a resident of Hampshire county, Virginia: I was arrested November 10th, 1861, and carried to Winchester, on the charge of having carrier-pigeons with me. I had four little tumblers, and a pair of ruffnecked pigeons, which my little son had got in Baltimore. I was for a week kept there on parole. The ProvostMarshal was acquainted with me, and resigned his situation because Jackson demanded that I should be put in prison. I was put in the guardhouse, and remained there ten days, suffering every indignity that could be put upon me. I applied for a writ of habeas corpus, and was taken to Richmond the next night. The lawyer whom I had employed, said that there was no charge against me--it was not what I had done, but what I might do; that it was in my power to injure them, and therefore I was sent to Richmond. When In Richmond I was kept in the Main Street Prison for three months, with the officers of the North. they were released I was put in prison with the citizenprisoners. There were from five to seven hundred citizens, with some soldiers. For a week or two we had no privy there, except by going down three flights of stairs. I have seen old men of seventy or eighty years of age stand from seven o'clock in the morning until twelve o'clock the next day, before they had an opportunity of going down stairs. Fifty cents and a dollar was frequently paid by those who had money, for the privilege of going down. That was the cause of our greatest suffering then. While in Libby Prison, we had soup and beef once or twice a week. When the soup was brought into the room, I have seen them pick the maggots out of it before they ate it. If they did not eat that, they would have to go without. After the battle of Williamsburg, they picked out eight or ten of us, the firmest Union men there, and carried us to Salisbury, North Carolina, where we remained about ten months. When we got there, we were put into a small building, and kept there, without being allowed the privilege of going out for any purpose; and there, again, our greatest sufferings were caused by the difficulty of attending to the calls of nature. We had a box in the room, which we were compelled to use until the stench became awful. We suffered very much during the warm weather. We were often compelled to lie so thick on the floor, that one could not turn over without all turning over. After a while, they allowed us a yard, containing five or six acres, where we were allowed to go in the day-time. At five o'clock we were compelled to return to the prison, which was then closed, and we remained in a close room until eight or nine o'clock the next morning. We could cook only in the yard-there was no chance to do so in the prison. On our way from Richmond to Salisbury, we were seated on benches without backs (among us was an old man between seventy and eighty years of age), and compelled to sit there for fifty-three hours: for the guard had positive orders to shoot any of us who should stand up. I think that ride sent a great many old men to their graves. They never recovered from it. With the exception of the chills-and-fever of the country, we got along there a great deal better than we did in Richmond. The deaths were not so frequent. After Mr. Wood, Su perintendent of the Old Capitol Prison, Washington, D. C., returned from his visit to Salisbury, we were made to suffer very much because we acknowledged that we were Union men. We were kept in close confinement from five o'clock in the evening until eight or nine o'clock the next morning, without any fire all, through the cold weather of the fall. From that exposure I was taken with inflammatory rheumatism, and suffered very much; and at last a surgeon, who was very kind to me, had me placed in a building out in the yard. But this was not done until they said that there was no hope of my living long. For six or eight weeks I could not get up, or dress or undress myself without assistance. At Richmond we had a loaf of bread, and it was always good; but at Salisbury the bread was always sour--but with the exception of the bread, our food at Salisbury was better than at Richmond. We had a small allowance however-from seven to fourteen ounces of food-for the twenty-four hours. If we got fourteen ounces, we thought that we were doing very well indeed. While in prison in Richmond, a lot of "Louisiana Tigers," sentenced to confinement with ball and chain, were put in prison with us, and they abused us most shamefully. And at Salisbury, where we had a yard, the guard around the fence would strike and punch at us with their bayonets if we got near enough the fence for them to reach us. This they would do every chance they could get. And while in the prison, the guard below would, at times, discharge their muskets up at the floor under our feet, and the balls would pass up among us. was done several times. Since the 1st of August, a year ago, until we came away, we buried one hundred and sixtyseven of our Union prisoners. The death of these men This |