Richmond, and then moved northward, to the final rendezvous at the Capital. It is said that when our brave fellows first caught sight of the dome of the Capitol at Washington, they broke out into spontaneous cheers, and could not control their emotion. Howard was at Richmond on the 8th, with the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, constituting the left wing of Shorman's army, which he has so ably commanded, and at the last accounts was moving upon Alexandria. Gibbons's Twenty-fourth Corps was to remain for the present at Richmond. Weitzel with the Twenty-fifth was to form a camp of instruction at City Point. How far the Army will be disbanded is not yet stated, but we are sure that in the present unsettled state of things, a large force will be kept in the field. Camps of instruction will be formed, thorough system introduced, and strict discipline established and enforced. Before this number appears, the great reviews, ordered by General Grant, will have taken place at Washington: that of the Army of the Potomac and Sheridan's cavalry, on Tuesday, May 23d, and that of Sherman's army on Wednesday— all passing in review before the President and General Grant, at the White House. A glorious sight this, to those who are able to see it-the march of two hundred thousand men-not holiday soldiers in "purple and fine linen," but war-worn veterans of a hundred fights, who have redeemed their pledge, and saved their country; now, if never before, "the finest army on the planet," since the planet began its revolutions! The next step in our progress will be that of reconstruction, which will be accomplished, we think, by the coming in of State after State, upon the terms dictated by the Government. Indeed, this is already begun. Virginia is being reconstructed under Governor Pierpont, and a convention to the same end will be called at once in North Carolina. Others will soon follow. The pirate Stonewall, now indeed a pirate, without controversy, if she continue her cruise, left Teneriffe on the 1st of April; was at Bermuda on the 26th; tried to pass the bar at Nassau, and failed; and was reported at Havana on the 11th of May. It is to be hoped our vessels will treat her as the poet did the "last rose of summer," which she closely resembles. FOREIGN AND INTERNATIONAL. The news of Mr. Lincoln's death has been received with emotions of profound sorrow and expressions of detestation at the anomalous crime. From France, from Italy, and all the Continental countries, we have messages of sympathy and condolence; but we confess to a particular pleasure in the outspoken and hearty sympathy of the English people, from the Queen on her throne to the humblest subject, who has learned by hearsay what he is not able to read. In Parliament, the Lords speak through Palmerston and Derby, while the refined rhetoric of D'Israeli gives utterance to the feelings of the Commons. Our loss is but another illustration of that "one touch of nature" which "makes the whole world kin." The Mexican question is assuming very serious proportions. Maximilian is very unpopular, both at home and abroad. The patriots are gathering thickly around his French skirts, and a cloud is arising in the North, incident to the collapse of our rebellion, which may well give him great concern. When the question is asked, "What is to be done with our disbanded men?" our answer is 66 Mexico!" But to this we shall refer at length hereafter, only hinting now that, as we have never recognized the government of Maximilian, we shall hardly feel obliged to hinder our discharged soldiers from going quietly, even in considerable bodies, to join the Liberals in putting down the Imperialists and destroying the Empire. PERSONAL ITEMS. Major-General G. K. Warren has been appointed to the command of the Department of the Mississippi, relieving Major-General N. J. T. Dana. Brigadier-General E. A. Carr has been brevetted Major-General for distinguished services. We are glad to learn that Captain James F. Rusling, Assistant Quartermaster, has been promoted to the rank of Colonel and Inspector of the Quartermaster's Department. Colonel Rusling entered the service in August, 1861, as Regimental Quartermaster of the 5th New Jersey Volunteers. He was subsequently appointed Captain and Assistant Quartermaster, and served as Brigade Quartermaster during the Peninsular Campaign. He was then assigned, as Division Quartermaster, to the Second Division, Third Corps, Hooker's old Division. He afterwards served as Corps Quartermaster, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, with the Third Corps. Afterwards he was assigned to duty at Head-Quarters of the Army of the Potomac, as Inspector of Transportation of the Army. Later he was transferred from the Army of the Potomac and assigned to duty in this city, in the office of General Donaldson, Chief Quartermaster. Colonel Rusling is one of the most talented young officers in the Army. Notwithstanding the heavy drafts upon his time by the pressing duties incident to the great campaigns of Sherman and Thomas, he has contributed a valuable paper to the UNITED STATES SERVICE MAGAZINE, on the Quartermaster's Department of the Army, which will take its place in history, and be referred to for the many important facts it contains. No one can read it without realizing how much the nation owes to the ability and energy with which the Quartermaster's Department has been conducted.-Nashville Union. Colonel Stewart L. Woodford, Chief of Staff to Major-General Gillmore, has been brevetted Brigadier-General. Colonel N. B. Sweitzer, 16th New York Cavalry, has been brevetted BrigadierGeneral. Colonel J. L. Thompson, 1st New Hampshire Cavalry, has been brevetted Brigadier-General. Colonel R. D. Mussey, 100th United States Colored Troops, has been brevetted Brigadier-General. Brevet Major-General Merritt, of the cavalry, has been appointed to a full MajorGeneralship, to date from the 9th of April. Colonel Lewis E. Parsons, Assistant Quartermaster at St. Louis, has been promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General, in charge of the Bureau of Transportation at Washington. Ordered, OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. The Army. The Old Flag of Fort Sumter. [General Orders, No. 50.] WAR DEPARTMENT, I. That, at the hour of noon, on the 14th day of April, 1865, Brevet Major-General Anderson will raise and plant upon the ruins of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, the same United States flag which floated over the battlements of that fort during the rebel assault, and which was lowered and saluted by him and the small force of his command when the works were evacuated on the 14th day of April, 1861. II. That the flag, when raised, be saluted by one hundred guns from Fort Sumter, and by a national salute from every fort and rebel battery that fired upon Fort Sumter. III. That suitable ceremonies be had upon the occasion, under the direction of Major-General William T. Sherman, whose military operations compelled the rebels to evacuate Charleston, or, in his absence, under the charge of Major-General Q. A. Gillmore, commanding the Department. Among the ceremonies will be the delivery of a public address by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. IV. That the naval forces at Charleston, and their commander on that station, be invited to participate in the ceremonies of the occasion. By order of the President of the United States: Opinion EDWIN M. STANTON, UPON QUESTIONS GROWING OUT OF THE CAPITULATION BETWEEN GENERAL GRANT SIR-I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22d of April. In it you ask me three questions, growing out of the capitulation made betwixt General Grant, of the United States Army, and General Lee, of the rebel First. Whether rebel officers who once resided in the city of Washington, and went to Virginia, or elsewhere in the South, and took service, can return to the city under stipulations of the capitulation, and reside here as their homes? Second.-Whether persons who resided in Washington about the time the rebellion broke out, left the city and went to Richmond, where they have adhered to the rebel cause, entered into the civil service, or otherwise given it their support, comfort, and aid, can return to Washington, since the capitulation of General Lee's army, and the capture of Richmond, and reside here under the terms of the capitu. lation ? Third. You state that since the capitulation of General Lee's army, rebel officers have appeared in public in the loyal States, wearing the rebel uniform; and you ask whether such conduct is not a fresh act of hostility, on their part, to the United States, subjecting them to be dealt with as avowed enemies of the Government? Your letter is accompanied with a copy of the terms of capitulation entered into betwixt Generals Grant and Lee. It is as follows: "Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate; one copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property, to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me [General Grant] to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside." I. In giving construction to these articles of capitulation, we must consider in what capacity General Grant was speaking. He, of course, spoke by the authority of the President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States. It must be presumed that he had no authority from the President, except such as the Commander-in-Chief could give to a military officer. The President performs two functions of the Government-one civil, the other military. As President of the United States and its civil head, he possesses the pardoning power. As President of the United States, he is Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States, and is the head of its belligerent power. His power to pardon as a civil magistrate cannot be delegated; it is a personal trust, inseparably connected with the office of President. As Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States, he has, of necessity, to delegate a vast amount of power. Regarding General Grant, then, purely as a military officer, and that he was speaking as one possessing no power except belligerent, and considering that fact to be well known to the belligerents with whom he was making the stipulation, let us come to the consideration of the first question which you have propounded. It must be observed that the question is not as to the extent of the power that the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armies, possesses; it is not whether he, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States, could grant parole by virtue of his military authority to rebels to go to and reside in loyal communities, communities that had not been in rebellion against the Government of the United States; but the question is, whether by and under the terms of the stipulations, he has granted such permissions. In the cases in 2 Black., commonly called the Prize Cases, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the rebels were belligerents; that this was no loose, unorganized insurrection, without defined boundary, but that it had a boundary marked by lines of bayonets, which can only be crossed by force; that south of that line is enemy's territory, because claimed and held by an organized hostile and belligerent power; that all persons residing within that territory must be treated as enemies, though not foreigners; and it is well settled that all persons going there without license, pending the hostilities, or remaining there after hostilities commenced, must be regarded and treated as residents of that territory. It follows, as a matter of course, that residents of the territory in rebellion cannot be regarded as having homes in the loyal States. A man's home and his residence cannot be distinct the one from the other. The rebels were dealt with by General Grant as belligerents. As belligerents, their homes were of necessity in the territory belligerent to the Government of the United States. The officers and soldiers of General Lee's army, then, who had homes, prior to the rebellion, in the Northern States, took up their residences within the rebel States, and abandoned their homes in the loyal States; and when General Grant gave permission to them, by the stipulation, to return to their homes, it cannot be understood as a permission to return to any part of the loyal States. That was a capitulation of surrender, and not a truee. Vattel lays it down that (p. 411) "during the truce, especially if made for a long period, it is naturally allowable for enemies to pass and repass to and from each other's country, in the same manner as it is allowed in time of peace, since all hostilities are now suspended. But each of the sovereigns is at liberty, as he would be in time of peace, to adopt every precaution which may be necessary to prevent this intercourse from becoming prejudicial to him. He has just grounds of suspicion against people with whom he is soon to recommence hostilities. He may even declare, at the time of making the truce, that he will admit none of the enemy into any place under his jurisdiction. "Those who, having entered the enemy's territories during the truce, are detained there by sickness, or any other unsurmountable obstacle, and thus happen to remain in the country after the expiration of the armistice, may, in strict justice, be kept prisoners; it is an accident which they might have foreseen, and to which they have, of their own accord, exposed themselves; but humanity and generosity commonly require that they should be allowed a sufficient term for their departure. "If the articles of truce contain any conditions either more extensive or more narrowly restrictive than what we have here laid down, the transaction becomes a particular convention. It is obligatory on the contracting parties, who are bound to observe what they have promised in due form; and the obligations thence resulting constitute a conventional right." Now, if the rights of enemies, during a long truce and suspension of hostilities are thus restricted, it would seem evident that their rights under a capitulation of surrender, without any suspension of hostilities, could not, without express words in the stipulation to that effect, be any thing like as large as under a truce and sus pension of hostilities. Regarding General Grant, then, as speaking simply as a soldier, and with the powers of a soldier; regarding this war as a territorial war, and all persons within that territory as residents thereof, and, as such, enemies of the Government; and looking to the language of the stipulation, I am of opinion that the rebel officers who surrendered to General Grant have no homes within the loyal States, and have no right to come to places which were their homes prior to their going into the rebellion. II. As to your second question. The stipulation of surrender made betwixt Generals Grant and Lee does not embrace any persons other than the officers and soldiers of General Lee's army. Persons in the civil service of the rebellion, or who had otherwise given it support, comfort, and aid, and were residents of the rebel territory, certainly have no right to return to Washington under that stipulation. III. As to the third question. My answer to the first is a complete answer to this. Rebel officers certainly have no right to be wearing their uniforms in any of the loyal States. It seems to me that such officers, having done wrong in coming into the loyal States, are but adding insult to injury in wearing their uniforms. They have as much right to bear the traitors' flag through the streets of a loyal city as to wear a traitor's garb. The stipulation of surrender permits no such thing, and the wearing of such uniform is an act of hostility against the Government. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Reduction of Expenses. [General Orders, No. 24]. JAMES SPEED, Attorney-General WASHINGTON, D. C., April 29, 1865. I. In carrying out the provisions of General Orders No. 77, from the War Department, Adjutant-General's Office, dated 28th April, 1865, so far as relates to the Quartermaster's Department, all chartered steamers, both ocean and river, which, under the new military situation, can be spared, will be discharged immediately. II. Ocean steamers, at distant ports, will be loaded with the supplies which are no longer needed at such ports, and returned either to the dépôts of New York or of Washington. III. Troops under orders to return North will be transported in the returning steamers, or in the steamers which are the property of the Department. IV. The chiefs of divisions of this office, and the chiefs of the principal dépôts, will immediately report to the Quartermaster-General the extent of the reduction which they are able to make in the force of laborers, operatives, clerks, and agents, under their command. V. It is understood that troops will be made available for most of the work at the dépôts, and that thus very large reductions in the rolls of employés will be possible. |