hasten the establishment of fraternal relations among all the countries of the earth.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this tenth day of April, in the year of [L. S.] our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

On the 28th of May the rebels evacuated Corinth, and were pushed southward by our pursuing forces for some twenty-five or thirty miles. General Mitchell, by a daring and most gallant enterprise in the latter part of April, took possession of Huntsville in Alabama. In February a formidable naval expedition had been fitted out under Commodore Farragut for the capture of New Orleans; and on the 18th of April the attack commenced upon Forts Jackson and St. Philip, by which the passage of the Mississippi below the city is guarded. After six days' bombardment the whole fleet passed the forts on the night of the 23d, under a terrible fire from both; and on the 25th the rebel General Lovell, who had command of the military defences of the city, withdrew, and Commodore Farra- . gut took possession of the town, which he retained until the arrival of General Butler on the 1st of May, who thereupon entered upon the discharge of his duties as commander of that Department.

During the summer a powerful rebel army, under General Bragg, invaded Kentucky for the double purpose of obtaining supplies and affording a rallying point for what they believed to be the secession sentiment of the State. In the accomplishment of the former object they were successful, but not in the latter. They lost more while in the State from desertions than they gained by recruits; and after a battle at Perryville on the 7th of October they began their retreat. On the 5th

of October a severe battle was fought at Corinth, from which a powerful rebel army attempted to drive our troops under General Rosecrans, but they were repulsed with very heavy losses, and the campaign in Kentucky and Tennessee was virtually at an end. A final effort of the enemy in that region led to a severe engagement at Murfreesborough on the 31st of December, which resulted in the defeat of the rebel forces, and in relieving Tennessee from the presence of the rebel armies.

In all the military operations of this year especial care had been taken by the Generals in command of the several Departments, acting under the general direction of the Government, to cause it to be distinctly understood that the object of the war was the preservation of the Union and the restoration of the authority of the Constitution. The rebel authorities, both civil and military, lost no opportunity of exciting the fears and resentments of the people of the Southern States, by ascribing to the National Government designs of the most ruthless and implacable hostility to their institutions and their persons. It was strenuously represented that the object of the war was to rob the Southern people of their rights and their property, and especially to set free their slaves. The Government did every thing in its power to allay the apprehensions and hostilities which these statements were calculated to produce. General Garfield, while in Kentucky, just before the victory of Mill Springs, issued on the 16th of January an address to the citizens of that section of the State, exhorting them to return to their allegiance to the Federal Government, which had never made itself injuriously felt by any one among them, and promising them full protection for their persons and their property, and full reparation for any wrongs they might have sustained. After the battle of Mill Springs the Secretary of War, under the direction of the President, issued an order of thanks to the soldiers engaged in it, in which he again announced that the "purpose of the war was to attack, pursue

and destroy a rebellious enemy, and to deliver the country from danger menaced by traitors." On the 20th of November, 1861, General Halleck, commanding the Department of the Missouri, on the eve of the advance into Tennessee, issued an order enjoining upon the troops the necessity of discipline and of order, and calling on them to prove by their acts that they came "to restore, not to violate the Constitution and the laws," and that the people of the South, under the flag of the Union, should "enjoy the same protection of life and property as in former days." "It does not belong to the military," said this order, "to decide upon the relation of master and slave. Such questions must be settled by the civil courts. No fugitive slave will, therefore, be admitted within our lines or camps except when specially ordered by the General commanding."* So also General Burnside, when about to land on the soil of North Carolina, issued an order, February 3d, 1262, calling upon the soldiers of his army to remember that they were there "to support the Constitution and the laws, to put down rebellion, and to protect the persons and property of the loyal and peaceable citizens of the State." And on the 18th of

*In regard to this order, which was afterwards severely criticised in Congress, General Halleck wrote the following letter of explanation:

HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT, OF THE MISSOURI,

December 8,

Or

MY DEAR COLONEL: Yours of the 4th instant is just received. der No. 3 was, in my mind, clearly a military necessity. Unauthorized persons, black or white, free or slaves, must be kept out of our camps, unless we are willing to publish to the enemy every thing we do, or intend to do. It was a military, and not a political order.

I am ready to carry out any lawful instructions in regard to fugitive slaves, which my superiors may give me, and to enforce any law which Congress may pass. But I cannot make law, and will not violate it. You know my private opinion on the policy of confiscating the slave property of the rebels in arms. If Congress shall pass it, you may be certain that I shall enforce it. Perhaps my policy as to the treatment of rebels and their property is as well set out in Order No. 13, issued the day your letter was written, as I could now describe it.

Hon. F. F. BLAIR, Washington.

the same month, after Fort Henry and Roanoke Island had fallen into our hands, Commodore Goldsborough and General Burnside issued a joint proclamation, denouncing as false and slanderous the attempt of the rebel leaders to impose on the credulity of the Southern people by telling them of "our desire to destroy their freedom, demolish their property, and liberate their slaves," and declaring that the Government asked only that its authority might be recognized, and that "in no way or manner did it desire to interfere with their laws, constitutionally established, their institutions of any kind whatever, their property of any sort, or their usages in any respect.' And on the 1st of March General Curtis in Arkansas had addressed a proclamation to the people of that State, denouncing as false and calumnious the statements widely circulated of the designs and sentiments of the Union armies, and declaring that they sought only "to put down rebellion by making war against those in arms, their aiders and abettors"—and that they came to "vindicate the Constitution, and to preserve and perpetuate civil and religious liberty under a flag that was embalmed in the blood of our revolutionary fathers." In all this the Government adhered, with just and rigorous fidelity, to the principles it had adopted for its conduct at the outset of the war; and in its anxiety to avoid all cause of complaint and all appearance of justification for those who were in arms against its authority, it incurred the distrust and even the denunciation of the more zealous and vehement among its own friends and supporters in the Northern States.

On the 22d of July, in order to secure unity of action among the commanders of the several military departments, upon the general use to be made of rebel property, the President directed the issue of the following order:

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, July 22, 1862. First. Ordered that military commanders within the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, in an orderly manner seize and use any property, real or personal, which may be necessary or convenient for their several commands, for supplies, or for other military purposes; and that while property may be destroyed for proper military objects, none shall bo destroyed in wantonness or malice.

Second. That military and naval commanders shall employ as laborers, within and from said States, so many persons of African descent as can be advantageously used for military or naval purposes, giving them reasonable wages for their labor.

Third. That, as to both property, and persons of African descent, accounts shall be kept sufficiently accurate and in detail to show quantities and amounts, and from whom both property and such persons shall have come, as a basis upon which compensation can be made in proper cases; and the several departments of this Government shall attend to and perform their appropriate parts towards the execution of these orders.

By order of the President:

EDWIN M. STANTON Secretary of War.

And on the 25th of July he issued the following proclamation, warning the people of the Southern States against persisting in their rebellion, under the penalties prescribed by the confiscation act passed by Congress at its preceding session:

By Order of the President of the United States.

A PROCLAMATION.

In pursuance of the sixth section of the Act of Congress, entitled "An Act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17th, 1862, and which Act, and the joint resolution explanatory thereof, are herewith published, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion, or any rebellion, against the Government of the United States, and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States, on pain of the forfeiture and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.