GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE MISSOURI, Numbers 13.
Saint Louis, Mo., December 4, 1861.

I. Lieutenant Colonel Bernard G. Farrar is hereby appointed provost-marshal-general of this department. Captain George E. Leighton is provost-marshal of the city of Saint Louis and its vicinity. All local provost-marshals will be subject to the orders of the provost-marshal-general, who will receive his instructions directs from these headquarters.

II. It is represent that there are numerous rebels and spies within our camps and in tbe territory occupied by our troops, who give information, aid, and assistance to the enemy; that rebels scattered through the country threaten and drive out loyal citizens and rob them of their property; that they furnish the enemy with arms, provisions, clothing, horses, and means of transportation; and that insurgens are banding together to robb, to maraud, and to lay waste the country. All such persons are by the laws of war, in every civilized country, liable to capital punishment. The mild and indulgent course heretofore pursued toward this class of men has utterly failed to restrain them from such unlawful conduct. The safety of the country and the protection of the lives and property of loyal citizens justify and require the enforcement of a more severe policyc. Peace and war cannot exist together. We cannot at the same time extend to rebels the rights of peace and enforce against them the penalties of war. They have forteited their civil rights as citizens by making war against the Government, and upon their own heads must fall the consequences.

III. Commanding officers of districts, posts, and corps will arrest and place in confinement all persos in arms against the lawful authorities of the United States, or who give aid, assistance, or encourgagement to the enemy. The evidence against persons so arrested will be reduced to writing and verified on oats, and the originals or certified copies of such affidavits will be immediately furnishes to the provost-marshal-general in this city. All arms, ammunition, and other personal property required for the use of the Army, such as horses, wagons, provisions, &c., belonging to persons so in arms or so assistin and encouraging the enemy, will be taken possession of, and turned over and accounted for. Such property, not of a proper character for issue, will be examined by a board of officers, and sold as directed by the Army Regulations.

IV. Commissions will be ordered from these headquarters for the trial of persons charged with aiding and assisting the enemy, the destruction of bridges, roads, and buildings, and the taking of public or private property for hostile purposes, and also for the condemnation of property taken by our forces from disloyal inhabitants for the use of the Army.

V. In all certificates given for private property taken for public use, in accordance with General Orders, Numbers 8, of this department, it will be stated whether the properly was taken from loyal or disloyal persons, and as a test of the loyalty of persons claiming to be such, from whom property is so taken, officers commanding districts, posts, divisions, or separate brigades are authorized to appoint some cometent and reliable officer to require and administer the usual oath of allegiance to the United States.

VI. All persons found in disguise as pretented loyal citizens, or under other false pretenses, withing our lines, giving information to or communicating with the enemy, will be arrested, tried, condemned, and