press, in violation of the Army Regulations and repeated general orders? The imputation must rest upon the two officers concerned until they account for the publication.

III. Information is almost daily furnished to the public press respecting army movements which should be known only to the general giving the orders and to the officer receiving them. Knowledge thus given to the enemy may sometimes coast us the lives of thousands. Moreover, the contents of official letters, which should have been known only to the writer and to those superior in rank, have been published, together with ex-parte statements and misrepresentations. The law and Army Regulations afford a remedy for all personal grievances, no matter by whom they hae been caused, and when military officers carry their complaints to newspapers the inference is that they are without foundation. Hereafter any officer who publishes, without proper authority, any information respecting the movements of our armies, even of battles won or any official papers, will be arrested and tried by a court-martial, and the Secretary of War has directed that the whole edition of the newspaper publishing such information be seized and destroyed.

IV. It is officially represented to the commanding general that certain parties in this city and elsewhere have been negotiating with companies and regiments originally, perhaps, irregularly organized, to obtain for a certain price their disbandment or discharge, and encouraging expressions of dissatisfaction and mutinous conduct as a means to accomplish that end. An investigation of this matter will be made immediately, and the provost-marshal-general will arrest guilty parties and confine them in the military prison until they can be tried and punished as prescribe by the Rules and Articles of War.

By command of Major-General Halleck:

N. H. McLEAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS ARMY IN THE FIELD, Numbers 42a.
Commerce, Mo., February 26[28], 1862.

Brigadier General Schuyler Hamilton, U. S. Volunteers, is assigned to the command of the First Division of this army.

By order of General Pope:

SPEED BUTLER,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

CAIRO, ILL., February 27, 1862.

General HALLECK:

Pope has fourteen pieces of artillery. Should have two batteries more. Will they reach him from Saint Louis to-morrow? If not, must spare some from here. He wants Steele with a force to cover his flank at Oak Grove.

G. W. CULLUM,

Brigadier-General.