HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, In the Field, Big Shanty, June 21, 1864.

Major-General ROUSSEAU,
Nashville:

I send you a copy of a letter* written to General Burbridge, which you may apply to your command also. It is time we would cease to tolerate in our midst a class of people who serve as spies and information, and who encourage expeditions of the enemy's irregular cavalry, styled guerrillas.

I am, &c.,

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General, Commanding.

(Letters of similar purport to Generals Thomas, McPherson, Schofield, and Washburn.

KNOXVILLE, [June 21, 1864].

Lieutenant Colonel G. M. BASCOM,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Ohio:

COLONEL: In a communication from C. A. Dana, Assistant Adjutant Secretary of War, to Major General W. T. Sherman, commanding Military DIVISION of the Mississippi, of 15th April, 1864, in reply to an inquiry from this office of March 22, as to the full meaning of that clause of the amnesty proclamation issued by the President on 8th December, 1863, and which excludes from its benefits "all who are or shall have been civil or diplomatic agents of the so- called Confederate Government," it is stated that postmasters and other State and county officers engaged in the service of that organization are excluded. I would respectfully state that anterior to the receipt of that communication officers of the State of Tennessee and of the various counties were considered as belonging solely to the State organization, as being separate and distinct from those who received their appointments and commissions from the so-called Confederate Government, and many of them were permitted to take the amnesty oath. In East Tennessee quite a large number of the county offices were filled by loyal men, who were elected by the Union voters in order to keep them from falling into the hands of rebel sympathizers, and with the desire of continuing the reins of government in the hands of true men. As I understand the letter of Mr. Dana, even that class of men are excluded from the benefits of the President's offer of amnesty, and can only be restored to their right of citizenship on special application to the President for pardon. In the class mentioned are not a few of the warmest and truest men of the Government in East Tennessee. In this connection I would mention the case of Chancellor S. J. Luckey, of the eastern judicial DIVISION of the State, who was elected by the Union vote of East Tennessee over secession opponents, whose loyalty has been patent to all the people, and who was arrested by the rebel authorities under charge of treason after his re-election, and was only released on giving bonds to keep the peace, I should not again trouble the authorities on this subject but for the fact that I imagine they are not fully acquainted with the true position occupied by numbers of Union men in East Tennessee who were compromised in the way and for the reason already mentioned, as well as from the further fact that I have noticed that Judge David D. Patterson, of Greenville, East

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*Seen Sherman to Burbridge, June 21, p. 135.

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