facts reported to the War Department for its action. It was their duty to compel the enemy to guard them, so as to prevent an escape or recapture, and not to relieve him from that difficulty by an agreement. All paroled soldiers will be returned to the ranks and paroled officers reported for disobedience of orders. If Morgan's forces are disposed of you will keep all your available troops in readiness to send to Middle Tennessee and North Alabama should Forrest appear in that direction. *

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General and Chief of Staff.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, Big Shanty, Ga., June 21, 1864.

General BURBRIDGE,
Commanding District of Kentucky:

GENERAL: The recent raid of Morgan and the concurrent acts of men styling themselves Confederate partisans or guerrillas call for determined action on you part. Even on the southern "States Rights" theory Kentucky has not seceded. Her people by their vote and by their actions have adhered to their allegiance to the National Government, and the South would now coerce her out of our Union and into theirs, the very dogma of coercion upon which so much stress was laid at the outset of the war and which carried into rebellion the people of the middle or border slave States. But politics aside, these acts of the so-called partisans or guerrillas are nothing but simple murder, horse-stealing, arson, and other well defined crimes, which do not sound as well under their true names as the more agreeable ones of warlike meaning. Now, before starting on this campaign, I foresaw, as you remember, that this very case would arise, and I asked Governor Bramlette to at once organize in each county a small trustworthy band, under the sheriff, if possible, and at on dash arrest every man in the community who was dangerous to it, and also every fellow hanging about the towns, villages, and cross-roads, who had not honest calling, the material out of which guerrillas are made up, but this sweeping exhibition of power doubtless seemed to the Governor rather arbitrary. The fact is in our country personal liberty has been so well secured that public safety is lost sight of in our laws and constitutions, and the fact is we are thrown back a hundred years in civilization, law, and everything else, and will go right straight to anarchy and the devil if somebody don't arrest our downward progress. We, the military, must do it, and we have right and law on our side. All Governments and communities have a right to guard against real or even supposed danger. The whole people of Kentucky must not be kept in a state of suspense and real danger lest a few men should be wrongfully accused. First. You may order all your post and district commanders that guerrillas are not soldiers but wild beasts unknown to the usages of war. To be recognized, as soldiers they must be enlisted, enrolled, officered, uniformed, armed, and equipped by some recognized belligerent power, and must, if detached from a main army, be of sufficient strength, with written orders from some army commander, to do some military thing. Of course we have recognized the Confederate Government as a belligerent power, but deny their right to our lands, territories,

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*This in answer to Burbridge of June 20, Part I, p. 20. For Burbridge's reply to Halleck, June 23, see Part I, p. 21; also p. 141, post.

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