intend to have any land force to co-operate in the operations at Vicksburg. Please inform me immediately, inasmuch as orders he intends to give will depend on your answer.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

CORINTH, MISS., July 15, 1862-10.40 a.m.

Hon. E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

I cannot at present give Commodore Farragut any aid against Vicksburg. I am sending re-enforcements to General Curtis in Arkansas and to General Buell in Tennessee and Kentucky.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General.

HDQRS. FIRST DIST., DEPT. OF MISS. AND EAST LA.,
Tangipahoa, La., July 15, 1862.

Major-General BUTLER,

Commanding United States Forces, New Orleans, La.:

GENERAL: I have received petitions from officers of the First Regiment Louisiana Partisan Rangers touching the case of Henry Castle, jr., a private of Company H, of that regiment, and also an application respecting Thomas C. Pennington, a private of Captain Wilson Tate's company, of the same regiment, and I deem it expedient to request your early consideration of the subject.

It appears that Private Castle was captured by a detachment of Federal troops in the vicinity of Baton Rouge on or about the 7th of the present month and Private Pennington on or about the 28th day of June; that they were taken to New Orleans, and are held either there or at one of the forts in the vicinity in close confinement, with the threat that they are to be tried and executed as members of a military organization not sanctioned by the laws of civilized warfare. It is to be observed that the first great law of nature, the right of self-defense, is inherent in communities as well as individuals. No law condemns the individual who slays the robber or the assassin, and no just law can condemn a community for using all its power to resist the invader and drive him from their soil. The exercise of this right, so universally recognized, becomes an imperative duty when the invader, as has been the case with the Federal troops in this district, disregards those rules of warfare recognized and respected by all civilized nations and adopts that code which has heretofore been confined to the rudest savages.

The proof of this i unfortunately too abundant in the vicinity of Baton Rouge. It is attested by helpless women and children flying from their burning homes; by the desolation of plantations; by the plunder of private property, and the wanton destruction of growing crops. Such acts are crimes against humanity, and justify all men in taking up arms against their perpetrators.

The independence of nations has rarely been achieved by regular armies. Our own Revolution-that Revolution which successfully established the great principle for which the Confederate States are now contending, that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"--was mainly fought out by men who left the