2nd. On the subject of the publication in the Richmond Dispatch of two articles signed "Bohemian," I share your indignation at such an outrageous breach of duty of both the writer and publisher. I have anxiously sought for some means of punishing the offense, but the state of the law is such as to give no remedy for this wrong through the courts of justice, and I have appealed to the Military Committee of Congress for some legislation to protect the Army and the country against the great evils resulting from such publications. Judge Harris, the chairman of the committee, has promised to report a bill for the purpose..

In this connection allow me to say that I thin some of the mischief from this too-frequent offense arouses from your own too lenient toleration of the presence of newspaper reporters within your lines. I will do all I can to help you, but the application of military regulations within the Army will be much more efficacious than any attempt at punishment by jury trial. I feel persuaded that this man Shepardson is a spy, and would be found guilty as such by a court-martial; and if he is caught again within your camp I trust you will bring him to prompt trial as a spy. But if I arrest him here will at once be liberated by habeas, corpus, and I will be unable to secure his proper punishment. His offense is a military one and ought to be summarily repressed by a military trial.

I beg also to call your attention to a practice that is becoming too prevalent, of sending here prisoners arrested on suspicion of being disloyal. I have no means of enforcing their confinement, and am compelled to discharge them as fast as they com, or the judges would certainly do it by habeas corpus. But military commanders have the right to arrest and keep in confinement all dangerous or suspected persons prowling about their camps. It is, I know a little troublesome to be burdened with this class of prisoners in camp, but I see nothing else against them; without any proof or witnesses, and I am utterly power-less to hold them for you. I can only, therefore, urge upon you a stricter and less lenient application of military as the sole resource I see for repressing this growing mischief.

I am, your obedient servant,

J. P. BENJAMIN,

Secretary of War.

HEADQUARTERS FIRST CORPS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
Near Centreville, January 6, 1862.

Brigadier General D. H. HILL, Commanding C. S. Forces, Leesburg:

GENERAL: Your letter of this date has been received and communicated to the general commanding, whose instructions in the premises are the following:

You are not expected to hold the works under construction, unless all three of them shall, at the time of the emergency, be so far completed as to satisfy you that they are defensible for about a week with, say, one regiment of your forces and such local volunteer troops and militia as you can muster meanwhile. There must not be an attempt to hold the works on the eve of an assault or investment before they are in a tenable condition.