[Inclosures.]

A.

COLUMBUS, MISS., December 7, 1863.

Captain J. T. NETTERSVILLE,

Woodville, via Summit, Miss.:

Your company is assigned to special service in Conscript Bureau, and no one has authority to order you to other duty; besides, your company is a part of my command, raised under special authority, and Colonel Powers nor any other colonel has anything to do with you. Don't quit your present service under orders from any one, nor allow yourself to be bullied into an act against all law, regulations, and principles. Don't obey the order. No one can harm you.

JONES S. HAMILTON.

ENTERPRISE, MISS., December 7, 1863.

Captain J. T. NETTERVILLE,

Summit:

I placed you on duty at the request of your commander, Colonel Jones S. Hamilton. I know [nothing] of your status except from him. I will send your dispatch to him. Colonel Powers has nothing to do with conscription in this State. I would continue to act until further orders from Colonel Hamilton.

D. O. MERWIN,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.

STATE OF MISSISSIPPI,

Wilkinson County:

I charge Lieutenant James Waller, of J. T. Netterville's company, of this county, with the hanging of my negro man Harklas, at the plantation of J. A. Row, on Sunday night, the 6th of December, without proper authority or any just cause that is known to me, greatly to my damage, not only the loss of the negro hung, but the loss of two other valuable negro men that left the night of the hanging, believing that the cavalry were going to hang all of the negroes that had returned from the Yankees.

Mr. Row had given Harklas permission to have a wife at his place, without my knowledge or consent, some three or four years since, Row knowing at the time that I do not allow my people to have a wife off of my place. Harklas went to the Yankees some time in June last, at Port Hudson; he returned about the 20th of August. Harklas was forty-five years old; I do not think he had ever been in the Yankee army. On his (Harklas') return home Row urged me to do something with him for fear he would leave again and take off his family. I could see nothing to justify his fears, therefore I took no notice of it. For the last six weeks before the hanging, so far as could [be] judged, he was conducting himself very well; neither had I heard any complaint of him from any one.

J. M. DE LOACH.

Witnesses: J. A. Row, James Levay, citizens; J. N. Morris, A. P. Ashly, Richard Inge, Allen Broom, privates.