The right of citizens to keep and carry arms for self-defenses will be recognized, and no permits or protection from these headquarters will be required.

Citizens can pass through the adjacent country, hunting and gaming without fear of molestation.

No scouting or raiding parties will be sent into any peaceable or quiet neighborhood. Past offenses must be forgiven, old hatreds buried, animosities laid aside, and a spirit of reconciliation rule.

The policy set forth in this order is not the general policy which is to prevail throughout the department or in the region around Huntsville. All rebel soldiers, guerrillas, and bushwhackers who are being paroled and becoming citizens by hundreds have not the right to keep and carry arms and to pass through the country hunting and gaming.

Passes will still be required by these headquarters of citizens traveling through the country. All past offenses, such as robbery, murder, arson, theft, and rape, are not forgiven and to be passed over by the military authorities in regions where there is no civil law to punish the offenders. The country is not yet ready for such a state of affairs as Colonel Horner's order presupposes. The bars are not yet thrown down and all military restraint removed from the country. Will you please regulate the matters referred to in Hunstville and vicinity.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WM. D. WHIPPLE,

Brigadier-General and Chief of Staff.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 6, 1865-11 a.m.

Major-General THOMAS,

Nashville, Tenn.:

You need not send pontoon with Fourth Corps. Send General Pope a pontoon train.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE CUMBERLAND, Numbers 53.
Nashville, Tenn., June 6, 1865.

* * * * *

VIII. Bvt. Major General E. Upton is hereby charged with the superintendence of the mustering out and organization of all cavalry of the Cavalry Corps, Military Division of the Mississippi, that comes under the provisions of recent orders from the War Department providing for the mustering out of the cavalry. General Upton will receive his orders direct from these headquarters.

* * * * * *

By command of Major-General Thomas:

HENRY M. CIST,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS FOURTH ARMY CORPS,

Camp Harker, Tenn., June 6, 1865.

Brigadier-General KIMBALL:

GENERAL: From several persons interested the suggestion has been made that before the dispersion of the Army of the Cumberland a

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