invasions and to adopt the measures requisite to employ this force with the utmost advantage for that end. In the fulfillment of this office he may not make unreasonable or vexatious searches and seizures nor unduly restrain liberty or take life, but the same act may be reasonable at one time and under one class of circumstances and be vexatious and wrongful under another. In all his proceedings he and his agents are responsible for acts not justified by the scope of his public duty.

In the war in which we are engaged circumstances are assembled which have scarcely ever been seen engaged circumstances are assembled which have scarcely ever been seen before together. The entire military population of the Confederacy has been appropriated by law for the public defense, and before another year expires probably all will be called into service. Our enemy is seeking to find an ally among those in our own household and to add a servile to the horrors of a civil war. Civil administration is everywhere relaxed, and had lost much of its energy, and our entire Confederacy is like a city in a state of siege, cut off from all intercourse with foreign nations and invaded by superior force at every assailable point. Military administration at such places as are within the scope of military operations and supplies and upon the lines of military communication in the very nature of the situation must have liberal extent. In so far as it affects citizens who do not belong to the army it should be marked with sobriety, discretion, and deference for personal rights. No advantage should be taken of the exigencies of the time to inflict any injustice.

In respect to the city of Atlanta there can be but little difficulty in proceeding upon the principles laid down. The object of the proclamation there was to secure the safety of the hospitals, public stores, railroad communication, the discipline of the troops in transitu, and to collect deserters and absentees along the railroads and guard against espionage on the part of the enemy. The provost guard was places there to enable the officer to accomplish these objects, and the regulations to be adopted must be suitable to these ends.

In accomplishing them some regulation of that unlimited freedom of intercourse and traffic which exists in time of peace has been found to be proper, and some expropriation of private property for public use essential; but it has been the anxious desire of this Department that no substantial invasion of the great principles of constitutional liberty should occur, that no injustice should be suffered, and that as little of personal inconvenience endured as the circumstances would permit.

The Department takes this occasion to impress upon you, as it has done upon others situated like yourself, to be constantly mindful of these things in all your administration.

Very respectfully,

J. A. CAMPBELL,

Acting Secretary of War.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE,

No. 2. Murfreesborough, Tenn., October 28, 1862.

I. The staff of the major-general commanding is announces as follows; Lieutenant Colonel John A. Buckner, assistant adjutant-general; Captain Thomas T. Hawkins, aide-de-camp; Lieutenant J. Cabell Breckinridge, aide-de-camp; Major James Wilson, assistant inspector general; Major Calhoun Benham, assistant inspector-general; Major R. E. Graves, chief of artillery.

II. Brigadier-General Forrest will take command of the cavalry and two batteries to be assigned to him by the chief of artillery. He will