shown me. I shall next week take my place in the Army. I know that I shall like it and am determined to follow it. My heart has always been in its contest, and whatever influence I may possess politically at home or in our State at large has been uniformly exercised to sustain the Government without any reservation. After familiarity with military duties I will ask you to aid me to a permanent position in the regular Army.

With renewed assurance of my friendship to you, I am, yours, truly,

WM. H. LUDLOW.

HEADQUARTERS DIVISION, Baltimore, Md., November 28, 1861.

Brigadier General H. H. LOCKWOOD, Commanding Eastern Shore.

GENERAL: Your dispatches of the 26th instant* by Captain Knight are received. It is natural that our Union friends in Accomac County should feel nervous and desire to get rid of their late oppressors. While we look calmly and dispassionately to important and more remote results we must do all we can consistently with our public pledges to the people of Accomac and Northampton to give courage to those who desire to place the affairs of the counties on their former footing. In the language of the proclamation the Government asks that its authority may be recognized. In pursuance of this purpose we have a right to require as you have done that those who are in the execution of public trusts should take the oath of allegiance. If they refuse they decline to recognize the authority of the Government, and can claim none of the benefits or immunities promised by the proclamation. On the contrary by seeking to defeat the very object for which the expedition was sent into these counties they array themselves against the Government and cannot expect to be treated as friends. If the county clerk as is alleged has openly exerted his influence to dissuade the magistrates from taking the oath of allegiance he should be arrested for an overt act of hostility to the Government.

The rules by which you should be governed may be stated briefly as follows:

1. No arrests should be made for acts done before the proclamation was published.

2. No man should be disturbed who acquiesces in the authority of the Government no matter how cold or reluctant or sullen his submission.

3. Any person who exerts his influence to dissuade individuals from attending the meetings of the people called to declare their allegiance to the United States cannot for the reasons assigned by considered as entitled to the benefits and immunities promised by the proclamation. On the contrary he is to be regarded a dealt with at your discretion.

4. Any person who at any such meeting resists a proposition to declare the allegiance of the two counties to the United States can only be regarded as an adherent of the rebel Government and coming within the category of No. 3.

5. The twenty persons who have been named to you as deserving arrest should be watched, and at the very first indication of hostility to the Government they should be taken into custody. But if they have submitted in good faith they entitled to the protection pledged by the proclamation. It must, however, be a real and not a pretended submission. It must be exemplified by an abstinence in fact from all

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*Not found.

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