[The commission met and adjourned from time to time, disposing of such business as was brought before it, till May 6, which was of its sittings the]

TWELFTH DAY.

CINCINNATI, OHIO, Wednesday, May 6, 1863.

The commission met pursuant to adjournment.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO. Numbers 161.
Cincinnati, Ohio, May 5, 1863.

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III. Captain W. H. French, commissary of subsistence, is hereby relieved from duty as a member of the military commission convened by paragraph IV, of Special orders, Numbers 135, current series, from these headquarters and of which Brigadier General Robert B. Potter is president.

IV. Colonel John F. De Courcy, Sixteenth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, is hereby assigned to duty as a member of the military commission convened by paragraph IV, of Special Orders, Numbers 135, current series, from these headquarters, and of which Brigadier General Robert B. Potter is president.

By command of Major-General Burnside:

W. P. ANDERSON.

Assistant Adjutant-General.

Present, General Potter, Lieutenant-Colonel Goodrich, Major Brown, Captain Lyding, Colonel De Courcy, Major Van Buren, Major Fitch and judge-advocate.

The judge-advocate stated that the absence of Major Corwine and Captain Gay is sufficiently explained by the fact that they had recently been ordered on other duty by the general commanding the department.

The proceedings of the preceding day were read by the judge-advocate and approved.

The commission then proceeded to the trial of Clement L. Vallandingham a citizen of the State of Ohio, who being called into court and having heard the foregoing orders read was asked if he had any objecting to any of the members named therein, to which he replied in the negative.

The commission was then duly sworn by the judge-advocate, and the judge-advocate was sworn by the president in the presence of the accused, and Clement L. Vallandigham was arraigned on the following charge and specification of charge:

CHARGE: Publicly expressing in violation of General Orders, Numbers 38, from headquarters Department of the Ohio, sympathy for those in arms against the Government of the United States and declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions with the object and purpose of weakening the power of the Government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion.

Specification. - In this that the said Clement L. Vallandigham, a citizen of the State of Ohio, on or about the 1st day of May, 1863, at Mount Vernon, Knox County, Ohio, did publicly address a large meeting of citizens and did utter sentiments in words or in effect as follows, declaring the present war "a wicked, cruel and unnecessary war; " "a war not being waged for the preservation of the Union: " "a war for the freedom of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites; " stating "that if the Administration had so wishes the war could have been honorably terminated months ago; " that "peace might have been honorably obtained by listening to the proposed intermediation of France; " that "propositions by which the Northern States could be won back and the South guaranteed their rights under the Constitution had been rejected the day before the late battle of Fredericksburg by Lincoln and his minions," meaning thereby the President of the United States was about to appoint military marshals in every district to restrain the people of their liberties to deprive them of their rights and privileges; " characterizing General Orders, Numbers 38, from headquarters Department of the Ohio, as "a base usurpation of arbi-