SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,

Numbers 69.
Tullahoma, March 6, 1863.

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III. The cavalry divisions of this command having become so large, will be hereafter designated as corps, and will be known by the name of their respective commanders, viz, Van Dorn's and Wheeler's. The corps will be organized into divisions and brigades by their respective commanders.

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By command of General Bragg:

GEORGE WM. BRENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS POLK'S CORPS, ARMY OF TENNESSEE, Shelbyville, March 16, 1863.

Lieutenant Colonel JAMES C. MALONE, Jr.,
Commanding Cavalry:

COLONEL: You have consulted me as to the lawfulness or expediency (supposing it to be practicable) of capturing and bringing out the general commanding the forces of the enemy, whose headquarters are now at Murfreesborough. It is a very grave enterprise, but if it could be accomplished, it would be attended with important results, especially if you could add to the capture the papers of his adjutant-general's office. As to its lawfulness there can be no doubt, for it is as lawful to capture one man in arms against us as another, nor can there be say doubt as to its expediency, for obvious reasons.

There is but a single point you have to guard against, and that is, that you do not allow his life to be taken, nor, as far as possible, any violence to be done to his person; for, while neither he nor those with whom he is associated in the campaign of extermination in which they are now engaged have a right to claim any forbearance at our hands, still, we owe it to ourselves to be true to our own civilization and to deprive the most critical of all occasions of censuring our mode of maintaining resistance. From the work of assassination we would recoil with just abhorrence. Bold and daring enterprises are in our line, and become those who are struggling against the bitterest persecution and the most merciless warfare. Take him, therefore, and his adjutant-general's papers with him, if you can, and I believe you can.

This will be handed you by my aide-de-camp, Lieutenant W. B. Richmond, who volunteers to accompany you on the expedition.

Very respectfully, &c.,

L. POLK,

Lieutenant-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS WHARTON'S CAVALRY BRIGADE, March 17, 1863.

Lieutenant-General POLK, Commanding, &c.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge your letter of March 16, relative to the matter of which I had the honor to speak to you in person on the 14th instant, and I beg leave to say that I approve, most heartily, the sentiments you have expressed therein. As to the point of which you speak, relative to taking the life or doing other violence