This order to be efficient is necessarily very comprehensive in its terms,and its proper execution requires the exercise of sound judgment and discretion in the officers to whom its enforcement is intrusted; and to guide you in its execution the following instructions are to be observed:

First. The order comprises two classes of persons, viz, those who are about leaving the United States to evade military duty and those who for the same purpose leave their own State. Leaving the United States until the military draft is perfected is absolutely prohibited, but it was not the intention of the order to interfere with the transit from State to State of any persons but those who design to evade military duty. Whenever you have reason to believe that the purpose is to evade military duty, the order will authorize the detention of any person leaving his own State, county, or military district.

Second. Any person detained may be released on giving bond to the United States, with sufficient security, in the sum of $1,000, conditional for the performance of military duty if he should be drafted, or the providing a proper substitute.

Third. Immediate report is to be made to this office of all persons detained, with the cause of their detention.

Fourth. You will exercise the power of arrest and detention with caution and forbearance, so as to avoid giving annoyance or trouble to any persons excepting those who are seeking to evade the performance of their duty to their country.

Fifth. The Governors of the respective States are authorized to give papers and permits to their own citizens desiring to leave the State without intent to evade military duty.

By order of the Secretary of War:

L. C. TURNER,

Judge-Advocate.

MEMPHIS, August 11, 1862.

Honorable S. P. CHASE,

Secretary of the Treasury:

SIR: Your letter just received, at same time an order from Headquarters of the Army at Washington to encourage the purchase of cotton, even by the payment of gold, silver, and Treasury notes.

I may of course be mistaken, but gold and money are as much contraband of war as arms and ammunition, because they are convertible terms, for you know money will buy anything for sale at Saint Louis and Cincinnati, and I declare it impossible to keep such articles, be they salt, power, lead, or anything, from reaching the South. Also, gold will purchase arms and ammunition at Nassau, in the Bahamas, and you know that one vessel out of three can run the blockade. The flock of Jews had disappeared, but will again overrun us. I had so arranged that cotton could be had for currency, Tennessee and other bank notes good here but not elsewhere. The whole South is now up, and all they want is arms and provisions. Salt at Grenada is worth $100 a barrel, and if trade be opened Memphis is better to our enemy than before it was taken.*

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

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*See also Sherman to Rawlins, on same subjects, Series I, Vol. XVII, Part II, p. 140.

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