protection, and support as may be necessary to enable them safely and efficiently to discharge their respective duties.

And all such commanding officers are required promptly to obey such call and to render the necessary service as far as may be in their power consistently with their other duties.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

EDW. BATES,

Attorney-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City D. C., November 13, 1862.

Major T. T. ECKERT,

Washington, D. C.,:

You will transmit the following order to all officers in your department and require its strict observance:

The original copy of every telegram sent by any military or other Government officer must be retained by the telegraph manager or operator, carefully filed, and mailed to this department at the end of the month. In no case will the original copies be given up or destroyed, except to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy.

By order of the Secretary of War:

ANSON STAGER,

Colonel and Aide-de-Camp, Supt. U. S. Military Telegraph.

(Copy sent by Eckert to Captain T. B. A. David, Wheeling, Va.; Captain Samuel Bruch, Louisville, Ky., Captain George H. Smith, Saint Louis, Mo.; Captain R. P. Wade, Cleveland, Ohio.)

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, November 13, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: I received the communication of the War Department inclosing a copy of a letter from the State Department directing by attention to the statement made by Mr. Sanford, our minister resident at Brussels, a copy of which I inclose for the better understanding of the present communication.*

In obedience to its directions I immediately set about making inquiries through my secret police, and finding it a matter of very grave import as affecting the relations of the French consul here, I undertook a personal examination of the subject. The facts, as substantiated by the documentary and other testimony hereto appended, are substantially these;

The firm of Ed. Gautherin & Co., composed of Ed. Gautherin and Alfred and Jules Le More, doing business in New Orleans, was also concerned in a house in Havre, G. A. Le More & Co. Jules and Alfred Le More, the partners in New Orleans, were also partners in that house. Gautherin & Co. were at first employed in buying tobacco for the French Government. Afterward they were concerned in shiping cotton on joint account. They represent themselves to be agents of Baron Selliere, the contractor for French army clothing.

---------------

*See Watson to Butler, October 22, p. 677, and sub-inclosure therewith.

---------------