of the President, in all cases where allowed to labor faithfully for reasonable wagons. Those at present within the lines will not be turned out, but in future in the field no persons, white or black, who are not duly authorized to pass the lines of sentinels will be permitted to enter or leave camp.

II. Whenever the services of negroes are required, details will be made by army corps commanders for the purpose of collecting them, and they will be registered, provided for, and employed in accordance with law and existing orders.

III. The too prevalent habit of arresting citizens beyond the lines of the army and bringing them into camp without charge is prejudicial to the service, and must not be continued. When citizens are arrested hereafter without charges being preferred warranting the arrest, the citizen will be turned outside the lines, and the officer or soldier causing the arrest will be confined and otherwise punished at the discretion of a court-martial.

IV. No flag of truce will hereafter be allowed to pass our outposts. Any message sent under it will be received by an officer and receipted for, and the flag directed to return immediately. All answers to such messages will be sent under our own flag of truce.

V. Attention of army corps commanders is particularly called to the Forty-first, Forty-SECOND, Forty-sixth, and fiftieth Articles of War, which will be rigidly enforced.

By order of Major General U. S. Grant:

JNO. A. RAWLINS,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HDQRS. THIRD DIVISION, SEVENTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Memphis, Tenn., February 12, 1863.

MY FELLOW SOLDIERS: Debility from recent illness has prevented, and still prevents, me from appearing amongst you, as has been my custom, and is my desire. It is for this cause I deem it my duty to communicate with you now, and give you the assurance that your general still maintains unshaken confidence in your patriotism and devotion, and in the ultimate success of our glorious cause.

I am aware that influences of the most discouraging and treasonable character, well calculated and designed to render you dissatisfied, have recently been brought to bear upon some of you by professed friends. Newspapers, containing treasonable articles, artfully falsifying the public sentiment at your homes, have been circulated in your camps. Intriguing political tricksters, demagogues, and time-servers, whose corrupt deeds are but a faint reflex of their more corrupt hearts, seem determined to drive out people on to anarchy and destruction. They have hoped, by magnifying the reverses of our arms, basely misrepresenting the conduct and slandering the character of our soldiers in the field, and boldly denouncing the acts of the constituted authorities of the Government as unconstitutional usurpations, to produce general demoralization in the army, and thereby reap their political reward, weaken the cause we have espoused, and aid those arch traitors of the South to dismember our mighty republic and trail in the dust the emblem of our national unity, greatness, and glory.

Let me remind you, my countrymen, that we are soldiers of the Federal Union, armed for the preservation of the Federal Constitution and the maintenance of its laws and authority. Upon your faithfulness and devotion, heroism and gallantry, depend its perpetuity. To