December 4, 1861 (Tuesday): "Peace and War Cannot Exist Together"

Colonel J. C. Kelton

GENERAL ORDERS,}                                   HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE MISSOURI,

          No. 13.               }                                      Saint Louis, Mo., Decmeber 4, 1861.

I.                 Lieut. Col. Bernard G. Farrar is herby appointed provost marshal-general of this department.  Capt. George E. Leighton is provost-marshal of the city of Saint Louis and its vicinity.  All local provost-marshals will be subject to the orders of the provost-marshal-general, who will receive his instructions direct from these headquarters.

II.               It is represented that there are numerous rebels and spies within our camps and in the territory occupied by our troops, who give information, aid, and assistance to the enemy; that rebels scattered through the country threaten and drive out loyal citizens and rob them of their property; that they furnish the enemy with arms, provisions, clothing, horses, and means of transportation; and that insurgents are banding together in several of the interior counties for the purpose of assisting the enemy to rob, to maraud, and to lay waste the country.  All such persons are by the laws of war, in every civilized country, liable to capital punishment.  The mild and indulgent course theretofore pursued toward this class of men has utterly failed to restrain them from such unlawful conduct.  The safety of the country and the protection of the lives and property of loyal citizens justify and require the enforcement of a more severe policy.  Peace and war cannot exist together.  We cannot at the same time extend to rebels the rights of peace and enforce against them the penalties of war.  They have forfeited their civil rights as citizens by making war against the Government, and upon their own heads must fall the consequences.

III.             Commanding officers of districts, posts, and corps will arrest and place in confinement all persons in arms against the lawful authorities of the United States, or who give aid, assistance, or encouragement to the enemy.  The evidence against persons so arrested will be reduced to writing and verified on oath, and the originals or certified copies of such affidavits will be immediately furnished to the provost-marshal general in this city.  All arms, ammunition, and other personal property required for the use of the Army, such as horses, wagons, provisions, &c, belonging to persons so in arms or so assisting and encouraging the enemy, will be taken possession of, and turned over and accounted for.  Such property, not of a proper character for issue, will be examined by a board of officers, and sold as directed by the Army regulations.

IV.            Commissions will be ordered from these headquarters for the trial of persons charged with aiding and assisting the enemy, the destruction of bridges, roads, and buildings, and the taking of public or private property for hostile purposes, and also for the condemnation of property taken by our forces from disloyal inhabitants for the use of the Army.

V.              In all certificates given for private property taken for public use, in accordance with General Orders, No. 8, of this department, it will be stated whether the property was taken from loyal or disloyal persons, and as a test of the loyalty of persons claiming to be such, from whom property is so taken, officers commanding districts, posts, divisions, or separate brigades are authorized to appoint some competent and reliable officer to require and administer the usual oath of allegiance to the United States.

VI.            All persons found in disguise as pretended loyal citizens, or under other false pretenses, without our lines, giving information to or communicating with the enemy, will be arrested, tried, condemned, and shot as spies.  It should be remembered that in this respect the laws of war make no distinction of sex; all are liable to the same penalty.

VII.          Persons not commissioned or enlisted in the service of the so called Confederate States, who commit acts of hostility, will not be treated as prisoners of war, but will be held and punished as criminals.  And all persons found guilty of murder, robbery, theft, pillaging, and marauding, under whatever authority, will either he shot or otherwise less severely punished, as is prescribed by the Rules and Articles of War, or authorized by the usages and customs of war in like cases.

VIII.        The law of military retaliation has fixed and well-established rules.  While it allows no cruel or barbarous acts on our part in retaliation for like acts of the enemy, it permits any retaliatory measure within the prescribed limits of military usage.  If the enemy murders and robs Union men, we are not justified in murdering and robbing other persons who are in a legal sense enemies to our Government, but we may enforce on them the severest penalties justified by the laws of arm for the crimes of their fell rebels.  The rebel forces in the south-western counties of this state have robbed and plundered the peaceful non-combatant inhabitants, taking from them their clothing and means of subsistence.  Men, women, and children have alike been stripped and plundered.  Thousands of such persons are finding their way to this city barefooted, half clad, and in a destitute and starving condition.  Humanity and justice require that these sufferings should be relieved and that the outrages committee upon them should be retaliated upon the enemy.  The individuals who have directly caused these sufferings are at present mostly beyond our reach.  But there are in this city and in other places within our lines numerous wealthy secessionists who render aid, assistance, and encouragement to those who commit these outrages.  They do not themselves rob and plunder, but they abet and countenance these acts in others.  Although less bold, they are equally guilty.  It is therefore ordered and directed that the provost-marshals immediately inquire into the condition of the persons so driven from their homes, and that measures be taken to quarter them in the houses, and to feed and clothe them at the expense of avowed secessionists and of those who are found guilty of giving aid, assistance, and encouragement to the enemy.

IX.            The laws of the United States confiscate the property of any master in a slave used for insurrectionary purposes.  Should Congress extend this penalty to the property of all rebels in arms, or giving aid, assistance, and encouragement to the enemy, such provisions will be strictly enforced.  Military officers do not make laws, but they should obey and enforce them when made.

X.              Where the necessities of service require it, the forced labor of citizens, slaves, and even prisoners of war, may be employed in the construction of military defenses, but on one will be forced to such labor without orders from these headquarters, except in the case of siege or attack.  All persons so impressed will be fed and quartered at the public expense, and an account be taken of their labor, to be settled as may be directed by the War Department.  All such working parties will be strictly guarded, and dept as far as possible from communicating with the command where employed.

XI.            These orders may by some be regarded as severe, but they are certainly justified by the laws of war, and it is believed they are not only right, but necessary; it is therefore expected that all loyal citizens in this department will assist the military authorities in strictly enforcing them.  There is already a large military force in this State, which is daily increasing in numbers and improving in organization and discipline.  In a few weeks this force will be able not only to expel or punish all traitors and rebels, but also to strike the enemy in his strongholds.

XII.          All communications relating to prisoners of war will be directed to the provost-marshal-general, to be by him laid before the commanding general daily at orderly hours.

                 By order of Major-General Halleck:

                                                                                             J. C. KELTON,

                                                                                 Assistant Adjutant-General

Official Records, Series I., Vol. 8, Part 1, Page 405.

Perhaps no state was as divided as Missouri.  Because loyalties were relatively evenly split, with St. Louis being pro-Union and rural areas divided or leaning to the South, there were not only military actions (45% of the combat in the first year of the war occurred in Missouri) but armed conflict between civilians and their neighbors.  In this context Halleck was reaching deep into the Articles of War in an effort to find measures to bring the population under Union control.  Halleck appears to understand the harshness of his orders and it is certainly arguable that items VIII and X are outside the rules of all but the most liberal interpretation of the Articles of War.  And, in inserting the comment placing women at jeopardy under VI he goes beyond what would have been regarded as decency in the 1800’s.  But Missouri was a tiger to be tamed, and Halleck was willing to apply the whip.