December 25, 1861 (Tuesday): A Not So Merry Christmas For Some

Fort Holt, Kentucky (Opposite Cario, Il.)

GENERAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS FOURTH BRIGADE, Numbers 22.

Fort Holt, Ky., December 25, 1861.


    In pursuance to Special Orders, District of Cairo, Brigadier General U. S. Grant commanding, commanding officers of regiments and detachments at Fort Holt, Ky., are required to search or cause to be searched the quarters of their respective commands for fugitive slaves and have all such fugitives fortwith expelled from the lines of the camp.
   If hereafter any such fugitives are concealed or detained in or about the camp the party or parties so detaining will be brought to punishment.

By order Colonel John Cook commanding Fourth Brigade:



L. R. WALLER,
Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

Official Records, Series II., Vol. 1, Part 1, Page 795.

General Orders #3, issued by Halleck in November, excluded slaves from Union lines.  Grant complied with the order, but in February would amend it to ensure slave owners were not allowed within the lines to recover fugitives.  In August, Congress had passed the Confiscation Act which prohibited claims for labor of slaves by civilians where the labor had advanced the war efforts of the Confederacy.  The fact of these contradictory orders and aims combined with resistance by military officials to admission into their lines of fugitive slaves presents a good picture of how war aims had not been clarified even as the first year of the war was coming to a close.