either by way of sale, gift, pledge, payment, lease, or loan, by an inhabitant of this department who has not returned to his or her allegiance to the United States (having once been a citizen thereof), are forbidden and void, and the person transferring and the person receiving shall be punished by fine or imprisonment or both.

II. All registers of the transfer of certificates of stock or shares in any incorporated or joint stock company or association in which any inhabitant of this department who has not returned to his or her allegiance to the United States (having once been a citizen thereof) has any interest are forbidden, and the clerk or other officer making or recording the transfer will be held equally guilty with the transferee.

By command of Major-General Butler:

GEO. C. STRONG,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, New Orleans, La., September 19, 1862.

Hon. E. M. STANTON,
Secretary of War:

SIR: I have the honor to forward the inclose report to the State Department* for information, as an exposition of some of the difficulties with which I have to contend here.

The city is in a very excited condition and sufficiently uneasy, but I think I shall have no trouble. As the day on which the confiscation act goes into operation approaches the uneasiness and disquiet are more apparent, but all will be held firmly and calmly.

I believe all danger of outward attack has for the present disappeared, and as soon as the weather is less oppressive I propose to take the offensive.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, No. 74.
New Orleans, September 19, 1862.

I. It having been made to appear to the commanding general that upon marches and expeditions soldiers of the United States Army have entered houses and taken therefrom private property and appropriated the same to their own use:

It is therefore ordered that a copy of General Orders, No. 107, current series, from the War Department be distributed to every commissioned officer of this command, and that the same be read, together with this order, to each company in this department three several times at different company roll calls.

II. It is further ordered that all complaints that private property has been taken from peaceable citizens in contravention of said General Orders, No. 107, be submitted to a board of survey, and that the amount of damage determined shall be deducted from the pay of the officers

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*Report is upon the case of C. McDougall Fogo and effects of Reverdy Johnson's mission, and will appear in Series III, Vol. II.

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