Today in History:

437 Series I Volume XLVIII-II Serial 102 - Powder River Expedition Part II

Page 437 Chapter LX. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.

FORT PIKE, May 14, 1865.

(Received 12. 50 p. m.)

Major WICKHAM HOFFMAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

A band of jayhawkers threaten Gainesville. It was their intention to be there to-night. I go up with fifty men.

Respectfully,

ALFRED G. HALL,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding Post.

DISTRICT OF LA FOURCHE,

Brashear City, La., May 14, 1865.

Major W. HOFFMAN,

Asst. Adjt. General, Southern Div. of Louisiana, New Orleans:

Your telegram is received. The water cannot be kept out of the town. Taking the area defined by the intrenchments from the water battery on the left around Bayou Boeuf on the right and down the bayou and up the Atchafalaya to the point of starting, more than three-quarters of it is under water. The line of levees we are building commences at the camp of the Twenty-fifth New York Battery, on the right, running through the camp of the Ninety-eighth U. S. Colored Infantry and on a line in the rear of the water battery to the parapet on the left of the old camp of the Ninety-third. This incloses the building containing the ammunition. The quartermaster and commissary stores are in the railroad building outside of this line, but they are on piles so high as to be in little danger of almost any flood. I learn that in June of 1828 the water stood eighteen inches above every point here. We have reclaimed some of the overflowed ground by our levees, building them in the water, and then bailing the water out. Whether we can protect the amount we have laid out from the flood or not depends upon the height it has yet to rise. We may go through in safety, but if the water should rise two feet more and break our levees, it would be almost impossible then to carry off our artillery.

Yours,

R. A. CAMERON,

Brigadier-General, Commanding District.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. NORTHERN DIV. OF LOUISIANA, Numbers 18.
Baton Rouge, La., May 14, 1865.

For the information and guidance of all concerned it is ordered:

1. That officers and soldiers of the surrendered Confederate armies east of the Mississippi River can not take the amnesty oath under the proclamation of the President until exchanged or otherwise relieved from their parole. They have no privileges whatever, except to remain quietly at their homes, observing the laws of the locality where they reside. They are simply prisoners of war, and will be so treated until the future policy of the Government is announced.

2. Civilians and civil officers who have Remained outside of our lines during the rebellion can not return to their homes without the consent of the military authorities where they wish to go. They do not share in any respect the privileges granted to the officers and soldiers of the Confederate Army who have surrendered, and they will not be admitted


Page 437 Chapter LX. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. -UNION.