HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT Numbers 2,
Tupelo, July 6, 1862.

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Commanding U. S. Forces, &c., Corinth, Miss.

GENERAL: On the 15th and 16th of June I had occasion to address you according to the usages and forms of civilized war three several communications, one at least of which, concerning Surgeon Benjamin, C. S. Army, in my judgment called for the easy courtesy of an answer which up to this date has not reached me. You are of course the sufficient judge as to the comity to be observed by you while commanding the Federal Army on my front, but I cannot permit your silence to pass without this record of my own sense of what is due to me from our relative positions and what I expected from a trained soldier. This said I have now to acquaint you with the chief purpose of this letter, to wit:

I have been informed from a number of sources that bands of your soldiery especially along the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad in the vicinity of Grand Junction are traversing the country with the avowed object of burning or otherwise destroying the property of those citizens of Mississippi and Tennessee who in obedience to the wishes of their Government, the orders of these headquarter and a substantially unanimous public sentiment have chosen to burn their own cotton; that is, their own property. I have been informed further that the property of more than one of our loyal citizens has been destroyed by these detachments. These acts might not excite surprise if done by men under certain commanders of Federal armies, officers inexperienced in the long-established usages of war or regardless of its amenities and animated by a spirit of fell vindictiveness, but I must be permitted to express my astonishment that such measures should have been resorted to by the army of an educated, experienced commander.

In view therefore of these flagrant violations of well-known rules of war touching the private property of citizens of belligerent on land involved in the causes now brought to your notice I shall instruct all officers under my command to execute any Federal officer of whatsoever rank who shall fall into our hands against whom it may be clearly established that he had commanded or been instrumental in the wanton destruction of any planter's immovable property. Further any officer or solider caught in the act shall be summarily put to death. I shall profoundly regret any occasion for the exercise of this severity, and therefore do earnestly invoke your vigorous interference with your subordinates especially in the vicinity of Grand Junction and on the Mississippi River to stop conduct so unlike any ever tolerated by reputable officers in previous wars.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

B. BRAGG.

HEADQUARTERS, Fort Columbus, July 6, 1862.

Colonel WILLIAM HOFFMAN,
Commissary-General of Prisoners, Detroit, Mich.

COLONEL: Agreeably to your request I inclose herewith a list*of the last detachment of Pulaski prisoners of war received at this post. I wrote to Colonel Dimick June 26 ultimo requesting to be furnished

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*Not found.

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