GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE CUMBERLAND, Numbers 19.
Nashville, Tenn., November 19, 1862.

To avoid misunderstanding as to the relations between soldiers and citizens, to define the duties of the troops of this command and the rights of others, which they are required to respect, the general commanding directs as follows:

I. All who acknowledge the obligations of citizens of the United States are entitled to all the rights, privileges and protection due to any citizen.

II. Peaceable inhabitants who honestly and truly abstain from any interference directly or indirectly with military matters or movements are by the laws of humanity entitled to protection from violence or plunder. They are quasi citizens and shall be allowed to follow their avocations and enjoy their local rights, subject only to needful surveillance to prevent them from being used as tools for mischief.

III. Those who are hostile to our Government, repudiating its Constitution and laws, have no rights under them. Their claims to such are absurd. The only laws to which they can appeal and which we are bound to observe toward them are the laws of war and the dictates of humanity.

IV. Those persons who act in the double character of citizens and belligerents, or who affecting to belong to regular partisans are nevertheless removed from the reach of all proper military control, are by the law of nations pirates and robbers. By roving through the country they convert every house into a suspected fort and deprive the harmless inhabitants of the protection and safety due to their garb and character and spread demoralization and distress whether they ago. They combine the meanness of the spy with the cowardice of the assassin who lurks in disguise to stab his unsuspecting victim. Outlaws and enemies alike of the Government, of the poor people upon whom they subsist, and mankind, they are entitled to no rights but such as may be claimed by pirates and robbers and can ask for none other at our hands.

V. No nation or cause can be benefitted by injustice. The general confidently hopes and expects from the officers and soldiers of his command that they will set an honorable example of strict observance of these rights--an example worthy of the just cause in which they are periling their lives and all that is dear to them on earth. To this end all commanders of troops are enjoined to enforce the prohibitions against soldiers entering private residences or premises without written permission or order, given on the spot by a commissioned officer, who will be held responsible for it and for all that is done.

VI. Straggles and those villains of every grade and class who follow our camps, generally dressed in soldiers' garb and appearing as stragglers, perpetrate most of the outrages which desolate the course of armies. All officers are therefore enjoined to put a stop to straggling by every means in their power. As the company officers are chiefly responsible for this, when stragglers from any companies are reported the general commanding will deal with the company officers in the most summary manner. Any commissioned officer committing such straggling will be dismissed from the service. Division, brigade and regimental commanders will in like manner be held accountable for not enforcing this order among their subordinates.

By command of Major-General Rosecrans:

J. P. GARESCHE,

Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff.

47 R R--SERIES II, VOL IV