them not to commit the offense again. And should the act be committed again by the parties thus arrested he will cause them to be rearrested and held in jail until further orders from this department.

By order of Thomas O. Moore, Governor and commander-in-chief:

M. GRIVOT,

Adjutant and Inspector General, Louisiana.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Richmond July 8, 1862

General WINDER, Commanding Department of Henrico.

SIR: You will release the five Turners and Wybert and Peacock, civil prisoners now held in your custody, and send them out of your lines beyond Gordonsville. They will be kept under the observation of our officers and not allowed to go at large until they pass our lines.

GEO. W. RANDOLPH,

Secretary of War.

MOBILE, ALA., July 8, 1862.

Honorable THOMAS H. WATTS, Richmond, Va.

MY DEAR SIR: The subject of the present letter has been one of serious reflection with me, and I venture to communicate it to you with the hope that it may receive from the proper authority the consideration which its importance demands.

The hanging of George W. Mumford [William B. Mumford]* in New Orleans by order of General Butler was a brutal murder, not justified by any act committed by Mumford. That this Government owes its protection to its citizens is too plain a postulate to be denied, and that can only be done by its possession the necessary power to restrain in the first instance by fear of its power of retaliation. The facts in this case are familiar to every man in the Confederacy, and the sanguinary and ignominious death inflicted upon one of our citizens awakened the indignant horror of every Southern man innocent as he was of any offense.

It does strike me that this act calls for retaliation, more so even than the case of the Confederate sailors captured during the war. In their case the President wisely and firmly informed the Lincoln Government that the law of retaliation should be enforced, and the consequence was our sailors were saved us.

I submit that in this case the President should make a formal demand upon President Lincoln for the body of Benjamin F. Butler, to be delivered to him within a stipulated period, in order to try him for the murder of George W. Mumford [William B. Mumford] That in the meantime he commit to close con-General McCall or some other distinguished Northern man, and inform Mr. Lincoln that unless Benjamin F. Butler, at the expiration of the time stipulated, was surrendered to him that he would hang General McCall; and in case of refusal to hang him.

With one voice the whole Confederacy and Europe would applaud and sustain him. It would teach the miscreants and ruffians who now barbarously murder and afflict our people that our Government would protect every citizen against their outrages and that its arms was long enough and strong enough to reach every offender.

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*See pp. 135, 328.

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