and I have acted on these, but I respectfully submit that immediate notice should be brought home to department and district commanders of exchanges, so we may know who to detail for duty. Exchanged or not exchanged should they not return to their rendezvous?

I have the honor to be, general, your obedient servant,

S. R. CURTIS,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,
Murfreesborough, Tenn., December 3, 1862.

Major General W. S. ROSECRANS,

Commanding U. S. Forces, Nashville, Tenn.

GENERAL: I inclose for your information the following papers, viz:

1. General Orders, Numbers 84, from the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, Richmond, in reference to Federal military violations of the laws and usages of war, with retaliatory provisions, special and general.

2. An extract of a communication from Clarksville, Tenn., giving a statement of the outrages committed upon private citizens and their deplorable condition under the military authority as administered there.

3. A copy of a report from the commanding officer of my picket forces in your front detailing the depredations which marked the route of one of your reconnoitering parties a few days since, under the orders and sanction of its officers.

4. Extract from the report of another picket officer on the Lebanon road, in which he gives the statement of a reliable citizen as to the system of rapine indulged in by another one of your reconnoitering parties.

I deem it unnecessary to enlarge upon the subject as presented in the papers submitted to you. I could multiply almost indefinitely authentic complaints from widely separated parts of my department setting forth a similar condition of affairs, as consequent upon a visit or occupation by your troops. Inasmuch, however, as in your highly esteemed favor of the 29th ultimo* you foreshadowed a correction of the previous existing causes of complaint by declaring your intention to observe the usages and laws of war I shall place a generous construction upon the late occurrences and hope that they were without your knowledge and will meet with a prompt correction and punishment.

Awaiting your reply I shall abstain from the disagreeable duty of considering the steps which a suffering people and an outraged civilization will demand in order to put a stop to such an extended and uniform system of unparalleled and savage warfare.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

BRAXTON BRAGG,

General, Commanding.

[Inclosure No. 1.] GENERAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 84.
Richmond, November 10, 1862.

I. The following orders are published for the information and guidance of the Army:

II. Whereas, reliable information has been received that Colonel Lowe and Colonel A. C. Harding, Eighth Illinois Regiment, U. S. Army, have been engaged in a series of wanton cruelties and depredations in Clarksville,

---------------

* See Series I, Vol. XX, Part Ii, p. 109.

---------------