I expect Captain Prime from Corinth in two or three
days.
I am, with great respect, yours,
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General commanding.
HEADQUARTERS FIFTH DIVISION
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, September 21, 1862
Editor Bulletin.
SIR: Your comments on the recent orders of Generals Halleck and
McClellan afford the occasion appropriate for me to make public the
fact that there is a law of Congress, as old as our Government
itself, but reenacted on the 10th of April, 1806, and in force ever
since. That law reads:
"All officers and soldiers are to behave themselves orderly in
quarters and on the march; and whoever shall commit any waste or
spoil, either in walks of trees, parks, warrens, fish-ponds, houses
and gardens, cornfields, inclosures or meadows, or shall
maliciously destroy any property whatever belonging to the
inhabitants of the United States, unless by order of the
commander-in-chief of the armies of said United States, shall
(besides such penalties as they are liable to by law) be punished
according to the nature and degree of the offense, by the judgment
of a general or regimental court-martial.
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