General orders, 1863.

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

General orders, 1863.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/214282950

Two general orders issued by the Adjutant General's Office of the United States War Dept. The first concerns the case of William T. Smithson, a resident of Washington, D.C., who wrote letters under an assumed name to an unnamed person in the Confederate government providing information about alleged plans of Union loyalists Andrew Johnson and Emerson Etheridge to burn bridges and mills and destroy property in Tennessee as part of an effort to subdue the breakaway state. The order, which reproduces the text of the inculpatory letters, concludes by sentencing Smithson to five years in prison. The second order concerns charges against four soldiers, three of them Maryland natives taken prisoner in the ranks and uniform of the Confederate army, the fourth an infantryman in the U.S. Army charged with the rape of an African American woman in Rectortown, Va. The order notes that the three men apprehended in Confederate uniforms were sentenced to death but were later deemed prisoners of war subject to exchange. The man charged with rape was sentenced to life in prison.

2 orders.

Louisiana State University, LSU Libraries

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7012039

Louisiana State University, LSU Libraries

Related Entities

There are 4 Entities related to this resource.

United States. Adjutant-General's Office

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rk58fj (person)

The Continental Congress on June 17, 1775, appointed an Adjutant General of the Continental Army. After 1783 no further provision was made for such an officer until an act of March 5, 1792, provided for an adjutant, who was also to do the work of inspector. An act of March 3, 1813, established an Adjutant General's Department and an Inspector General's Department which were united the following July under one head, the Adjutant and Inspector General. Separate heads for the two Depar...

Etheridge, Emerson, 1819-1902

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dj6vrj (person)

Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r030tj (person)

Andrew Johnson (b. December 29, 1808, Raleigh, North Carolina-d. July 31, 1875, Carter's Station, Tennessee) became the seventeenth president of the United States after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1808. He began his political career in Greenville, Tennessee in 1828. At the time of this letter he was the Democratic senator from Tennessee. Emerson Etheridge was born in Carrituck County, North Carolina. As a representative of Tennes...

Smithson, William T.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zk7bgf (person)