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HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,

New Orleans, February 16, 1863.

The accompanying order and circulars, relating to the immediate employment of negroes, will explain a system of labor that has been suggested and adopted for the present year. The Provost Marshals are authorized and directed to receive and record the assent of planters or other persons thereto, and when such written consent is given, officers and soldiers, and especially the Chaplains of the Army, and all other persons acting under the authority of the United States, are requested to assist, as far as practicable, without violence, in inducing the return of negroes and their families to the plantations where they have been accustomed to labor.

Without regular employment, many thousands of negroes must perish during the year. More than Sixty Thousand Dollars were applied to the support of dependent and destitute persons in the month of January. The support of many thousands of unemployed negroes will increase the burden to such extent as to make it impracticable to continue the charity. The immediate cultivation of corn, sugar, cotton and other products is imperatively demanded upon every consideration of public interest, and for this no other labor is now available. On the plantations, they will have secured to them by the officers of the Government sufficient and wholesome food, clothing, kind treatment, and a share of the crop they produce.

The compensation may seem small; but in view of the pecuniary advances that must be made and the risks that attend industry in a period of war, it is not unreasonable. Those who are not thus engaged will be employed on the public works or in the Quartermaster's Department, without pay, except their food and clothing, medical attendance, and such instruction and care as may be furnished to them and their women and children. In view of all the facts, and after most anxious consideration, the Commanding General believes it to be the best system of labor that can now be adopted, and, assuming the entire responsibility of the act, he calls upon the Commanding Generals and all Officers of the Government to assist in its immediate execution.

N. P. BANKS,

Major General Commanding.

II. Transfers to Cavalry and Artillery. III. Headquarters Flags.

GENERAL ORDERS

HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, 19TH ARMY CORPS,

No. 17.

New Orleans, February 18, 1863.

I. No negroes will be taken from the plantations until further orders, by any officer or other person in the service of the United States, without previous authority from these Headquarters.

II. All privates of the nine months regiments of infantry, serving in this Department, desiring to re-enlist for three years or during the war, in one of the regiments of cavalry or batteries of artillery also serving in this Department, will be honorably discharged from the former regiments, by orders from these Headquarters, upon so re-enlisting. They will record their names at the Adjutant's office of their respective regiments at once or before the first of April next. Lists of the names so re

corded will be forwarded weekly to Brigade or Division Headquarters. Cavalry or Artillery officers, desiring to enlist such men, will apply at the proper Brigade or Division Headquarters for these lists and for permission to visit the regiments to recruit. Not more than fifty men will be so taken from any one regiment, and none will be taken, under any circumstances, whose names are not on such lists.

III. The various Headquarters in the Department of the Gulf will be designated by small flags or guidons, four feet square, attached to a lance twelve feet long, made in two joints, as follows:

The Headquarters of the 19th Army Corps and Department of the Gulf, by a blue flag, with a white four-pointed star in the centre; the figures 19, in red, on the

star.

Division Headquarters, red, with a white four-pointed star in the centre; the number of the Division in black figures on the star.

Brigade Headquarters, blue white and blue horizontal stripes of equal width; the number of the Brigade in black figures on the white stripe.

These flags will be habitually displayed in front of the Headquarters they designate, and on the march will be carried near the person of the Commanding Officer.

BY COMMAND OF MAJOR GENERAL BANKS:

RICHARD B. IRWIN,

Lieutenant Colonel, Assistant Adjutant General.

OFFICIAL:

Aide-de Camp.

II. Transfers from Volunteers to Regulars.

III. Waste of Ammunition.

IV. Lieut. Berry, 156th New York, dismissed,

GENERAL ORDERS

No. 18.

HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, February 24, 1863.

I. The following extracts from Special Orders are republished in General Orders, for the information and government of all concerned :

Paragraph 14 of Special Orders No. 45, current series. "Passes for boats and persons for purposes of fishing and hunting will hereafter be issued by the Provost Marshal General of the Department, and will be recognized when bearing his personal signature. All other passes through the lines will, as heretofore, require the personal signature of the Commanding General." (Modified by the following:)

Paragraph 3 of Special Orders No. 53, current series. "Passes for persons to go through the lines will be signed hereafter by Brigadier General James Bowen, Provost Marshal General, under his personal signature. The existing orders requiring such passes to have the personal signature of the General Commanding are revoked. All applications for such passes will hereafter be made to the Provost Marshal General, whose decision thereon will be final. The regulations on the subject of passes for vessels, boats or supplies, continue in force as at present."

II. The War Department having countermanded the orders authorizing the enlistment of volunteers into the regular Army, such enlistments will at once be discontinued in this Department.

III. The attention of the Commanding General has been directed to the enormous and criminal waste of ammunition which prevails in many portions of this command. Enlisted men, and, in too many instances, even officers, seem to consider that the ammunition provided by the Government for use against the public enemy may be properly and with impunity expended for their own private amusement.

The 37th Article of War prescribes that" Any non-commissioned officer or soldier who shall be convicted, at a regimental court martial, of having sold, or designedly, or through neglect, wasted the ammunition delivered out to him, to be employed in the service of the United States, shall be punished at the discretion of such court."

At every Sunday morning inspection hereafter the company commander will inspect the cartridge boxes of his men, and will cause every man who has not the proper number of rounds, in a good state of preservation, to be brought before a

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