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94.-rebel partisan Rangers.
In the rebel House of Representatives, on the fifteenth of February,
Mr. Miles, from the Committe on Military Affairs, reported a bill to repeal an act to organize partisan rangers, approved April twenty-first, 1862, and for other purposes.
The bill being taken up,
Mr. Miles advocated its passage.
He said the Senate bill, in relation to cavalry, contained a provision to abolish corps of partisan rangers; but the
Committee had deemed it too sweeping in its character, and had stricken it out. The
House objected to the bill altogether, and refused to pass it. The Committee had instructed him to report the present bill, which they thought was demanded by the necessities of the service.
It was a measure warmly urged by
General Lee and other distinguished officers.
The bill was debated, amended, and passed in the following shape:
Section 1.
The Congress of the confederate States of America do enact, That the act of Congress aforesaid be, and the same is hereby, repealed:
Provided, that organizations of partisan rangers, acting as regular cavalry at the passage of this act, shall be continued in their present organization;
Provided they shall hereafter be considered as regular cavalry, and not as partisan rangers.
Sec. 2. That all the bands of partisan rangers organized under the said act may, as the interests of the service allow, be united with other organizations, or be organized into battalions and regiments, with the view of bringing them under the general condition of the provisional army as to discipline, control, and movements, under such regulations as the
Secretary of War may prescribe.
Sec. 3. The
Secretary of War shall be authorized, if he deems proper, for a time or permanently, to exempt from the operations of this act such companies as are serving within the lines of the enemy, under such conditions as he may prescribe.
