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[300]

To the Officers and Soldiers of the Army of Virginia:
By special assignment of the President of the United States, I have assumed command of this army. I have spent two weeks in learning your whereabouts, your condition, and your wants; in preparing you for active operations, and in placing you in positions from which you can act promptly and to the purpose. I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies — from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary, and to beat him when found, whose policy has been attack and not defence. In but one instance has the enemy been able to place our Western armies in a defensive attitude. I presume that I have been called here to pursue the same system, and to lead you against the enemy. It is my purpose to do so, and that speedily. I am sure you long for an opportunity to win the distinction you are capable of achieving — that opportunity I shall endeavor to give you. Meantime I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases which I am sorry to find much in vogue amongst you. I hear constantly of taking strong positions and holding them — of lines of retreat, and of bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas. The strongest position a soldier should desire to occupy is one from which he can most easily advance against the enemy. Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of themselves. Let us look before us and not behind. Success and glory are in the advance. Disaster and shame lurk in the rear. Let us act on this understanding, and it is safe to predict that your banners shall be inscribed with many a glorious deed, and that your names will be dear to your countrymen forever.


He followed this characteristic production with a series of general orders, making war upon the non-combatant population within his lines. He ordered the arrest of citizens, and on their refusing to take an “oath of allegiance,” they were to be driven from their homes, and if they returned anywhere within his lines they should be “considered spies, and subjected to the extreme rigour of military law I”

By a general order of the Federal Government, the military commanders of that Government, within the States of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, were directed to seize and use any property, real or personal, belonging to the inhabitants of this Confederacy which might be necessary or convenient for their several commands, and no provision was made for any compensation to the owners of private property thus seized and appropriated by the military commanders of the enemy.

Pope went further than this authority, for he threw open all the country he occupied or controlled to unlimited spoliation by his soldiers. They were given to understand that they were free to enter upon a campaign of robbery and murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers of the soil. The country was ravaged as by a horde of barbarians. Houses were robbed; cattle were shot dead in the fields; clothing and jewelry were stolen; and nothing was spared in this new irruption of the Northern spoilsmen. A Northern journal, more candid and honourable than its cotemporaries, referring to the depravity of Pope's troops in Virginia, said:

1866.

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