I have just received from
Lieutenant-General Grant a copy of that part of your telegram to him of December 26th relating to cotton, a copy of which has been immediately furnished to
General Easton,
Chief Quartermaster, who will be strictly governed by it.
I had already been approached by all the consuls and half the people of
Savannah on this cotton question, and my invariable answer was that all the cotton in
Savannah was prize of war, belonged to the
United States, and nobody should recover a bale of it with my consent; that, as cotton had been one of the chief causes of this war, it should have to pay its expenses; that all cotton became tainted with treason from the hour the first act of hostility was committed against the
United States some time in December, 1860, and that no bill of sale subsequent to that date could convey title.
My orders were that an officer of the Quartermaster's Department, United States Army, might furnish the holder, agent, or attorney a mere certificate of the fact of seizure, with description of the bales, marks, etc., the cotton then to be turned over to the agent of the Treasury Department to be shipped to New York for sale.
But since the receipt of your dispatch I have ordered
General Easton to make the shipment himself to the quartermaster at New York, where you can dispose of it at pleasure.
I do not think the Treasury Department ought to bother itself with the prizes as captures of war.
