The citizens of St. Tammany Parish, La., having petitioned Gen. Ruggles, commanding as Provost Marshal General in that State, to be allowed to trade with the city of New Orleans, in provision, &c. Gen. R. has returned the following able and patriotic answers, refusing the request:
FIRST DISTRICT PROVOST MARSHAL GENERAL’S OFFICE,
TANGIPAHOA, July 11, 1862
To Messrs. H. B. Hand, Thomas Gillespie and other citizens of the Parish of St. Tammany:
GENTLEMEN – Your petition asking permission to open trade with the enemies of your country, who occupy New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the commercial and political capitals of your State, has been received by Gen. Ruggles, and I am directed by him to reply.
In doing so I beg leave to call your attention to General Order No. 2, from these headquarters, and to paragraph 1st of General Order No. 9, from the Department Headquarters, prohibiting all intercourse and traffic with the enemy, or persons within in its lines, and announcing the penalty of death against those who engage in it. Copies of these are herewith enclosed for your information.
These orders have been called for by the stern necessities of the times, and it is believed, have met with the most universal approval of the citizens of the country. For is there anything novel in the regulation they prescribe, or the penalties they announce. They but declare and clothe with penal sanctions doctrines long established and universally recognized.
Even in your communication, while asking to be exempt from their provisions, you recognize their justice, for you say: “We are aware that in time of war there should be no trade between beligerants.” But you urge that yours is an exceptional case, and that to enforce this rule would subject you to great hardships.
For now more than twelve months your country has been engaged in a gigantic struggle for existence. Her noble people have poured out their treasures as water, and like the ancient patriarchs, have not even withheld their children from the sacrifice, but have cheerfully sent them forth to encounter the toils of the march, the diseases of the camp and perils of the battlefield. Hundreds of them have fallen by the wayside – thousands have lingered and died in the hospitals, many of them for want of medicines which could not be obtained; and thousands more have perished on the field of battle. But their thin and wasted ranks have been filled by others eagerly pressing forward to take the place of the fallen, and to-day your flag is proudly born in the face of and behind the foe by men half-clothed, half-fed, and who for months have not known even the rude comforts of a soldier’s tent. Nor has the army been alone in this respect; every class of society, as to a greater or less extent, been subjected to hardships and privations, which to their lasting honor be it said, have been firmly and even cheerfully borne. And if, [gentlemen[, the time has come, when you are called upon to take your portion of the wide-spread suffering, the General commanding hopes and believes that you will not be found wanting in courage and fortitude to bear it like men and patriots.
You say that if not permitted to dispose of your bricks, lumber, etc., they will be “mere rubbish on your hands.” You cannot be ignorant, gentlemen, that in this you but share the common fate of your fellow-citizens. More than two hundred millions of dollars’ worth of produce is now held by the patriotic planters of the Confederate States, and so far from seeking to sell or barter this, they stand ready to destroy, and have in many instances voluntarily applied the torch, and with self-sacrificing devotion worthy of men who aspire to be free, calmly see it reduced to ashes, rather [than] sell even at the most exorbitant rates to the enemies of their country. And if you will but turn your eyes to a neighboring parish, you may there see the very materials which you fear will become “rubbish” on your hands – though but recently formed into comfortable dwellings, and sheltering helpless women and children – reduced to heaps of “rubbish” and ashes, while their inmates have been driven to the woods, and deprived of all means of subsistence. And this has been done by the very men with whom you would now open commercial intercourse, to whose avarice you would minister and whose wants you would supply.
The General commanding directs me in conclusion to say that regarding these prohibitions of traffic with the enemy, as essential to the successful defense of the country, he is determined rigidly to enforce them; and that any one who may be detected in attempting to evade or violate them will be promptly brought to condign punishment.
Very respectfully,
JAMES O. FUQUA,
District Provost Marshal Gen’l.
(Official.)
L. D. SANDIDGE, C.S.A., A.A.A.A. and Inspector General
– Published in The Daily Rebel, Chattanooga, Tennessee, August 9, 1862, p. 3
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