HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT
OF PENNSYLVANIA,
Baltimore, Md.,
August 16, 1861.
EDWARD McK. HUDSON, Aide-de-Camp:
SIR: I am directed by Major-General Dix to acknowledge the
receipt of your communication of the 15th instant, addressed to
Brigadier-General Dix, commanding Department of Baltimore, and inclosing
paragraphs from newspapers published in this city.1
He requests me to say that he is the major general commanding
the Department of Pennsylvania, composed of the States of Pennsylvania, Delaware,
and all of Maryland except the counties of Alleghany and Washington, which
belong to the Department of the Shenandoah, and the counties of Frederick, Montgomery,
and Prince George's, which belong to the Department of Washington. If any
changes have been made in his command he has no information, official or
unofficial, in respect to them. He received last evening a dispatch, signed
Lawrence A. Williams, aide-de-camp, in the name of the commanding general of
the division, and though it contained nothing more definite in regard to the
authority from which it emanated, he assumed that it came to him by direction
of the Government, and immediately sent for the agent of the Sun newspaper, The
proprietor being absent, and he thinks the result of the interview will be to
cause a discontinuance of exceptionable articles like those which have recently
appeared in that paper.
Major-General Dix requests me to say to Major-General
McClellan that his attention, since he assumed the command of this department,
has been so engaged by official duties that the course of the secessionist
papers in Baltimore was not noticed by him until the early part of this week.
He has been considering whether the emergency would not warrant a suppression
of the papers referred to, if, after warning them of the consequences of a
persistence in their hostility to the Union, they should refuse to abstain from
misrepresentations of the conduct and motives of the Government and the
publication of intelligence calculated to aid and encourage the public enemy.
It was his intention in a matter of so much gravity – one affecting so deeply
the established opinions of the country in regard to the freedom of the press –
to ask the direction of the Government as soon as he should feel prepared to
recommend a definite course of action. In the mean time it will give him
pleasure to do all in his power to suppress the publication of information in
regard to the movements, position, and number of our troops, as Major-General
McClellan requests, as it is possible that orders may have been issued
affecting his command and by accident not have reached him.
Major-General Dix will be glad to receive any information
you may have in regard to the modification, if any has been made, of General Orders, No. 47.2
I am, very
respectfully, yours,
WM. D. WHIPPLE,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
_______________
1 Not found.
2 Of July 25, 1861. See p. 763, Vol. II, of this series.
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