PROCLAMATION.
To the People of Accomac and Northampton Counties,
Virginia:
The military forces of the United States are about to enter
your counties, as a part of the Union. They will go among you as friends, and
with the earnest hope that they may not, by your own acts, be forced to become
your enemies. They will invade no rights of person or property. On the
contrary, your laws, your institutions, your usages will be scrupulously
respected. There need be no fear that the quietude of any fireside will be
disturbed, unless the disturbance is caused by yourselves.
Special directions have been given not to interfere with the
condition of any persons held to domestic service; and, in order that there may
be no ground for mistake, or pretext for misrepresentation, commanders of
regiments and corps have been instructed not to permit any such persons to come
within their lines. The command of the expedition is intrusted to
Brigadier-general Henry H. Lockwood, of Delaware, a State identical, in some of
the distinctive features of its social organization, with your own. Portions of
his force come from counties in Maryland bordering on one of yours. From him
and from them you may be assured of the sympathy of near neighbors as well as
friends, if you do not repel it by hostile resistance or attack. Their mission
is to assert the authority of the United States, to re-open your intercourse
with the loyal States, and especially with Maryland, which has just proclaimed
her devotion to the Union by the most triumphant vote in her political annals;
to restore to commerce its accustomed guides, by reestablishing the lights on
your coast; to afford you a free export for the products of your labor, and a
free ingress for the necessaries and comforts of life which you require in
exchange; and, in a word, to put an end to the embarrassments and restrictions
brought upon you by a causeless and unjustifiable rebellion.
If the calamities of intestine war, which are desolating
other districts of Virginia, and have already crimsoned her fields with
fraternal blood, full also upon you, it will not be the fault of the
Government. It asks only that its authority may be recognized. It sends among
you a force too strong to be successfully opposed — a force which cannot be
resisted in any other spirit than that of wantonness and malignity. If there
are any among you who, rejecting all overtures of friendship, thus provoke
retaliation, and draw down upon themselves consequences which the Government is
most anxious to avert, to their account must be laid the blood which may be
shed and the desolation which may be brought upon peaceful homes. On all who
are thus reckless of the obligations of humanity and duty, and on all who are
found in arms, the severest punishment warranted by the Laws of War will be
visited.
To those who remain in the quiet pursuit of their domestic
occupations the public authorities assure all they can give — peace, freedom
from annoyance, protection from foreign and internal enemies, a guarantee of
all constitutional and legal rights, and the blessings of a just and parental
government.
John A. Dix, Major-general commanding.
Head-quarters, Baltimore, November 13,1861.
SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix,
Volume 2, p. 40-1
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