Head quarters, Middle
Department, Baltimore, Md., June 1,1862.
General Orders, No. 14:
The Major-general commanding, having received orders to
repair to Fort Monroe and assume the command at that point, and having but two
hours to prepare for his departure, takes leave of the troops under his command
in the only mode left to him — through the medium of a General Order.
Of the corps composing his command when he first assumed it,
more than ten months ago, two regiments — the Third New York Volunteers, under Colonel
Alford; the Fourth New York Volunteers, under Colonel Taylor; and the regular
garrison of Fort McHenry, under Colonel Morris — are all that remain. The
admirable discipline of these deserves the highest commendation; and he returns
to all his sincere thanks for their promptitude and fidelity in the performance
of their duties.
It is a source of great regret to him that he is compelled
to leave without being able to review the regiments of New York Militia — the
Seventh, Eighth, Thirteenth, Twenty-second, Thirty-seventh, and Forty-seventh —
which, under a second appeal from the Chief Magistrate of the Union, have laid
aside their various occupations on the briefest notice, at great personal
sacrifice, and, hurrying to the field, are now occupying positions in and
around Baltimore. In their patriotism and their devotion to the Government of
their country the Union feeling of the city will meet with a cordial sympathy.
It is a great alleviation of the regret with which the Major-general commanding
parts with them, that he is soon to be succeeded by a distinguished general
officer of the regular army from their own State. In the interim the command of
the Department devolves on Brigadier-general Montgomery, United States
Volunteers.
The Major-general commanding cannot forbear, in taking leave
of the citizens of Baltimore, among whom his duties have been discharged, to
express the grateful sense he will ever retain of the aid and encouragement he
has received from those of them who have been true, under all the vicissitudes
of a wicked and unnatural contest, to the cause of the Union. The ladies of the
Union Relief Association are entitled to a special acknowledgment of his
obligations to them. It is believed that the records of philanthropic devotion
do not contain a brighter example of self-sacrificing service than that which
is to be found in their own quiet and unobtrusive labors. The military
hospitals have, from the commencement of the war, borne unceasing testimony to
their untiring zeal and sympathy. The wounded prisoners of the insurgent army
have, like our own, been solaced in their dying hours by the ministrations of
these devoted ladies: nobly suggesting to the misguided masses who are in arms
against the Government that suffering humanity, under whatever circumstances it
may present itself, has the same claim on our common nature for sympathy and
ministering care. And it is to be hoped that this lesson of magnanimity may not
be without its proper influence on those who, under the influence of bad passions,
seem to have lost sight of their moral responsibility for indifference and
cruelty.
It is a source of great gratification to the Major-general
commanding that in the eight months during which the municipal police was under
his control no act of disorder disturbed the tranquillity of the city, and that
the police returns, compared with those of a corresponding period of the
previous year, exhibit a very great reduction, in some months as high as fifty
per cent., in the aggregate of misdemeanors and crimes. The police having on
the 20th of March last been surrendered to the city authorities, they have
since then been responsible for the preservation of the public order. The zeal
and promptitude of the Police Commissioners and Marshal of Police on the occurrence
of a recent disturbance, provoked by a brutal expression of disloyal feeling,
gives earnest of their determination to arrest at the outset all breaches of
the public peace, which, by whatever provocation they may seem to be palliated,
are sure to degenerate, if unchecked, into discreditable and fatal excesses.
The Major-general commanding, with this imperfect
acknowledgment of his obligations to the loyal citizens of Baltimore and their
patriotic defenders, tenders to them all, with his best wishes, a friendly and
cordial farewell.
By order of Major-general Dix.
Danl. T. Van Buren, Colonel and Aide-de-camp.
SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix,
Volume 2, p. 47-8
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