Major-General John A. Dix to Abraham Lincoln, March 7, 1863

Head Quarters Department of Virginia

Seventh Army Corps

Fort Monroe, Va. Mch. 7th 1863

Sir:

I am extremely unwilling to trouble you amid your multifarious and responsible duties with a matter, which ought to have been settled elsewhere. But having failed in every effort to arrange it, I feel it my duty to the public service to appeal to you. Soon after Admiral Lee took command of the blockading squadron on this part of the coast, he placed a Gun-boat between Fort Monroe and Fort Wool, a short distance to the East, and required all vessels bound to this post, even when laden with Army stores, to come to anchor or heave to, until a permit to come to the dock could be procured from me. —

No such requirement has been enforced before, since the commencement of the war. It is not only a new but a useless vexation: and has led in some instances to the most serious inconvenience and loss. —

The only pretext, under which it can be made, is to enforce the blockade; and as against this Fort it is an absurdity. A blockade is an investment of an enemy's port. — Admiral Lee is blockading one of our Forts by one of our gun-boats – a novelty in war which is without precedent.

I protested against this proceeding at the outset as an indignity to the Army and to the Commander of this Military Department whose Head Quarters are here; and I would have resisted it but for an unwillingness to present to the public the scandal of a quarrel between the Army and the Navy, when the cordial co-operation of both is needed to maintain the national interests and honor.

If the object of the blockade of the enemy's territory were promoted by the measure, I would silently acquiesce in it, objectionable as it is. But no such object is gained. There is no enemy's territory to blockade within fifteen miles of Fort Monroe, and the blockading squadron at Newport News and Norfolk shuts out all ingress.

It does not profess to be a precaution against smuggling, and it would be useless if it did. There is a revenue vessel at Fort Monroe, commanded by a very faithful and vigilant officer. There is also a Captain of the Port with a competent force. — These two officers examine all vessels that come to Fort Monroe, not only as to the sufficiency of their papers, but as to their cargoes, opening and scrutinizing every cask and package.

The practical objections to the measure are these

1st It compels every vessel to come to, and to send to the Fort for a permit, often at great inconvenience. —

2nd It occasions delays, always vexatious in time of war, when the prompt delivery of supplies is necessary, and sometimes exceedingly annoying. — The last time I visited Washington, a Commissary's vessel laden with potatoes of which we were greatly in need, was kept lying alongside of the guard-boat twenty four hours because I was not here to give a permit. On the same day some boats laden with insurgents came out of the Rappahannock and burned the Ship Alleghanian laden with guano. If the gun-boat had been employed in protecting our commerce there, instead of blockading the Army at Fort Monroe, and keeping us out of our supplies, it would have deprived the enemy of a success and spared us an annoyance. —

3rd It is the source not only of annoyance but of disaster and private injury. On the night of the 21st ulto. in the midst of a violent easterly gale and snow storm a schooner laden with forage for the Quartermaster in attempting to enter the harbor for shelter, was ordered off by the guard-boat, as the Captain states because she had not a permit from me, and ran aground on the beach. She was unladen with great inconvenience, and we had three Steamers employed for portions of two days to get her afloat. The actual loss to the Government cannot be less than $1.000.—

The Officer of the Gun-boat, as I learn, has authority to pass vessels driven into the harbor by violent storms; but misapprehensions sometimes arise and serious accidents occur in consequence. If the gun-boat were removed there would be no danger of misunderstanding and loss. —

These are briefly some of the inconveniences and the evils of this measure. — I object to it 1st as useless; 2nd as inconvenient and vexatious; 3rd as producing public annoyance and injury; 4th as a source of private wrong and loss; and 5th as an indignity to the Army; and on these grounds I ask your interposition to terminate it. I enclose a map showing the position of the gun-boat at "A", and I request that she may be required to be removed and placed as far west as "B", and that this Fort be left open to the access of vessels as it was under Admirals Goldsborough and Wilkes, not only to such as have Army supplies, but such as come here for shelter, subject to the usual revenue and military inspection which is never omitted. —

There is an immense contraband traffic carried on between the York and Rappahannock Rivers, and the Steamer which is blockading us, might render a valuable service in that quarter instead of creating annoyance to the Army here. —

I have the honor to be,

Very respectfully,

Your ob'd't Servant

John A. Dix

Maj. Genl.

[ Endorsed on Envelope by Lincoln:]

Submitted to Mars & Neptune.

SOURCE: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Major-General John A. Dix to Brigadier-General Joseph K. F. Mansfield, August 16, 1862

Head quarters, Seventh Army Corps, Fort Monroe, Va.,

August 16,1862.

Brigadier-general J. K. [F.] Mansfield, commanding at Suffolk:

General,—I have received your letter of the 14th instant, with a list of prisoners sent by you to Fort Wool, and a brief statement of the charges against them. This is the first specification of their offences I have seen, and I know that several citizens have been sent here without any memorandum of the causes for which they were imprisoned.

The crimes specified by you as having been committed by Secessionists in general deserve any punishment we may think proper to inflict. But the first question is, in every case of imprisonment, whether the party has actually been guilty of any offence; and this is a question to be decided upon proper evidence. If the guilt is not clearly shown the accused should be released. There is nothing in your position or mine which can excuse either of us for depriving any man of his liberty without a full and impartial examination. My duties are at least as arduous as yours, and I have never shrunk from the labor of a personal examination of every case of imprisonment for which I am responsible.

In regard to arrests in your command, there was at least one, and I think more, for which there was not, in my judgment, the slightest cause. I speak from a personal examination of them. The arrests were made without your order, as I understood, but acquiesced in by you subsequently. The parties referred to were released nearly a month ago. Had I not looked into their cases they would, no doubt, have been in prison at this very moment. When Judge Pierrepont and I examined the cases of political prisoners in their various places of custody from Washington to Fort Warren, we found persons arrested by military officers who had been overlooked, and who had been lying in prison for months without any just cause. For this reason, as well as on general principles of justice and humanity, I must insist that every person arrested shall have a prompt examination, and, if it is considered a proper case for imprisonment, that the testimony shall be taken under oath, and the record sent, with the accused, to the officer who is to have the custody of him. This is especially necessary when the commitment is made by a military commission, and the party accused is sent to a distance and placed, like the prisoners at Fort Wool, under the immediate supervision of the commanding officer of the Department or Army Corps. The only proper exception to the rule is where persons are temporarily detained during military movements, in order that they may not give information to the enemy. I consider it my duty to go once in three or four weeks to the places of imprisonment within my command, inquire into the causes of arrest, and discharge all prisoners against whom charges, sustained by satisfactory proof, are not on file. I did not enter into a minute examination of the prisoners sent here by your order, nor did I release any one of them, but referred the whole matter to you for explanation; and it is proper to suggest that an imputation of undue susceptibility on my part, or a general reprobation of the conduct of faithless citizens, for whom when their guilt is clearly shown I have quite as little sympathy as yourself, is not an answer to the question of culpability in special cases. The paper you sent me is very well as far as it goes, but it is no more complete, without a transcript of the evidence on which the allegations are founded, than a memorandum of the crime and the sentence of a military prisoner would be without the record of the proceedings of the Court. You will please, therefore, send to me the testimony taken by the military commissions before whom the examination was made.

It is proper to remark here that a military commission not appointed by the commanding General of the Army or the Army Corps is a mere court of inquiry, and its proceedings can only be regarded in the light of information for the guidance of the officer who institutes it, and on whom the whole responsibility of any action under them must, from the necessity of the case, devolve.

In regard to persons whom you think right to arrest and detain under your immediate direction I have nothing to say. You are personally responsible for them; and, as your attention will be frequently called to them, the duration of their imprisonment will be likely to be influenced by considerations which might be overlooked if they were at a distance. I am, therefore, quite willing to leave them in your hands. But when a prisoner is sent here, and comes under my immediate observation and care, I wish the whole case to be presented to me.

The Engineer Department has called on me to remove the prisoners from Fort Wool, that the work may not be interrupted. I have sent away all the military prisoners, and wish to dispose of those who are confined for political causes. When I have received from you a full report of the cases which arose under your command I will dispose of them, and send to you all the persons whom I do not release. Or, if you prefer it — and it would be much more satisfactory to me — I will send them all to you without going into any examination myself, and leave it to you to dispose of them as you think right. If you have no suitable guard-house, there is a jail near your head-quarters, where they may be securely confined.

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,

john A. Dix.

SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 44-6

Major-General John A. Dix to Brigadier-General Joseph K. F. Mansfield, August 12, 1862

Head-quarters, Seventh Army Corps, Fort Monroe, Va.,

August 12, 1862.

Brigadier-General J. K. [F]. Mansfield, commanding at Suffolk, Va.:

General,—I have read your instructions to your Provost-marshal, and think them right and proper.

I was yesterday at Fort Wool, and discharged a large number of prisoners on parole. I found quite a number from Nansemond and Gates Counties, and retain them for the purpose of communicating with you. I examined several of them, and am satisfied that they have committed no act of hostility against the United States. That they sympathize with the insurgents there is no doubt; but if we undertake to arrest all such persons, our forts and prisons would not contain a tithe of them. So long as they continue quietly about their business they should not be molested.

The exercise of this power of arrest is at the same time the most arbitrary and the most delicate which a state of war devolves on a military commander, and it is one which should not be delegated to a subordinate. I find that many of the persons imprisoned at Fort Wool were arrested by Colonel Dodge, and some of them on suspicion. This must not be repeated. Your subordinates may arrest persons detected in open nets of hostility to the Government. But in every other instance, and in every case, the order for arrest should come from you; or, if an arrest is made in an emergency without your order, the case should be brought directly before you, and the evidence taken before the party is sent here for imprisonment. Two of the persons sent to Fort Wool by you have died within the last three days — one of them Mr. Jordan, the most respectable of all in standing. His body goes to his friends in Norfolk to-day. Imprisonment at Fort Wool is a most severe punishment at this season. The water is bad, and the heat is intense; and no citizen should be sent there for a light cause, and without pretty clear evidence of guilt. If parties in your neighborhood need temporary restraint, you must find some place of safe keeping there, unless the case is very marked.

My inclination is to discharge all these persons on a stringent parole. But before doing so I await your reply, with your views on any particular case or cases.

I am, very respectfully, yours,

John A. Dix.

SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 43-4