###
WAR DEPARTMENT, C.S.A.,
Richmond, Va., August 9, 1863.
General E. KIRBY SMITH, Commanding, &c.
GENERAL: This will be handed you by Col. T. P. Dockery, of the Nineteenth Arkansas Regiment, who, with the brigade at the time commanded by him, were among the prisoners surrendered at Vicksburg. He has been ordered to pass to the Trans-Mississippi Department, and proceed to reassemble the men of his brigade at Camden, Ark., or such other place as you may in preference designate, and to arm and recruit them, as far as possible, for active service as soon as exchanged or discharged of their parole, which, in reference to such portions of them as this department considers bound by such obligation, will, under the cartel, be done as soon as the lists of the men and officers in companies and regiments, ordered to be forwarded by General Pemberton, are received.
The circumstances in relation to a portion of the men are peculiar. The terms of the capitulation required that they should be returned and allowed to march within our lines. Before, however, this had been done, and before the men had been listed and acknowledged by certificate of officers as prisoners, many of them from the Trans-Mississippi Department, eager and impatient to return to their homes, manifested a disregard to their duty as soldiers and their desire at once to cross the river. This feeling and dissatisfaction were to the utmost encouraged by the enemy, and facilities of every kind were given the men to leave their commands and pass the river. Very many men, and some officers, thus, before the prisoners left Vicksburg, and before listed for the acknowledgment of the officers, were separated from and lost to their commands, not only with the connivance, but at the instigation of the enemy. These our officers very properly afterward refused to recognize as prisoners, whose parole has to be recognized and who were to be exchanged. No other view, in the judgment of this department, can be justly taken, and all such men are, it is insisted, free at once to re-enter service. Such portion of the men, when reassembled, should be discriminated, and, if occasion arises and the exchange of the others is delayed, might at once be thrown into the field; besides, as the enemy might persist, however unreasonably, in claiming these men to be still liable to their parole, it may be questionable whether it would not be advisable, instead of retaining them altogether in one and the same brigade, to distribute them in other commands, and take from them, in exchange, a similar number, so as, in case of capture, to lessen the chance of their recognition and a question about them. This is a matter commended to your consideration and discretion.
*****
With high esteem, most truly, yours,
J. A. SEDDON,
Secretary of War.