Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office 
Richmond, August 1, 1862. 
GENERAL ORDERS,} 
No. 54. y 
I. The following Orders are published for the information and obser- 
vance of all concerned: 
11. Whereas, by a General Order, dated the 22d July 1862, issued by 
the Secretary of War of the United States, under the order of the Presi- 
dent of the United States, the military commanders of that government 
within the states of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, are directed to seize and 
use any property, real or personal, belonging to the inhabitants of this 
Confederacy, which may be necessary or convenient for their several 
commands, and no provision is made for any compensation to the owners 
of private property thus seized and appropriated by the military com- 
manders of the enemy: 
111. And whereas, by General Order number eleven, issued on the 
23d July 1862, by Major General Pope, commanding the forces of the 
enemy in Northern Virginia, it is ordered that all “ commanders of army 
corps, divisions, brigades and detached commands, will proceed imme- 
diately to arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines or within 
their reach, in rear of their respective commands. Such as are willing 
to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and will furnish suffi- 
cient security for its observance, shall be permitted to remain at their 
homes, and pursue in good faith their accustomed avocations. Those 
who refuse, shall be conducted South, beyond the extreme pickets of this 
army, and be notified that if found again any where within our lines, or 
at any point in rear, they will bo considered spies, and subjected to the 
extreme rigor of military law. If any person having taken the oath of 
allegiance as above specified, be found to have violated it, he shall be 
shot, and his property seized and applied to the public use 
IV. And whereas, by an order issued on the 13th July 1862, by Briga- 
dier General A. Steinwehr, Major William Steadman, a cavalry officer of 
his brigade, has been ordered to arrest five of the most prominent citizens 
of Page county, Virginia, to be held as hostages, and to suffer death in 
the event of any of the soldiers of said Steinwehr being shot by “bush- 2 
whackers,” by which term are meant the citizens of this Confederacy 
who have taken up arms to defend their homes and families; 
V. And whereas it results from the above orders that some of the 
military authorities of the United States, not content with the unjust 
and aggressive warfare hitherto waged with savage cruelty against an 
unoffending people, and exasperated by the failure of their effort to sub- 
jugate them, have now determined to violate all the rules and usages of 
war, and to convert the hostilities hitherto waged against armed forces 
into a campaign of robbery and murder against unarmed citizens and 
peaceful tillers of the soil: 
VI. And whereas this government, bound by the highest obligations 
of duty to its citizens, is thus driven to the necessity of adopting such, 
just measures of retribution and retaliation as shall seem adequate to re- 
press and punish these barbarities; and whereas the orders above recited 
have only been published and made known to this government since the 
signature of a cartel for exchange of prisoners of war, which cartel, in 
so far as it provides for an exchange of prisoners hereafter captured, 
would never have been signed or agreed to by this government, if the 
intention to change the war into a system of indiscriminate murder and 
robbery had been made known to it: and whereas a just regard to hu- 
manity forbids that the repression of crime which this government is 
thus compelled to enforce should be unnecessarily extended to retaliation 
on the enlisted men in the army of the United States, who may be the 
unwilling instruments of the savage cruelty of their commanders, so 
long as there is hope that the excesses of the enemy may be checked or 
prevented by retribution on the commissioned officers who have the 
power to avoid guilty action, by refusing service under a government 
which seeks their aid in the perpetration of such infamous barbarities: 
VII. Therefore, it is ordered that Major General Pope, Brigadier Ge- 
neral Steinwehr, and all commissioned officers serving under their respec- 
tive commands, be and they are hereby expressly and specially declared 
to be not entitled to be considered as soldiers, and therefore not entitled 
to the benefit of the cartel for the parole of future prisoners of war. 
Ordered further, that in the event of the capture of Major General Pope, 
or Brigadier General Steinwehr, or of any commissioned officer serving 
under them, the captive so taken shall be held in close confinement so 
long as the orders aforesaid shall continue in force and unrepealed by the 
competent military authorities of the United States; and that in the event 
of the murder of any unarmed citizen or inhabitant of this Confederacy 3 
\ virtue or under pretext of any of the orders hereinbefore recited, 
whether with or without trial, whether under pretence of such citizen 
being a spy or hostage, or any other pretence, it shall be the duty of the 
Commanding General of the forces of this Confederacy to cause immedi- 
y o e ung, out of the commissioned officers, prisoners as aforesaid, 
a number equal to the number of our own citizens thus murdered by 
the enemy. J 
order. 
S. COOPER, 
Adjutant and Inspector General,