In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. [SEAL.] Done at the city of Washington, this 21st day of October, By the President: HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State. EXECUTIVE ORDERS. GENERAL ORDERS, No. 83. HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, December 24, 1869. Brevet Major-General A. H. Terry, in addition to his duties as commander of the Department of the South, is, by order of the President of the United States, appointed to exercise the duties of commanding general of the District of Georgia, as defined by the act of Congress approved December 22, 1869. By command of General Sherman: E. D. TOWNSEND, Adjutant-General. EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, D. C., December 24, 1869. The painful duty devolves upon the President of announcing to the people of the United States the death of one of her most distinguished citizens and faithful public servants, the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, which occurred in this city at an early hour this morning. He was distinguished in the councils of the nation during the entire period of its recent struggle for national existence-first as AttorneyGeneral, then as Secretary of War. He was unceasing in his labors, earnest and fearless in the assumption of responsibilities necessary to his country's success, respected by all good men, and feared by wrongdoers. In his death the bar, the bench, and the nation sustain a great loss, which will be mourned by all. As a mark of respect to his memory it is ordered that the Executive Mansion and the several Departments at Washington be draped in mourning, and that all business be suspended on the day of the funeral. U. S. GRANT. M P-VOL, VI—4 GENERAL ORDERS, No. 1. HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, January 4, 1870. By direction of the President of the United States, so much of General Orders, No. 103, dated Headquarters Third Military District (Department of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama), Atlanta, Ga., July 22, 1868, and so much of General Orders, No. 55, dated Headquarters of the Army, Adjutant-General's Office, Washington, July 28, 1868, as refers to the State of Georgia is hereby countermanded. Brevet Major-General Terry will until further orders exercise within that State the powers of the commander of a military district, as provided by the act of March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto, under his assignment by General Orders, No. 83, dated Headquarters of the Army, Adjutant-General's Office Washington, December 24, 1869. By command of General Sherman: E. D. TOWNSEND, GENERAL ORDERS, NO. II. HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, January 29, 1870. I. The Senators and Representatives from the State of Virginia having been admitted to their respective Houses of Congress, the command known as the First Military District has ceased to exist. II. By direction of the President, the States of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina will compose the Department of Virginia, under the command of Brevet Major-General E. R. S. Canby, headquarters at Richmond, Va., and will form a part of the Military Division of the Atlantic. III. Commanding officers of all posts and detachments now serving in the limits of the new department will report to General Canby for instructions. The companies of the Eighth Infantry now serving in the State of North Carolina will be relieved as early as possible, and report to Brevet Major-General A. H. Terry, commanding Department of the South, for orders. By command of General Sherman: B. D. TOWNSEND, GENERAL ORDERS, NO. 25. HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, February 26, 1870. I. The Senators and Representatives from the State of Mississippi having been admitted to their respective Houses of Congress, the command known as the Fourth Military District has ceased to exist. II. By direction of the President, the State of Mississippi is attached to the Department of the Cumberland, and the officers and troops within the late Fourth Military District will accordingly report to Brevet MajorGeneral Cooke, commanding the department. III. The general commanding the late Fourth Military District will complete the records of that district as soon as practicable and send them to the Adjutant-General of the Army, except such military records as should properly be retained at the headquarters of the department, which he will send there. I. By order of the President of the United States, the State of Texas having been admitted to representation in Congress, the command heretofore known as the Fifth Military District will cease to exist, and will hereafter constitute a separate military department, headquarters Austin, Tex., Brevet Major-General J. J. Reynolds commanding. II. The department known as the Department of Louisiana will be broken up; the State of Louisiana is hereby added to the Department of Texas, and the State of Arkansas to the Department of the Missouri. The commanding general Department of the Missouri will, as soon as convenient, relieve the garrison at Little Rock by a detachment from the Sixth Infantry, and the commanding officer of the troops now in Arkansas will report to General J. J. Reynolds for orders, to take effect as soon as replaced. III. The new Department of Texas will form a part of the Military Division of the South. By command of General Sherman: E. D. TOWNSEND, Adjutant-General SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE. EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 5, 1870. To the Senate and House of Representatives: A year of peace and general prosperity to this nation has passed since the last assembling of Congress. We have, through a kind Providence, been blessed with abundant crops, and have been spared from complications and war with foreign nations. In our midst comparative harmony has been restored. It is to be regretted, however, that a free exercise of the elective franchise has by violence and intimidation been denied to citizens in exceptional cases in several of the States lately in rebellion, and the verdict of the people has thereby been reversed. The States of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas have been restored to representation in our national councils. Georgia, the only State now without representation, may confidently be expected to take her place there also at the beginning of the new year, and then, let us hope, will be completed the work of reconstruction. With an acquiescence on the part of the whole people in the national obligation to pay the public debt created as the price of our Union, the pensions to our disabled soldiers and sailors and their widows and orphans, and in the changes to the Constitution which have been made necessary by a great rebellion, there is no reason why we should not advance in material prosperity and happiness as no other nation ever did after so protracted and devastating a war. Soon after the existing war broke out in Europe the protection of the United States minister in Paris was invoked in favor of North Germans domiciled in French territory. Instructions were issued to grant the protection. This has been followed by an extension of American protection to citizens of Saxony, Hesse and Saxe-Coburg, Gotha, Colombia, Portugal, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, and Venezuela in Paris. The charge was an onerous one, requiring constant and severe labor, as well as the exercise of patience, prudence, and good judgment. It has been performed to the entire satisfaction of this Government, and, as I am officially informed, equally so to the satisfaction of the Government of North Germany. As soon as I learned that a republic had been proclaimed at Paris and that the people of France had acquiesced in the change, the minister of the United States was directed by telegraph to recognize it and to tender my congratulations and those of the people of the United States. The reestablishment in France of a system of government disconnected with the dynastic traditions of Europe appeared to be a proper subject for the felicitations of Americans. Should the present struggle result in attaching the hearts of the French to our simpler forms of representative government, it will be a subject of still further satisfaction to our people. While we make no effort to impose our institutions upon the inhabitants of other countries, and while we adhere to our traditional neutrality in civil contests elsewhere, we can not be indifferent to the spread of American political ideas in a great and highly civilized country like France. We were asked by the new Government to use our good offices, jointly with those of European powers, in the interests of peace. Answer was made that the established policy and the true interests of the United States forbade them to interfere in European questions jointly with European powers. I ascertained, informally and unofficially, that the Government of North Germany was not then disposed to listen to such representations from any power, and though earnestly wishing to see the blessings of peace restored to the belligerents, with all of whom the United States are on terms of friendship, I declined on the part of this Govern. ment to take a step which could only result in injury to our true interests, without advancing the object for which our intervention was invoked. Should the time come when the action of the United States can hasten the return of peace by a single hour, that action will be heartily taken. I deemed it prudent, in view of the number of persons of German and French birth living in the United States, to issue, soon after official notice of a state of war had been received from both belligerents, a proclamation* defining the duties of the United States as a neutral and the obligations of persons residing within their territory to observe their laws and the laws of nations. This proclamation was followed by others, † as circumstances seemed to call for them. The people, thus acquainted in advance of their duties and obligations, have assisted in preventing violations of the neutrality of the United States. It is not understood that the condition of the insurrection in Cuba has materially changed since the close of the last session of Congress. In an early stage of the contest the authorities of Spain inaugurated a system of arbitrary arrests, of close confinement, and of military trial and execution of persons suspected of complicity with the insurgents, and of summary embargo of their properties, and sequestration of their revenues by executive warrant. Such proceedings, so far as they affected the persons or property of citizens of the United States, were in violation of the provisions of the treaty of 1795 between the United States and Spain. Representations of injuries resulting to several persons claiming to be citizens of the United States by reason of such violations were made to the Spanish Government. From April, 1869, to June last the Spanish minister at Washington had been clothed with a limited power to aid in redressing such wrongs. That power was found to be withdrawn, "in view," as it was said, "of the favorable situation in which the island of Cuba" then "was," which, however, did not lead to a revocation or suspension of the extraordinary and arbitrary functions exercised by the executive power in Cuba, and we were obliged to make our complaints |