On the 22d of July last a cartel for a general exchange of prisoners was signed by Major-General John A. Dix, on behalf of the United States, and by Major-General D.H.  Hill, on the part of this government.  By the terms of that cartel it is stipulated that all prisoners of war hereafter taken shall be discharged on parole until exchanged.  Scarcely had the cartel been signed, when the military authorities of the United States commenced a practice changing the character of the war, from such as becomes civilized nations, into a campaign of indiscriminate robbery and murder.

A general order issued by the Secretary of War of the United States, in the city of Washington, on the very day that the cartel was signed in Virginia, directs the military commanders of the United States to take the property of our people, for the convenience and use of the army, without compensation.

A general order issued by Major-General Pope, on the 23d of July last, the day after the date of the cartel, directs the murder of our peaceful citizens as spies, if found quietly tilling their farms in his rear, even outside of his lines.

And one of his brigadier-generals, Steinwehr, has seized innocent and peaceful inhabitants, to be held as hostages, to the end that they may be murdered in cold blood if any of his soldiers are killed by some unknown persons whom he designates as “bushwhackers.”  Some of the military authorities seem to suppose that their end will be better attained by a savage war in which no quarter is to be given, and no age or sex is to be spared, than by such hostilities as are alone recognized to be lawful in modern times.  We find ourselves driven by our enemies by steady progress toward a practice which we abhor, and which we are vainly struggling to avoid.

Under these circumstances, this Government has issued the accompanying general order, which I am directed by the President to transmit to you, recognizing Major-General Pope and his commissioned officers to be in the position which they have chosen for themselves—­that of robbers and murderers, and not that of public enemies, entitled, if captured, to be treated as prisoners of war.  The President also instructs me to inform you that we renounce our right of retaliation on the innocent, and will continue to treat the private soldiers of General Pope’s army as prisoners of war; but if, after notice to your Government that they confine repressive measures to the punishment of commissioned officers who are willing to participate in these crimes, the savage practices threatened in the orders alluded to be persisted in, we shall reluctantly be forced to the last resort of accepting the war on the terms chosen by our enemies, until the voice of an outraged humanity shall compel a respect for the recognized usages of war.  While the President considers that the facts referred to would justify a refusal on our part to execute the cartel