[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President: 
  WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
    Secretary of State.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, December 22, 1862.

To the Army of the Potomac: 

I have just read your commanding general’s preliminary report of the battle of Fredericksburg.  Although you were not successful, the attempt was not an error nor the failure other than an accident.  The courage with which you in an open field maintained the contest against an intrenched foe and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and recrossed the river in face of the enemy show that you possess all the qualities of a great army, which will yet give victory to the cause of the country and of popular government.  Condoling with the mourners for the dead and sympathizing with the severely wounded, I congratulate you that the number of both is comparatively so small.

I tender to you, officers and soldiers, the thanks of the nation.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, January 4, 1863.

Hon. GIDEON WELLES,

Secretary of the Navy.

DEAR SIR:  As many persons who come well recommended for loyalty and service to the Union cause, and who are refugees from rebel oppression in the State of Virginia, make application to me for authority and permission to remove their families and property to protection within the Union lines by means of our armed gunboats on the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, you are hereby requested to hear and consider all such applications and to grant such assistance to this class of persons as in your judgment their merits may render proper and as may in each case be consistent with the perfect and complete efficiency of the naval service and with military expediency.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 8, 1863.

Ordered by the President: 

Whereas on the 13th day of November, 1862, it was ordered that the Attorney-General be charged with the superintendence and direction of all proceedings to be had under the act of Congress of the 17th of July, entitled “An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, and to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes,” in so far as may concern the seizure, prosecution, and condemnation of the estate, property, and effects of rebels and traitors, as mentioned and provided for in the fifth, sixth, and seventh sections of the said act of Congress; and

Whereas since that time it has been ascertained that divers prosecutions have been instituted in the courts of the United States for the condemnation of property of rebels and traitors under the act of Congress of August 6, 1861, entitled “An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,” which equally require the superintending care of the Government:  Therefore