By the fourth section of the act of Congress approved August 6, 1861, entitled “An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,” such hostile employment is made a full and sufficient answer to any further claim to service or labor.  Persons thus employed and escaping are received into the military protection of the United States, and their arrest as fugitives from service or labor should be immediately followed by the military arrest of the parties making the seizure.

Copies of this communication will be sent to the mayor of the city of Washington and to the marshal of the District of Columbia, that any collision between the civil and military authorities may be avoided.

I am, General, your very obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

[From McPherson’s History of the Rebellion, p. 252.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington City, July 3, 1862.

Major-General B.F.  BUTLER,
  Commanding, etc., New Orleans, La.

GENERAL:  I wrote you last under date of the 29th ultimo, and have now to say that your dispatch of the 18th ultimo, with the accompanying report of General Phelps concerning certain fugitive negroes that have come to his pickets, has been considered by the President.

He is of opinion that under the law of Congress they can not be sent back to their master; that in common humanity they must not be permitted to suffer for want of food, shelter, or other necessaries of life; that to this end they should be provided for by the Quartermaster’s and Commissary’s departments, and that those who are capable of labor should be set to work and paid reasonable wages.

In directing this to be done the President does not mean at present to settle any general rule in respect to slaves or slavery, but simply to provide for the particular case under the circumstances in which it is now presented.

I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

EDWIN M. STANTON,
  Secretary of War.

[From official records, War Department.]

WASHINGTON, May 1, 1863.

Major-General WOOL,
  Commanding at New York: 

By virtue of the act of Congress authorizing the President to take possession of railroad and telegraph lines, etc., passed February 4, 1862, the President directs that you take immediate military possession of the telegraph lines lately established between Philadelphia and Boston, called the Independent Telegraph Company, and forbid the transmission of any intelligence relating to the movements of the Army of the Potomac or any military forces of the United States.  In case this order is violated arrest and imprison the perpetrators in Fort Delaware, reporting to the Department.  If the management of the line will stipulate to transmit no military intelligence without the sanction of the War Department, they need not be interfered with so long as the engagement is fulfilled.  This order will be executed so as not to interfere with the ordinary business of the telegraph company.