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is made as to their powers and duties.
Andre is supposed by some historians to have been hung by order of a court-martial.
That is erroneous.
He was tried by a military commission, upon which was Lafayette.
The commission recommended to Washington that he should be hanged, and Washington issued the order to that effect.
The commission only ascertained the facts for Washington to act upon.
I did not trouble military commissions much, except where there were many controverted facts.
I have said I accounted for and turned over, when I gave up my department, five hundred thousand dollars. No dollar of it ever came out of the treasury of the United States, but it was collected in various ways under my command.
I do not know that anybody has objected to my action in this behalf.
I will state some of the principal sources of this revenue:--
I found men in the department who were carrying on a speculative trade.
I taxed them one per cent. on that trade for the benefit of the United States.
That, I believe, brought in about $178,000. They said I had no right to collect that tax of them.
I said: “Certainly not; but then the law requires that before you can do any trade here you shall have a certificate signed by the military commander.
Now, there is no law to make me sign the certificate.
Your trade is a permissive one only, and if you don't pay this excise I will not sign, and no harm will be done to either.
If you don't want to trade under my rules and regulations, then don't, for no one can compel you to.”
1
Again, Congress passed a law allowing the recruiting of soldiers for the loyal States in my department.
The result was that a herd of recruiting agents came down there to take away all my able-bodied blacks, to be credited as soldiers to their States, leaving the women and children to be taken care of by the United States.
Now, when
1 The ports of the Department of Virginia were all under blockade, and according to the rules and regulations, nothing was permitted to be landed there coming from any place foreign or from the North, but such goods as the commanding general would certify were not contraband of war, and were proper to be imported. All invoices of goods, before they were landed, were required to be sent to my office for my examination. That required a large number of intelligent clerks. When I took command, I found these examinations made by soldiers taken from the ranks to do it, so that their services were lost to the army. I sent back the soldiers and employed civilians as clerks to examine these invoices, for they were legion, and put a charge of one per cent. to pay the clerks and other necessary expenses, such as providing for sick soldiers, and spent $6,000 of the fund to buy vaccinating matter for our soldiers in rebel prisons, and matters of like kind. Norfolk, Hampden, and Yorktown were the points at which the importations and examinations were made.
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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