e among drugs, and percussion
caps among ordnance stores were the things they most coveted, and
dealers in these carried on their trade under pretence of being
spies for each side in turn. But besides these who were merely
mercenary, there were men and women who were honestly fanatical in
their devotion to the Confederate cause. The women were especially
troublesome, for they often seemed to court martyrdom. They
practised on our forbearance to the last degree; for they knew our
extreme unwillingness to deal harshly with any of their sex.
Personally, I rated the value of spies and informers very low, and
my experience had made me much more prone to contempt than to fear
of them. But examples had to be made occasionally; a few men were
punished, a few women who belonged in the South were sent through
the lines, and we reduced to its lowest practical terms an evil and
nuisance which we could not wholly cure. The best remedy for these
plots and disturbances at the rear always was to keep the enemy busy
by a vigorous aggressive at the front. We kept, however, a species
of provost court pretty actively at work, and one or two officers
were assigned to judge-advocate's duty, who ran these courts under a
careful supervision to make sure that they should not fall into
indiscretions.

So long as the hand of military power was laid only on private
persons who were engaged in overt acts of giving aid and comfort to
the rebellion in the ways specified in Order No. 38, there was
little criticism. But the time came when General Burnside seemed to
be challenged by a public character of no little prominence to
enforce his order against him. The Vallandigham case became the
sensation of the day, and acquired a singular historical importance.
The noise which was made about it seemed to create a current opinion
that Burnside's action was a new departure, and that his Order No.
38 was issued wholly on his own responsibility. This was not so. In
the preceding year, and about the time of his Emancipation
Proclamation, the President had also proclaimed against treasonable
practices in very emphatic terms. He had declared that "all rebels
and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States,
and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting
militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid
and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States,
shall be subject to martial law and liable to