General Thomas Ewing, Jr.'s Infamous General Order 11
U.S. Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, commanding the District of the Border, issued General Order No. 10 in August of 1863. which included this unbelievable provision against non-combatant civilians of Missouri:
"...officers will arrest, and send... for punishment, all men (and all women not heads of families) who willfully aid and encourage guerrillas, with a written statement of the names and residences of such persons and of the proof against them. They will discriminate as carefully as possible between those who are compelled, by threats or fears, to aid the rebels and those who aid them from disloyal motives. The wives and children of known guerrillas, and also women who are heads of families and are willfully engaged in aiding guerrillas, will be notified by such officers to remove out of the district and out of the State of Missouri forthwith. They will be permitted to take, unmolested, their stock, provisions, and household goods. If they fail to remove promptly, they will be sent by such officers, under escort, to Kansas City for shipment south, with their clothes and such necessary household furniture and provision as may be worth removing."
General Order No. 11, issued on August 25, 1863, is regarded by some as one of the cruelest and most unusual orders issued by a general during the War Between The States.
This order, issued by U.S. Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, commanding the District of the Border, ordered the evacuation of four counties in western Missouri. Independence and a few other settlements were exempted, and part of one county fell outside the boundaries of the military district; otherwise, every resident had to move. Those who could establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the nearest military post would be issued certificates allowing them to move to military posts in the state. Everyone else was supposed to leave the state.
The order, it is estimated, may have created as many as twenty thousand refugees from the western Missouri counties. Though it did not directly create any political prisoners, many of these homeless refugees must have wandered eventually into Union lines and were doubtless arrested.
President Lincoln approved of the notorious General Order No. 11, far more than he did of interfering with freedom of speech or political organization. Thus, he wrote U.S. General John M. Schofield, commanding the Department of the Missouri, on October 1, 1863, with this broad advice:
"Under your recent order, which I have approved, you will only arrest individuals, and suppress assemblies, or newspapers, and when they may be working palpable injury to the Military in your charge; and, in no other case will you interfere with the expression of opinion in any form, or allow it to be interfered with violently by others. In this, you have a discretion to exercise with great caution, calmness, and forbearance. With the matters of removing the inhabitants of certain counties en masse; and of removing certain individuals from time to time, who are supposed to be mischievous, I am not now interfering, but am leaving to your own discretion."
References: "The South Was Right" by James R. Kennedy and Walter D. Kennedy, Chapter 4. Also 4 pages of documentation (available upon request) found in: O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXII/2 [S# 33] Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating To Operations In Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, The Indian Territory, And Department Of The Northwest, From January 1 To December 31, 1863. UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--#19 GENERAL ORDERS, No. 10. and No. 11. O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXII/2 [S# 33] Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating To Operations In Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, The Indian Territory, And Department Of The Northwest, From January 1 To December 31, 1863. UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--#24
Source: http://www.civilwarhistory.com/_/atrocities/ThehangingofSamDavis.htm
