November 14.—The farmers of Warren, Franklin, and Johnson counties, N. C, having refused to pay the rebel tax in kind by delivering the government’s tenth to the quartermaster-general, James A. Seddon, the Secretary of War, issued the following letter of instructions to that officer:
“It is true the law requires farmers to deliver their tenth at depots not more than eight miles from the place of production; but your published order requesting them for the purpose of supplying the immediate wants of the army, to deliver at the depots named, although at a greater distance than eight miles, and offering to pay for the transportation in excess of that distance, is so reasonable that no good citizen would refuse to comply with it.
“You will, therefore, promulgate an addition to your former order, requiring producers to deliver their quotas at the depots nearest to them by a specified day, and notifying them that in case of their refusal or neglect to comply therewith, the Government will provide the necessary transportation at the expense of the delinquents, and collect said expense by an immediate levy on their productions, calculating their value at the rates allowed in cases of impressment.
“If it becomes necessary to furnish transportation, the necessary teams, teamsters, etc., must be impressed as in ordinary cases.
“All persons detected in secreting articles subject to the tax, or in deceiving as to the quantity produced by them, should be made to suffer the confiscation of all such property found belonging to them.
“The people in the counties named, and in fact nearly all the western counties of that State, have ever evinced a disposition to cavil at, and even resist the measures of the Government, and it is quite time that they, and all others similarly disposed, should be dealt by with becoming rigor. Now that our energies are taxed to the utmost to subsist our armies, it will not do to be defrauded of this much-needed tax. If necessary, force must be employed for its collection. Let striking examples be made of a few of the rogues, and I think the rest will respond promptly.”
—Major-General Schofield, from the headquarters of the Department of the Missouri, at St. Louis, issued an important order regarding the enlisting of colored troops.
