Captured surgeons free to leave.
Southern comity with Uncle Sam
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch June 28, 1862:
War Department, Adj’t Inspector General’s office, Richmond, June 26, 1862.
General Orders, No. 45.
I. A General Intelligence Office, to enable the friends of the sick and wounded to find them out, to facilitate communication with the army, is hereby established. Military Commanders and Surgeons will afford all the means in their power to promote the ends of its establishment.
II. Medical officers taken prisoners of war by the armies of the Confederate States will be immediately and unconditionally discharged.
III. The Government of the United States having recognized the principle that medical officers should not be held prisoners of war, and having ordered the immediate and unconditional release of all medical officers so held, all medical officers of the Confederate States, now on parole, are hereby discharged from their parole.
By command of the
Secretary of War.
Adj’t and Inspector General,
George Wythe Randolph served as Confederate Secretary of War from March – November 1862.
