By the Governor of Virginia a Proclamation.
--Information having been received that spies and disloyal persons are continually making their way through the frontier counties of this State, and through counties in the possession of the enemy, giving them information detrimental to the Southern Confederacy and to the State of Virginia.Therefore, to prevent the egress of such persons from our borders, I, John Letcher, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, do hereby call upon and exhort the Justices of the Peace in all such counties to organize active and efficient Committees of Safety, composed of persons who are exempt from military service, whose duty it shall be to scrutinize all strangers or suspicious characters, attempting to pass out of this State or out of the lines held by our troops, and ascertain, as far as possible, their business and intentions; and if, upon such scrutiny, they are found to be engaged in carrying on illicit communication with the enemy, by carrying letters or otherwise, to cause them to be arrested and carried before a Justice of the Peace, to be committed to jail until a proper examination can be had. Such cases to be reported to the Executive, who is invested by law with authority to cause suspicious persons to be imprisoned.
Given under my hand, and under he seal of the Commonwealth, at Richmond, this 24th day of April, 1862, and in the eighty-sixth year of this Commonwealth. John Letcher.
By the Governor:
Secretary of the Commonwealth.
ap 26--sw3t
