sons under their command or in their
custody, either as prisoners of war, spies, or aiders or abettors of the
enemy, or officers, soldiers, or seamen enrolled or drafted or mustered
or enlisted in or belonging to the land or naval forces of the United
States, or as deserters therefrom, or otherwise amenable to military law
or the rules and articles of war or the rules or regulations prescribed
for the military or naval services by authority of the President of the
United States, or for resisting a draft, or for any other offense
against the military or naval service; and

Whereas many citizens of the State of Kentucky have joined the forces of
the insurgents, and such insurgents have on several occasions entered
the said State of Kentucky in large force, and, not without aid and
comfort furnished by disaffected and disloyal citizens of the United
States residing therein, have not only greatly disturbed the public
peace, but have overborne the civil authorities and made flagrant civil
war, destroying property and life in various parts of that State; and

Whereas it has been made known to the President of the United States by
the officers commanding the national armies that combinations have been
formed in the said State of Kentucky with a purpose of inciting rebel
forces to renew the said operations of civil war within the said State
and thereby to embarrass the United States armies now operating in the
said States of Virginia and Georgia and even to endanger their safety:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by
virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws, do
hereby declare that in my judgment the public safety especially requires
that the suspension of the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_, so
proclaimed in the said proclamation of the 15th of September, 1863, be
made effectual and be duly enforced in and throughout the said State of
Kentucky, and that martial law be for the present established therein. I
do therefore hereby require of the military officers in the said State
that the privileges of the writ of _habeas corpus_ be effectually
suspended within the said State, according to the aforesaid
proclamation, and that martial law be established therein, to take
effect from the date of this proclamation, the said suspension and
establishment of martial law to continue until this proclamation shall
be revoked or modified, but not beyond the period when the s