causes which led to their original disloyalty will show the good reason for this.

The disloyal of Missouri are composed mainly of two classes: One the designing, unscrupulous, shrewd, and unprincipled leaders, and of the other (by far the largest) of their poor deluded dupes-men who, but for the poisonous talk and influence of these men, would have remained, at worst, neutral, and who, under better influences, would have been thoroughly loyal. These leaders have, in almost every instance, confined themselves to the secret exertion influence and the spreading of mischievous lying reports, while their cat's paws-have done the work in which they were too cavalry and too shrewd to be implicated directly. Of this class are such men as Senator Jim Green; Anderson, of Palmyra; Stephens and Samuels, of Boone; Haden, of Howard; Miner, of Adair, and hundreds of others, with whose names I have become most disagreeably familiar in the discharge of my duties. Men of the second class commit crimes, are arrested, and, perhaps, really believe that they repent, and wish again to become good citizens; they are released, returned to their homes, and are once again brought under the very influences which originally led them astray. Is it surprising that these men should forget their promise? It is especially true of North Missouri that the people are more extensively influenced for good or bad than by any other fifty causes. Now, confining these poor dupes, while at takes out of the country the men who did the mischief, leaving these "haven't done nothing " class of leaders no good material to work upon, and yet, if one of these men is arrested, from a well-founded belief that his presence and influence are dangerous to the public safety, you will find that he has always influential friends enough to beg him off, and especially when only that general charge is made against him. I have endeavored to rectify this evil by summarily banishing a number of these men; but until I find that I am to be sustained, and that no influence, however strong, of personal friendship can recall the sentence of banishment, I am unwilling to carry the experiment any further, especially in view of the recent order from the War Department on the subject. So far, both the commanding general and yourself have heartily co-operated with me, and the result you see is the perfect quiet which now prevails in the northeast district- a quiet that I stake my life will not again be disturbed if this policy is continued, and which will just as surely be destroyed, and the old trouble back on our hands, if these very men, who have so often been forgiven and told to sin no more, are permitted to return to do the same thing over again. I think that the experience of more than a year in handling these people (and always successfully) should give my opinion some weight, and I tell you, colonel, that the policy of forgiving them and turning them loose will not do, while the very men who set them wrong at first are at home ready and willing to do it again. If I am permitted to send these men out of the State, and hang them if they come back without authority, then the men who have heretofore been thus instrumental in their villainy may be permitted to return without detriment to the public safety. If, however, this is not done, there will be the same work to do over again, and every time it is repeated it is going to cost us more blood of good men and more treasure than all the lives of the rebel herd are worth. Experience shows that the present policy is successful; it has had the hearty support and approbation of all true Union men in the district, and they will tell you that their lives will not be safe if it is changed. Why, then, change this because a few criminals (whom it is inconvenient to keep, it is true) show the same sings of repentance with which they have so often betrayed us before?