WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, January 20, 1863.

Major-General CURTIS, Saint Louis, Mo.:

The order suspending for the present any further action upon assessments for damages was not designed to be limited to Saint Louis, but was meant to include all such assessments in the State of Missouri. You will,therefore, suspend them until further instructions.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

CIRCULAR.] HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTHEASTERN MISSOURI,

Warrenton, Mo., January 20, 1863.

GENTLEMEN: You will not, for the present, continue the collection of any assessments you have made. It is hoped that the proper knowledge of this matter on the part of the President will soon permit the resumption of your work, which for the present, on account of strong opposition made to it by your Representatives in Congress, and the President,must be suspended. It would be well to let your Representatives have a knowledge of your feelings on the subject, as they are now working against it with such force as makes it advisable to bend to the pressure for a little while, for fear of a Presidential order revoking the whole thing.

With much respect, your obedient servant,

LEWIS MERRILL,

Brigadier-General, Commanding District of Northeastern Missouri.

(Copies sent to Scotland, Schuyler, Adair, Marion, Randolph, Audrain, Shelby, Boone, Howard, Saint Charles, Monroe, Callaway, Lincoln, Montgomery, Macon, Lewis, Knox, Clarke, Sullivan, Ralls, and Pike Counties.)

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. CENTRAL DISTRICT OF MISSOURI, No. 3.
Jefferson City, Mo., January 20, 1863.

The armies of the enemy have been driven beyond the borders of this State. For more than a year past he has been unable to maintain any regular force within them. Yet, in violation of all known rules of warfare, civilized or savage, the rebels are in the habit of sending their emissaries within the State for the purpose of recruiting and for other hostile purposes. Now, in view of the recent assassinations, robberies, and murders committed in this military district by armed bands, who in so doing, assume to be acting under authority derived from rebel sources, and who are instigated thereto by the emissaries sent here by our enemies to incite their adherents to the commission of the most diabolical crimes, attended in some instances with acts of such savage cruelly and fiendish atrocity that the history of the world can furnish no parallel for them (the bodies of their victims are horribly mutilated; the bleeding, quivering flesh is torn from the cheeks, as the face is stamped with the boot-heels of the murderer; their are cut off; powder is poured into their ears and exploded, and untold horrors fail to satiate the malice of those who cause the fiends in hell to shudder by the enormity of their crimes), it becomes an imperative duty to provide