in Leavenworth County. The city is peaceful and orderly, but the border is distracted, and property there insecure; and I must have the robbers, with their plunder followed into and arrested in the peaceful city, if I am to restore quiet and security to the border. I will not abate or surrender my military jurisdiction, which extends to both arrests and punishments, in favor of a civil jurisdiction extending only to arrests; nor allow any town in my district to become a city of refuge within whose precincts the pirates of the border may escape the swift process of martial law. I will carefully leave the State, county, and city authorities free and uninterrupted in the execution of the laws and ordinances, except so far as in such execution they materially interfere with the discharge of my duties as district commander; and will promptly revoke the proclamation of martial law whenever the necessity for it is no longer apparent to me.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS EWING, JR.,

Brigadier-General.

LEAVENWORTH, KANS., July 22, 1863.

Brigadier General THOMAS EWING, JR.:

SIR: Yours of the 20th instant, in answer to mine of the 17th and 20th instant, is received. You say "Leavenworth is the center of trade for the Missouri Valley," which is true. You say it is your duty

to arrest, for punishment, residents of this district who are engaged in committing acts of robbery in the District of Northern Missouri. It is more immediately my duty than that of yourself or any other judicial or ministerial officer in Kansas, for I may punish for such offenses committed in Missouri, while the civil authorities here cannot, for want of jurisdiction.

You have practiced law in Kansas for six years, and ought to know the statutes of our State. I refer you to section 274, chapter 33, on crimes and punishments, page 340 of the Compiled Laws of Kansas, to wit:

SEC. 274. Every person who shall steal, or obtain by robbery, the property of another in any other Territory or State or county, and shall bring the same into this State, may be convicted and punished for larceny in the same manner as if such property had been feloniously stolen or taken within this State.

If this statute has been overlooked by you, holding the position you have, you ought, at least, to have known the common law. I refer you to Wharton's Criminal Law, section 1817:

In Massachusetts this doctrine has been held, and convictions for larcenies in other States, where the property stolen has been brought within her limits, have repeatedly taken place. The Connecticut court of errors, in an opinion which received the unanimous assent of the judges, asserted, at an early period, the same doctrine. A similar conclusion was reached in North Carolina and Maryland, though not without much argument, and also in Ohio. In Vermont the supreme court has gone further, and, transcending the common law limits, has held that when goods were stolen in Canada and brought into that State, the larceny was complete.

I have always ruled that my court had jurisdiction in all such cases, and the ruling has been approved by all respectable attorneys. I did not order your detective to turn over the horses to my police. I wrote him a simple request to do so, informing your detective that the party from whom he had taken the horses was innocent, and that the horses were not stolen, which has since proved to be the fact, as you yourself ordered, through George Kingsley, one of your detectives, and J. G. Losee, another of your detectives, the release of Burr Reed, the colored