leaders demand they surely cannot attribute the sad result to "conservative policy."

Had these measures been adopted last winter, when the State was easily controlled, because the absence of leaves from the brush rendered it impossible for the bushwhackers to hide from the troops, and there was a large force in the State lying idle, they might have been carried out without injury to the loyal people. The larger part of my troops having been called off for service in Arkansas and down the Mississippi, and the summer being favorable for guerrilla operations, it may have been unwise to adopt such measures at this time. If so, they have no right to complain who have been continually clamoring for such measures, and who couple their denunciations of me with demands for more radical measures still, and hold up by way of contrast, as their model, the general who did not see fit to adopt such measures when they could have been carried out with perfect ease and security. You will, perhaps, remember that while in command of Missouri, in 1862, I adopted and enforced certain very severe and radical measures toward those in open rebellion and their sympathizers. I believed at the time, and still believe, that those measures were wise and necessary at the time they were adopted, and they seemed to meet with the hearty approval of at least the ultra-Union people of Missouri. After I was relieved by General Curtis, these measures were all abandoned. None of them were revised by him during his administration excepting that of banishment of rebel sympathizers, and no other of like radical character adopted by him, except that, perhaps, of granting "free papers" to slaves, and confiscation of property without any form of trial known to any law, either civil or military. The banishment of rebels I have continued, and I have conformed to the laws as nearly as possible in reference to slaves and property subject to confiscation.

I have revised my former severe mode of dealing with guerrillas, robbers, and murderers which General Curtis had abandoned, and have treated with some severity, though of a far milder from, those law-breakers who profess to be Union men. Among the latter were several provost-marshals and members of commissions whom I have been compelled to arrest, and punish for enormous frauds and extortion. They are, of course, loud-mouthed radicals.

I have permitted those who have been in rebellion, and who voluntarily surrender themselves and their arms, to take the oath of allegiance and give bonds for their future good conduct, and release them upon condition that they reside in such portion of the State as I shall direct. For this I am most bitterly assailed by the radicals, who demand that every man who has been in rebellion or in any way aided shall be exterminated or driven from the State. There are thousands of such criminals, and no man can fail to see that such a course would light the flames of a war such as Missouri has never yet seen. Their leaders know it, but it is necessary to their ascendancy, and they scruple at nothing to accomplish that end.

I am officially informed that a large meeting has been held at Leavenworth, in which a resolution was adopted to the effect that the people would assemble at a certain place on the border, on the 8th of September, for the purpose of entering Missouri to search for their stolen property. Efforts have been made by the mayor of Leavenworth to get possession of the ferry at that place for the purpose of crossing armed parties of citizens into Northern Missouri.

I have strong reasons for believing that the authors of the telegram to you are among those who introduced and obtained the adoption of the Leavenworth resolution, and who are endeavoring to organize a