IV. To prevent the abuses to which such dealings would inevitably lead, officers and soldiers are prohibited dealing, directly or indirectly, in stock or other personal property in or adjacent to the border counties of Missouri included in this district. All such property bought or sold in violation of this order will be taken and disposed of as if captured from the enemy. This prohibition does not apply to the purchase of horses necessary for use in the service.

The general commanding thanks the officers and men on the border for the good conduct, zeal, energy, and daring displayed in the toilsome and hazardous service in which they are engaged. He appeals to them to abstain from all wanton destruction, in the depopulated district, of property which should be preserved for loyal occupants, and also from all attempts to appropriate to themselves any of the claimed or unclaimed stock in the country. He hardly need remain them that there are in Kansas and Missouri influential men and newspapers whose special occupation is to exaggerate every bad act, distort every good one, blazon every failure, and hide every success of the officers and soldiers serving on the border-denouncing them as cowardly and inefficient and as the instruments of rapine and murder. You should be moved by this tirade of foul abuse only to a more faithful and energetic discharge of duties, by which you will best refute the short-lived slanders of the reckless newspapers and titled demagogues by whom you are assailed, and retain that public approbation you have nobly earned.

By order of Brigadier-General Ewing:

H. HANNAHS,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

SAINT LOUIS, October 3, 1863.

The PRESIDENT:

I have just read the address presented to you by the radical delegation from Missouri. So far as it refers to me, it is not only untrue in spirit, but most of it is literally false. If an answer or explanation from me is on any account desirable, I shall be glad to make it.

J. M. SCHOFIELD,

Major-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, October 3, 1863.

Major-General SCHOFIELD,

Saint Louis, Mo.:

There is no Kentucky cavalry regiment available. The three regiments from Saint Paul should soon report to you.

H. W. HALLECK,

General-in-Chief.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, Mo., October 3, 1863.

Colonel E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Washington, D. C.:

COLONEL: I inclose herewith, for the information of the General-in-Chief, copies of reports of a special inspection of the District of the Border and the District of the Frontier,* made by Colonel J. V. Du Bois,

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*Omitted as of no present importance.

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