gentlemen holding warrants to receuit companies. I would respectfully suggest that the general commanding the Department of the Pacific issue orders to officers in this Territory as to by whom, and under what circumstances, arrests should be made, and how disposed of after arrest upon a charge, as I am aware of a very recent case in which an arrest was made by an officer not mustered into the service, and immediately after such arrest offered to release the person if he would give a bond of $5,000 conditioned for good behavior for twelve months. All this took place without any time intevening which would allow the reception of authority from post commander at Fort Churchill or general commanding the department. I have taken the liberty of presenting some of my views upon the state of affairs in this section, and if in so doing I have exceeded the bounds of duty and propriety my excuse must be that I am prompted so to do by a desire to preserve peace and good order in my district, and to see those high in social position and walth promptly arrested for any traitorous language or conduct in public.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JACOB L. VAN BOKKELEN,

Captain and Provost-Marshal, District of Nevada Territory.

HDQRS. PROVOST-MARSHAL, NEVADA TERRITORY,
Virginia, Nev. Ter., May 17, 1864.

Brigadier General JOHN S. MASON,

Acting Assistant Provost-Marshal-General, San Francisco, Cal.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following statement of the result of examination into the matter of secret secession organization in Virginia City, as reported by Captain C. A. Summer. Mr. A. W. Baldwin personally states to me that his report was based upon statements of the same man, Anderson. I could not discover that Captain Sumner possessed any personal information, or facts, or had taken any actual measures by employment of detective police or secret agents to confirm any previous surmises in his mind which would authorize him to say, "I have the honor to communicate a statement of the fact of the existence int his city of a secession club, regular and frequent in its meetings. " (See communication of C. A. Sumner to Lieutenant Colonel R. C. Drum, April 11, 1864.) The statement of Captain Sumner in second paragraph of memoraundu, as regards a large number of the legal profession being invisible at night, is based upon his not peronally encountering them on the streets or in public places; he cannot designate any particular evening of the week upon which his attention has been drawn to this absence from the public thoroughfares. As regards the remark, "That it will be of as much service to be a rebel here soon as in South Carolina," this, Captain Sumner informs me, is based upon a remark was made by a boarder at her table. All the information possessed by Captain Sumner is based upon the statement of Anderson and his own surmises, without any facts to support an assertion that a club actually exists and regular and frequent in its meetings. Upon private examination of Mr. Isaac Anderson he disclaims ever having stated that he was approached by one A. C. Bradford and invited to join a secession club, of which Bradford was acting secretary; but says that he thinks that Bradford is in some way connected with a secession organization from the reason that some woodchoppers who had come in from the wood ranches asked him where they cod;

54 R R - VOL L, PT II