militia as provided in General Orders, No. 3, current series, State headquarters, in Livingston County; also one in Linn. I wish you wold select at once proper men for officers, that they may be authorized and proceed immediately to the recruitment, and select honest, loyal, temperate veterans for officers, and I will authorize them to go ahead at once. The counties ought to aid financially in the purchase of arms for all these volunteer companies. Can't you stir them up? I hear various rumors of guerrilla bands. We shall have trouble, more or less. Let us be ready for the more.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CLINTON B. FISK,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NORTH MISSOURI, Macon, Mo., April 1, 1865.

CHARLTON H. HOWE,
La Grange, Mo.:

DEAR SIR: I have with great satisfaction pursued your law and order leader in your valued, fearless, free and independent National American of the 30th ultimo. That is just the short of talk for the times. We have, alas, too many citizens who claim because a man is radically loyal he has a carte blanche to conduct himself as his inclinations may at any time suggest. Many such claim the right to order their neighbors out of the State and appropriate the personal effects of sympathizers, and that class of outlaws is very apt to class all men as very mean rebels who happen to own good horses, fine arms, or other convenient articles of property which may be coveted by the villains under the radical, loyal cloak. There has been much of the mobocratic spirit in Lewis and Clark Counties. I am exceedingly gratified that the radical press of Northeast Missouri has so emphatically pronounced against the evil. It behooves all in authority, civil and military, to punish wrong, whether committed under butternut or blue covers. Mobocracy is a relic of the great barbarism in the shadow of which Missouri has been chained for more than forty years; but, thank God, is no longer subject to such bondage. The sunlight of liberty falls upon us. Freedom is ours. Let us earnestly labor to restore the supremacy of the civil law throughout our redeemed Commonwealth, and advance the banner of Christian civilization. The military arm will be laid heavily upon armed offenders and outlaws and their friends who harbor, aid, and abet them and will not hesitate to take hold of any disturbers of the peace and good order of the State, whoever they may be, and require the civil authorities to bring them to trial and punishment for their offenses. Again I thank you for your well-chosen words in behalf of law and order.

I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient servant,

CLINTON B. FISK,

Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers.

PATTERSON, MO., April 1, 1865.

Major-General DODGE:

I have the honor of giving a synopsis of what is going on down here: First. There are citizens with arms furnished by the United States Government to fight bushwhackers, but, as here are no commissioned