BOSTON, August 27, 1861.

Honorable SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War, Washington.

SIR: The State of Missouri is so important to the Union that I suppose you will be glad of any information regarding it which comes from a reliable source. I hand you a few extracts from the late letters of Mr. Hayward, general agent of the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad. Through the agencies of this line across the State he has great facility for obtaining information and judging of the progress of our cause in the northern portion of the State. His views with regard to the probable effect of measures which have been heretofore taken toward suppressing the rebellion in that vicinity have shown so clear a judgment as to give with us here much weight to his opinion.

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Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. W. BROOKS.

[Inclosure Numbers 1.]

Extract from letter of J. T. K. Hayward to J. W. Brooks, dated "Steamer Hannibal City, August 13, 1861. "

I go down to-day with a committee from Palmyra to see what can be done to put a stop to the outrages perpetrated on the community by Government troops partly under orders of officers and partly without orders. I will state the case in part: Last week our trains were fired into several times about six miles west of Palmyra, in Marion County. On Thursday night a party of rebels came into Palmyra, disarmed a few Union men and did some trifling damage. I think there is good reason to believe that the cars were fired into by rangers from another county and without any knowledge of the people near them and that the course is disapproved and reprehended by nearly all. The citizens I think are generally opposed to violence and some of the leading secessionists interfered to prevent trouble and bloodshed when the rebel band visited Palmyra. Now to carry out General Pope's programme some 600 men are sent to Palmyra and the county court notified to provide them with rations and pay all expenses. In their failure the city council is notified to do it at county expense, and in their failure notice is given that they shall take it where they can most conveniently find it and that these men will be quartered there until they (the people) arrest and deliver over to military authority the men who have been guilty of these offenses. Yesterday as the rations were not forthcoming they sent out a company of troops and visited the stores and took enough for two days' rations, giving orders on the county. In addition contrary to all general orders many citizens were arrested without cause and generally soon discharged. Houses also have been opened and searched and for no good reason. Then as a sample of what is done by some officers last week a man named McAfee (speaker of the last house of representatives) was arrested. General Hurlbut ordered him to be set to digging trenches and pits for necessaries at which he was kept all one day when the mercury ranged about 100 degrees in the shade. A few days after he was taken from Macon the general ordered him to be tied on the top of the cab on the engine. It was prevented by our men, who, when persuasion failed, the engineer swore he would not run the engine if it was done (and I upheld him in it), and he was being marched to the engine to mount it the signal was given and the train started giving them barely time to get on the