ferson City, October 17, 1861, the undersigned hereby assumes command of all that territory bordering on and lying north of the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad.

II. All orders now in force will be continued until further orders.

J. B. S. TODD,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Northeast Missouri.

HEADQUARTERS POST,
Rolla, Mo., October 24, 1861.

Captain CHAUNCEY McKEEVER,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Saint Louis, Mo.

CAPTAIN: I have as prisoners several of the Harris and Wood gang of rebels and thieves who have been the terror of all Union men in the adjoining counties. Most of them are members of Johnson's band and have murdered, robbed, and committed almost all other crimes against Union men. The evidence against them is mostly in the adjoining counties and hard to procure. Several of them once took the oath. What shall I do with them?

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. M. DODGE,

Colonel, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS WESTERN DEPARTMENT,
Saint Louis, October 26, 1861.

Colonel G. M. DODGE,

Fourth Iowa Volunteers, Commanding, Rolla, Mo.

SIR: Your letter of the 24th instant in relation to prisoners taken belonging to Harris's and Wood's gang of rebels has been received. In reply I beg leave to state that I do not know what disposition can be made with these men as there is no military commission in session here. I think, however, the best course to have pursued would have been to have shot them when they were captured.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHAUNCEY McKEEVER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

SAINT LOUIS, November 16, 1861.

Major-General HALLECK,

Commanding Department of the West.

DEAR SIR: Permit a stranger to submit the following suggestive remarks: Many of the older and more substantial citizens are of the opinion that a decided majority of the people of Missouri last spring were Union in sentiment. Now excluding the German certainly not less than three-fourths are secessionists at heart. In the earlier part of spring commenced the formal organization of citizens of avowed rebel sentiments into companies and regiments to aid in destroying the Federal Government, or informally into bands under ringleaders without even the color of commissions from either the State or Southern Confederacy, having the avowed object of exercising arbitrary surveillance over the person and property of loyal citizens if not also by