WAR DEPARTMENT, March 25, 1862.

Governor B. MAGOFFIN, Frankfort, Ky.:

President's order sent by telegraph to General Halleck as requested* by Governor Crittenden to suspend execution of sentence against E. Magoffin and to send recor here for President's consideration.

J. F. LEE,

Judge-Advocate.

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. OF THE MISSISSIPPI, No. 13.
Saint Louis, March 30, 1862.

I. Commanders of army corps, divisions, and brigades and of military districts where their commands are equal to a brigade are authorized to order military commissions to try offenses against the laws of war which are not triable by general court-martial. But all sentences of such commissions extending to loss of life, or confiscation of property, or imprisonment exceeding the term of thirty days must be confirmed by the commanding general of the department.

II. The attention of all such commanders and of all officers of military commissions is called to General Orders No. 1, of 1862. Department of the Missouri, m relation to the powers and duties of commissions as distinguished from courts-martial.

By command of Major-General Halleck:

N. H. McLEAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

JEFFERSON CITY, April 1, 1862.

General TOTTEN:

SIR: In compliance with your request I subjoin some particulars with respect to the arrest and maltreatment of Dr. Sidney Robinson and others. They were furnished me by his daughter now in this city and to her by John Morris, James Morris, William McCloud and - Slocum, Union men, living near Versailles. The soldiers professed to hail from Jefferson City. Two of the privates are named respectively Stillett and Kelley. Doctor Robinson war arrested last Sunday morning in Versailles whither he had gone to attend a sick grandchild. His hands were bound, a rope adjusted to his neck and other preparations for hanging him made. Finally it was proposed to let him off if he would take the oath. He refused and then it was announced that he would be sent to Cairo. Among others arrested were the following named: Mick Jetter, Mick Robinson and - Johnson. One of these was twice suspended until senseless.

Doctor Robinson is one of those who claim that a man may be a political secessionist, a believer in the right of peaceable secession and yet not a disloyal citizen. I have had opportunities to know and I have yet to learn that he ever counseled disloyalty. At various times he has turned his house into a teporary hospital for the benefit of Union soldiers, and in one instance one of them dying under his roof he had him decently interred at his own expense. Doctor Robinson has personal enemies in his neighborhood of frfteen years' standing. They are now Union men and have had him arrested four times already on charges of disloyalty. They no doubt instigated the present

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*Not found. Probably a verbal request made to the President.

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