cases an effort to enforce the criminal code might materially interfere with the military arrangements and produce disturbances where there would otherwise be quiet.

Of course it would not do to lay down any general rule but each case must more or less be governed by its own peculiar circumstances. Nevertheless I would like to know what the general policy of the Government is so that I may be governed by it during the ensuing term of the court.

Yours, truly,

JAS. O. BROADHEAD,

U. S. Districdt Attorney.

SAINT LOUIS, MO., April 4, 1862.

Captain LEWIS MANKER,

Provost-Marshal, Sedalia, Mo.

CAPTAIN: You will dispose of prisoners as follows:

First. Those who have been engaged in regular warfare or are arrested for general disloyalty you may release on their taking the oath and giving a bond with good security in a sum not less than $1,000 proportionate to their means.

Second. Those who have been engaged in irregular warfare, burning bridges, firing into trains, robbing Union men, &c., you will take the evidence against them in writing and send it up to this office holding them for further orders.

In all cases where prisoners are sent to your post and you have not the evidence in their cases send them to Saint Louis by first opportunity and a list to this office.

Very respectfully,

BERNARD G. FARRAR,

Provost-Marshal-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, D. C., April 5, 1862.

Major-General HALLECK, Saint Louis:

Your General Orders, Numbers 11, relating to Ellis'case, and No. 9, Kirk's case, have been received. * They are heartily aproved and the form of procedure will be directe to be observed in all other departments in like cases.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, April 9, 1862-12. 45 p. m.

Major-General HALLECK, Saint Louis, Mo.:

If the rigor of the confinement of Magoffin at Alton is endangering has life or materially imparing his health I wish it mitigated so far as it can be consistently with his safe detention.

A. LINCOLN.

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*For trial of Edmund J. Ellis and Halleck's approval of sentence, see p. 453. For General Orders, No. 9, Department of the Mississippi, covering the case of William Kirk, see p. 464.

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