army. An order was issued from the Department of State dated November 29, 1861, directing General Porter to release Grayson on his taking the oath of allegiance. General Porter reported to the Secretary of State December 2, 1861, that Grayson declined to take the oath on any condition. The said E. B. Grayson remained in sutody at Fort Lafayette February 15, 1862, when in conformity with the order of the War Department of the previous day he was transferred to the charge of that Department. * From Record Book, State Department, "Arrest for Disloyalty. "

Case of the Franders Brothers.

Joseph R. and Francis D. Flanders, residing at Malone, Franklin County, N. Y., were arrested under an order issued by the State Department on the 11th day of October, 1861, and conveyed to Fort Lafayette, whence they were afterward transferred to Fort Warren. Many complaints were made of disloyal and seditious conduct on the part of these men, of whom Joseph R. Flanders was represented as a lawyer of ability, controling his brother, Francis D. Flanders, who published a disloyal sheet called The Franlin Gazette.

It was represented in September, 1861, that willful and vindictive in his feelings he (Joseph R.) has made himself particularly officious during the last six or eight months in proving to the people of Franklin County through the columns of the Gazette by letters and in public speeches to meetings called for that purpose, that the Southern States had a right to secede and that the prosecution of the war on the part of the North was aggresive and wrong, and that under the baleful influence of the two Messrs. Flanders and the paper mainly thepublic sentiment of Franklin County was much distracted, the enlistment of soldiers greatly hindered and retarded and that in several of the towns nearly as many persons could be eblisted for the Southern Confederacy as could be for the United States, and that in one town a larhe number of citizens raised and maintained a secession flag for several days until a force was collected to demolish it, when Judge (J. R.) Flanders sent a message to them advising them for safety to take down the flags and disperse, which was done.

Affidavits were presented to the Department of which the following are copies. +

On the 3rd of May, 1861, Mr. T. S. Mears, of Fort Covington, addressed a letter to J. R. Flanders in which he uses these words:

All honor to those distinguished men, Mr. Douglas among them, who, forgetting the comparatively insignificant interests of party and self, have rallied around the time-honored flag and the constitutional government of our country. It grieves me, my old friend, to hear that your voice, your aim and your efforts are not with them, and infinitely more to be informed that you would palsy the arm raised to parry the blow and defend our country's flag. Have I been misinformed? We have such reports in circulation here.

Mr. Flanders answered this letter on the 6th day of May, 1861, saying. ++

This letter of J. R. Flanders was published by F. D. Flanders in The Franklin Gazette in May, 1861, with some additions made by the writer laudatory of the men and the cause of the insurrection and denouncing the President as committing at every step an act of usurpation and trampling upon the Constitution and the principles of free govern-

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* For order releasing Grayson see Thomas to Porter, p. 238.

+ Omitted; full purport shown in following correspondence.

++ For Flanders to Mears, May 6, see p. 947.

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