Fourth. Communicating with and giving intelligence to the enemy. Smith, grand secretary of the order in Missouri, says in his confession: "Rebel spies, mail carriers, and emissaries have been carefully protected by this order ever since I have been a member. " It is shown in the testimony to the customary in the rebel service to employ members of the order as spies, under the guise of soldiers furnished with furloughs to visit their homes within our lines. On coming within the territory occupied by our forces they are harbored and supplied with information by members of the order. Another class of spies claim to be deserters from the enemy and at once seek an opportunity to take the oath of allegiance, which, however, though voluntarily taken, they claim to be administered while they are under a species of duress, and therefore not be binding. Upon swearing allegiance to the Government the pretended deserter engages, with the assistance of the order, in collecting contraband goods or procuring intelligence to be conveyed to the enemy, or in some other treasonable enterprise. In his official report of June 12 last Colonel Sanderson remarks: "This department is filled with rebel spies, all of whom belong to the order. "

In Missouri regular mail communication was for a long period maintained through the agency of the order from Saint Louis to Price's army, by means of which private letters as well as official dispatches between him and the grand commander of Missouri were regularly transmitted. The mail carriers started from a point on the Pacific railroad, near Kirkwood Station, about fourteen miles from Saint Louis, and, traveling only by night, proceeded (to quote from Colonel Sanderson's report) to Mattox Mills, on the Meramec River, thence past Mineral Point to Webster, thence to a point fifteen miles below Van Buren, where they crossed the Black River, and thence to the rebel lines. It is, probably, also by this route that the secret correspondence, stated by the witness Pitman to have been constantly kept up between Price and Vallandigham, the heads of the order at the North and South, respectively, was successfully maintained.

A similar communication has been continuously held with the enemy from Louisville, Ky. A considerable number of women in that State, many of them of high position in rebel society, and some of them outwardly professing to be loyal, were discovered to have been actively engaged in receiving and forwarding mails, with the assistance of the order and its instruments. Two of the most notorious and successful of these, Miss Woods and Miss Cassel, have been apprehended and imprisoned. By means of this correspondence with the enemy the members of the order were promptly apprised of all raids to be made by the forces of the former, and were able to hold themselves prepared to render aid and comfort to the raiders. To show how efficient for this purpose was the system thus established, it is to be added that our military authorities have, in number of cases, been informed, through members of the order employed in the interest of the Government, of impending raids and important army movements of the rebels, not only days, but sometimes weeks, sooner than the same intelligence could have reached them through the ordinary channels. On the other hand, the system of espionage kept up by the order for the purpose of obtaining information of the movements of our own forces, &c., to be imparted to the enemy, seems to have been as perfect as it was secret. The grand secretary of the order in Missouri states in his confession:

One of the especial objects of this order was to place members on steam-members, ferry-boats, in telegraph offices, express offices, department headquarters, provost-marshal's office, and, in fact, in every position where they could do valuable service.

60 R R-SERIES II, VOL VII