[Inclosure Numbers 2.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF MILITARY JUSTICE,

November 23, 1865.

Honorable E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

SIR: In the matter of the application of Honorable William Marvin, provisional governor of Florida, for the pardon or parole of D. L. Yulee, S. R. Mallory, and A. K. Allison, rebels, referred to me for report by your indorsement of the 7th instant, I have the honor to submit as follows:

The application alluded to is that addressed to the President under date of the 22nd ultimo. In regard to Yulle and Mallory, the writer expressely states that he has not a word to say upon the subject of their political history, and he bases his request upon the general ground that he thinks they may both be permitted to return to the State without any injury to its interests. For Yulee, he adds, that "he is the president of a railroad company, whose interests are suffering for the gout badly, which the dampness of the prison exasperates. His family are in Connecticut, and he would like to visit them. I think if he were set at liberty on parole I can be surety for his keeping it." These suggestions ignore totally the criminality of these men, and evidence a singular unconsciousness that there is anything to be considered beyond their personal interests and comfort in determining the question of their longer imprisonment. In behalf of Allison, Governor Marvin remarks, tha "as president of the senate he became ex officio Governor of the State on the death of Governor Milton just before the collapse of the rebellion;" that he believes that the only gubertionable act he did was to issue a proclamation ordersing an election of Governor; that he is not a bad man; that he has been confined in Fort Pulaski since 1st of May, and that the people of the State would be much gratified to hear that he has returned to his family. This Bureau is at a loss to discover in these statements of Governor Marvin any suggestions whatever which should avail to direct the attention of the Executive to these cases as deserving of clemency, or even t do away with the presumption of the grave character of their crimes, at least of those of the two former, which arises from the mere action of the Government in consining the parties as rebel enemies. Here, indeed, the application might be left, but the allusion by the provisional governor to the political history of Yulee and Mallory in connection with the rebellion recalls the fact that it is this very history which precludes their being treated with any lenity at this time. This allusion renders it proper also, in order that a full appreciation of the acts of these men may be arrived at, that the circumstances of such history should be hereset forth. As early as in January, 1861, these parties, then Senators of the United States from the State of Florida, jointly addressed to the Secretary of War a communication in the following language:*

To this communication was replied as follows.+

The traitorous animous of these men in endeavoring through their high official position to obtain from the Government the information sought has been abundantly illustrated since that early date. But the deliverate deprivaty of their purpose ismost fully disclosed in two leters written at that juncture by Yulee to one Finegan, a correspondent at Tallahassee, Fla. The first of these letters is as follows.++

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* Omitted here; see Series I, Vol. p. 349.

+ I bid., p. 351.

++ I bid., p. 442.

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