The cases have been submitted to headquarters Department of the Missouri, for decision as to whether they will be allowed to proceed. The military authorities are forbidden to return fugitives to their masters, and they are not permitted to leave the State of Missouri, for the simple reason that Missouri needs all the laborers that she has. It certainly, then, is unjust to allow men who have employed these fugitives from service and labor to be prosecuted for violation of law and recovery of damages.

The U. S. authorities will decide upon this case, of which decision you will be duly advised.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully,

W. T. CLARKE,

First Lieutenant and Aide-de-Camp.

This is a strange proceeding, such as never before heard of in the history of the war in Missouri-Columbia Statesman.

[Inclosure.]

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NORTH MISSOURI,
Saint Joseph, Mo., May 31, 1864.

Major-General ROSECRANS,

Commanding Department of the Missouri, Saint Louis:

GENERAL: I have the honor to submit in writing a statement of the case of which I made mention to you when I was last in Saint Louis, as having been temporarily suspended by my order from further prosecution in the Boone circuit court.

The facts are as follows: Two negro men, the property of James I. Hickman, of Boone County, in the month of February, 1863, ran away from their owner and sought refuge within our lines at Jefferson City, and were employed by the quartermaster. The provost-marshal at Jefferson City, after investigation, issued to he said negroes, Henry and Henderson Bryant, certificates of freedom, in pursuance of General Orders, No. 35, Department of the Missouri, series of 1862. Subsequently the negroes were employed from the quartermaster by one Pearce Buffington as laborers in his saw-mill, and remained with him as laborers and received wages regularly until March, 1864, when they enlisted in the army of the Union, joining one of the regiments of African descent at Benton Barracks.

James I. Hickman, the former owner, brought a suit in the Boone circuit court, May term, against Pearce Buffington, claiming damages as follows: For their labor, $676; and for their value, $300 each, $600; total damages, $1,276. The grand jury of Boone County in February last found an indictment against the said Pearce Buffington for "unlawfully dealing with slaves," and he (Buffington) was summoned for trial on said indictment at the May term.

Mr. Buffington's case was but one among many of the same kind, and the people who had employed contrabands in that section, being all similarly involved, petitioned the military authorities to come to their relief. After a thorough investigation of this case I thought best to require the Boone circuit court to suspend the prosecution against Mr. Buffington until all the facts could be placed before you. I therefore directed the circuit attorney of Boone to suspend the prosecutions, both civil and criminal, until I could submit the cases to yourself. I did this with some reluctance, as I desire to aid not to obstruct the civil law, but as this was a point upon which there should be uniform action throughout the department, and one in

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