which so many of our citizens are involved, I thought it wise to arrest the proceedings. Mr. Hickman was is, a secessionist, beyond a doubt. His slaves were free men by act of Congress, and had a right to work for whom they desired and receive wages therefor. The military authorities had given them papers of freedom, and all officers and men of the department were commanded to respect them and their said papers.

Thousands of citizens, quartermasters, and other Government agents have employed these fugitives from slavery and paid them their wages. All who have thus employed these fugitives from slavery are liable to prosecution both criminally and civilly under the statutes of Missouri. I have myself frequently compelled negroes to go out from my camps and garrisons and to go to work for farmers and others for wages. The Articles of War prohibit me from returning them to their owners. My own judgment and the best interests of the country, of the service, and the negroes themselves led me to remove them from idleness and crime to industry. I am even now enforcing that rule in Saint Joseph, Hannibal, and Macon. I wish the blacks, except such as can shoulder a musket in the service of the country, would all stay at home with their masters, but they do not. I cannot compel them to do so, but I can require them to work for somebody, and work they shall. It would seem wrong for me to permit persons who employ them to be prosecuted for so doing. I have the honor to ask your early approval of my action in the case of Hickman vs. Buffington, and definite instructions as to other similar cases now pending in the rebel counties.

I have the honor to be, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CLINTON B. FISK,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, Mo., June 2, 1864.

Governor WILLARD P. HALL,

Washington, D. C.:

DEAR GOVERNOR: Inclosed is a copy of my letter* of May 8, and copies of the indorsements+ on some other communications referring to he case of the provisional regiments of Enrolled Militia of the State who have been called into service and have been serving the United States without provision for their payment. The remedy recommended is to permit them to be mustered into the service of the United States for one year from the 1st day of November last. It may require legislation to render this legal. I beg to remind you that the Missouri State Militia, composed of the best material in the State, has been serving with the most imperfect and often worthless arms. They have all the disadvantages of the elective system for company officers and finding their own horses, and the nature of their duties, scouting in small parties, is adverse to instruction and discipline, so that while they are more expensive to the United States their service is more trying and laborious to the men, and they are far less powerful as a body than they would be with a volunteer organization, good arms, and mounted on Government horses.

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* See Part III, p.509.

+ Not found.

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