irrefragable evidence, this rebellion would have wholly failed to arm and supply itself.

And the most active agents and most efficient supporters have been these same quasi foreign houses, mostly Jews and their correspondents, principally in Havana and Nassau, who all deserve to receive at the hands of this Government as much reprobation as the Jew Benjamin, Slidell, Mallory, or Floyd, and only the strong repressive measures which have been fearlessly and energetically taken in his department have prevented the supply from still going on here as it is now in Charleston and South Carolina.

Tempted by the immense profits, urging the war on in order to realize those profits, these foreign adventurers have done everything they could to sustain the war and to inflame the passions of the people against the United States, and their reiterated complaints of my conduct, and the howl in Europe and elsewhere set up by them at my every act, have been simply the result of the disappointment of those who desire that some action may be taken by the Government which would reopen to them a most profitable trade which I have closed by means, the measures of which complaint has been made, and as to which the Honorable Secretary of State has been pleased to say that redress will be mad if I fail to justify my acts.

I have stated the grounds upon which my action proceeded, and the purpose for which it was taken. Of course to do this work could be of no personal advantage to myself and only entailed great and severe labor. It was dictated by a sense of duty, and upon full nd thorough examination I have failed to see any reason why it should not be persevered in. But I respectfully submit that it adds not a little to the already over-tasking labor of this department to be continually called upon, months afterward, to reinvestigate and report upon acts which were within the scope of my jurisdiction in the fair exercise of the discretion of a military commander, and for which I should be called to account, not by letter of a foreign consular agent on the ex parte statement of a Spanish smuggler, but by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, or the President of the United States, to which I am as ready to account for my every action as I am to my country and my God.

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

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, D. C., October 27, 1862.

Governor KIRKWOOD,

Davenport:

I am myself anxious to have your troops in the Mississippi expedition, but they must go wherever the pressing necessities of the war may require. They must therefore be sent according to the orders of the General-in-Chief. This Department will not change his orders.

EDWIN M. STANTON.

AUGUSTA, ME., October 27, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

Twenty-eighth Regiment, which left Saturday, has never had a case of measles. The Twenty-first, at Augusta, has had but two in all.