Part 123

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL SCHOFIELD.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C, September 30, 1863.

GENERAL SCHOFIELD, Saint Louis, Mo.:

Following despatch just received:

"Union Men Driven out of Missouri."

"Leavenworth, September 29, 1863.

"Governor Gamble having authorized Colonel Moss, of Liberty, Missouri, to arm the men in Platte and Clinton Counties, he has armed mostly the returned rebel soldiers and men wider bonds. Moss's men are now driving the Union men out of Missouri. Over one hundred families crossed the river to-day. Many of the wives of our Union soldiers have been compelled to leave. Four or five Union men have been murdered by Colonel Moss's men."

Please look to this and, if true, in main or part, put a stop to it.

A. LINCOLN

TELEGRAM TO F. S. CORKRAN.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, September 30, 1863.

HON. FRANCIS S. CORKRAN, Baltimore, Md.: MRS. L. is now at home and would be pleased to see you any time. If the grape time has not passed away, she would be pleased to join in the enterprise you mention.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL TYLER

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C., October 1, 1863.

GENERAL TYLER, Baltimore:

Take care of colored troops in your charge, but do nothing further about that branch of affairs until further orders. Particularly do nothing about General Vickers of Kent County.

A. LINCOLN.

Send a copy to Colonel Birney. A. L.

TO GENERAL SCHOFIELD.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,

OCTOBER 1, 1863

GENERAL JOHN M. SCHOFIELD:

There is no organized military force in avowed opposition to the General Government now in Missouri, and if any shall reappear, your duty in regard to it will be too plain to require any special instruction. Still, the condition of things, both there and elsewhere, is such as to render it indispensable to maintain, for a time, the United States military establishment in that State, as well as to rely upon it for a fair contribution of support to that establishment generally. Your immediate duty in regard to Missouri now is to advance the efficiency of that establishment, and to so use it, as far as practicable, to compel the excited people there to let one another alone.

Under your recent order, which I have approved, you will only arrest individuals, and suppress assemblies or newspapers, when they may be working palpable injury to the military in your charge; and in no other case will you interfere with the expression of opinion in any form, or allow it to be interfered with violently by others. In this you have a discretion to exercise with great caution, calmness, and forbearance.

With the matter of removing the inhabitants of certain counties en masse, and of removing certain individuals from time to time, who are supposed to be mischievous, I am not now interfering, but am leaving to your own discretion.

Nor am I interfering with what may still seem to you to be necessary restrictions upon trade and intercourse. I think proper, however, to enjoin upon you the following: Allow no part of the military under your command to be engaged in either returning fugitive slaves or in forcing or enticing slaves from their homes; and, so far as practicable, enforce the same forbearance upon the people.