sidered loyal is not one who would give aid or assistance against us. He has scrupulously avoided all chance of collision and where the peace and good order of the city has been involved has not hesitated to operate in connection with this department.

The council and aldermen are all of undoubted disloyalty but nothing is to be apprehended from them, the police and executive being the only branches of the city government with which it is desirable that this department should co-operate.

A full recapitulation of the foregoing statement will indicate an expense to the Government of the whole department under my charge of $2,650 per month in addition to my own compensation which has not been fixed. It may be remarked, however, that more than two-thirds of this is for a service not necessarily an incident of the existence of martial law but which must under any circumstances be incurred in some department so long as the present state of affairs exist.

I have the honor to be, general,

GEORGE E. LEIGHTON,

Provost-Marshal.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF CENTRAL MISSOURI,
Syracuse, December 5, 1861.

Captain J. C. KELTON, Assistant Adjutant-General.

CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report that prisoners are rapidly accumulating on our hands. Every day patrols or pickets bring in men returning from Price's army, sometimes with arms but more frequently without. Many of them seem anxious to take the oath of allegiance whilst all will swear not to take up arms again. I do not know what are the purposes of the general commanding the department in relation to such prisoners and shall keep them in custody until I receive orders for their disposition.

[JOHN POPE,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.]

Status of some of the Union prisoners captured by General Price at Lexington.

SAINT LOUIS, December 5, 1861.

Brigadier General L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General U. S. Army.

GENERAL: The enlisted men of Colonel Mulligan's regiment of volunteers taken prisoners by the enemy and released on parole have been discharged the service* as directed in General Orders, Numbers 69, War Department, Adjutant-General's Office, Washington, August 28, 1861. The commissioned officers are here claiming still to be in the U. S. service and entitled to pay and emoluments.

The question presented is do officers when the enlisted men of their commands under orders are discharged cease to be officers in

---------------

*Some or all of the Union soldiers surrendered at Lexington gave a parole that they would not again take up arms against the Confederate States. Hence the order mustering many of them out of the service. Under the Fremont-Price cartel most of the Lexington prisoners were released from this sweeping parole and exchanged. But the controversy about their status continued for some time afterward. Many of the records relating to it are missing. -Compiler.

---------------