guilty and cheerfully submit to such regulations and orders that otherwise would be harsh and severe that are necessary and intended only to protest peaceable and law-abiding members of society. It is therefore ordered:

I. That all citizens residing within the limits of the southwest division of the District of Missouri shall at once appear before some property qualified officer and take the oath of allegiance to the United States of America and to the provisional government of the State of Missouri and receive a certificate thereof unless they have already done so.

II. Every citizen who fails to obey the above order will be deprived of the ordinary privileges of loyal citizenship. He shall neither hold any office nor be permitted to vote; he shall not be allowed to serve as a juror or appear as a witness; he shall nor transact any business, either agricultural, mechanical or professional; he shall not be permitted to pass at will upon the public highway, but as a punishment for the apparent aid countenance which he extends to the marauders who are preying the country he is declared to be a prisoner within the limits of his own premises.

III. The troops stationed in this division are instructed to stop and examine all persons whom they find without the limits of their own domiciles and arrest and convey to the nearest military post all such as cannot show a certificate of having taken the oath of allegiance.

IV. When any citizens lives remote from any established military post so that it would inconvenience him to travel to the said post for the purpose he may appear before the nearest commissioned officer of the U. S. Army of the nearest notary public or justice of he peace and take and subscribe to the oath in duplicate, retaining one copy and forwarding the other to the nearest post be recorder.

V. Nothing in this order will be construed so as to interfere with orders issued from the Department of the Missouri regulation the terms upon which returning rebel soldier or openly avowed secessionists can make terms of peace with the Government of the United States.

By order of Brigadier General E. B. Brown:

JAMES J. STEGER,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, June 17, 1862.

Honorable JOHN A. BINGHAM, House of Representatives.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 13th instant requesting that "any information in this Department or in the Executive Department of the Government touching the alleged correspondence of Honorable Benjamin Wood with the Confederate rebels be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee. "

In reply I have to state that the following comprised all the information received at this Department in regard to the subject, viz; A communication from the Post-Office Department inclosing two letters addressed to Mr. Wood which had been returned to the Dead-Letter Office and a letter from Mr. A. T. Allen to the Secretary of State Both of the Above it is presumed have already been transmitted to you by the War Department.

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

F. W. SEWARD,

Acting Secretary.