STRASBURG, June 23, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

The guerrilla Captains Spriggs and Triplett are at Camp Chase to await trial.

J. C. FREMONT,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, June 23, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.

SIR: * * * I will send Colonel Putnam* North so that he may be a witness in any proceedings against Soule and Mazureau. I have a very decided opinion as to the course to be pursued toward those who have been the cause of burning this property and if I had possessed the proof which I now inclose I should not have sent Soule and Mazureau North but should have tried them here. If the War Department will send them back and so direct I will now bring them before a military commission for this atrocious treason and arson.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, June 23, 1862.

Honorable REVERDY JOHNSON, Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York:

Colonel Burke, at Fort Lafayette, has been directed to permit you to be with Mr. Soule, and also his colored servant Jules.

L. THOMAS,

Adjutant-General.

[JUNE 23, 1862. --See Series I, Vol. XIII, p. 106 et seq., for Colonel G. N. Fitch, U. S. Army, to the inhabitants of Monroe County, Ark., and the ensuing correspondence between Hindman and Fitch respecting threatened retaliation.]

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF CENTRAL MISSOURI,
Jefferson City, June 23, 1862.

Brigadier General J. M. SCHOFIELD, Saint Louis, Mo.

GENERAL: I am really very much concerned as to the means of getting rid of the large number of prisoners already held in this division, which number is daily and hourly being most alarmingly increased. Generally speaking the officers are required for active field service, and in the majority of cases they are illiterate and wholly unacquainted with the duties of military commissions. On the average I think I may safely assert that not one out of a dozen is capable of writing out intelligibly the proceedings of a commission and hardly one in any regiment well enough acquainted with the proceedings of commissions

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*For the arrest of Putnam and the burning of cotton in New Orleans, see Series I, Vol. XV, p. 495, where this letter with its inclosures will be found in full.

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