Iowa. Major James Belger, quartermaster, U. S. Army, will furnish the necessary transportation.

* * * *

By command of Major-General Wool:

WM. D. WHIPPLE,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS, DABB'S HOUSE,
Near Richmond, Va., July 6, 1862.

Major General GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN, U. S. Army,

Commanding Army of the Potomac.

GENERAL: I have been directed by the Secretary of War of the Confederate States to inform you that it is reported in the journals of the United States that Mr. William B. Mumford, of New Orleans, and Colonel John L. Owen, of the Missouri State Guard, have been executed by the U. S. authorities-Mr. Mumford for having pulled down the U. S. flag is New Orleans and Colonel Owen upon a charge of bridge burning in Missouri. The former is stated to have been hung, the latter to have been shot.

Mr. Mumford, we are informed, pulled down the flag before the Federal forces had acquired possession of the city. The U. S. vessels were anchored before it and a demand for its surrender had been made but not complied with, the party that hoisted the flag having retired. Under these circumstances if true the execution of Mr. Mumford is considered as a murder of one of our citizens. I inclose the account of his execution from the New Orleans Delta.

Colonel Owen, it appears from the account given in the Missouri papers, as you will perceive from the inclosed slip, was shot without trial. He was a commissioned officer of the Second Division of the Missouri State Guard. Individuals have been put to death by the authority of the Confederate Government for burning bridges within its territory, and persons in military service coming disguised within its lines to destroy railroads have also been executed, but they have had a fair trial. If Colonel Owen entered your lines in disguise we cannot deny your right to try and punish him. But his execution without trial is not considered justifiable, and should he have acted in obedience to orders and not have been in disguise his execution is looked upon as murder.

Supposing then Mr. Mumford to have been executed for an insult to the U. S. flag hoisted in a city not in their possession and Colonel Owen to have been executed without trial the Confederate Government deems it to be its duty to call on the authorities of the United States for a statement of the facts, inasmuch as it is not intended to permit outrages of such a character to be perpetrated without retaliation.

Hoping that no necessity may arise for such a course, I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General.

[Inclosures-Newspaper slips.]

THE LINCOLNITES IN MISSOURI MURDER A SECESSIONIST.

The following is from the Hannibal (Mo.) Hearld of June 10:

Information was brought into camp at Palmyra on Saturday last that Colonel John L. Owen, a notorious rebel who has made himself conspicuous in burning bridges, cars and depots, firing into passenger trains, last summer and fall, was secreted at or near