that he told the truth, but they would not believe us. They said, "Take him away from these women, and if he does not tell us we will hang him. " He said just as they started from the house if they would treat him as a prisoner of war and according to the honors of war he had no fears.

I feared from their savage appearance that they might abuse him or do him some harm, and I followed them about a quarter of a mile entreating them to spare his life; that he was innocent of the charges they had against him, and not to take an innocent man's life. They assured me they would not kill him, and told me to go back home now and come down to Palmyra the next day and see him. That satisfied me. I turned and came home.

They did not go over half a mile farther till they killed him. From the best information I can get they made him sit down on a log which lay close to a fence, tied his hands across his breast and tied his elbows back to the fence, so that he could not move; tied him with hickory bark and there took the life of an innocent, unresisting man. They left him there on the public road, shot down like a wild beast, then went on to one of the neighbors and told them what they had done, and told them if he had any friends they might dig a hole and throw him in, and sent me word that they had shot my husband and where I could find him; also sent me a cartridge with the word that they had put eight like that in him. They also thrust him through the breast with a bayonet. One ball entered his face just at the left side of his nose and passed through his head; one near his collar bone; two through his breast, not more than two or three inches apart, passing entirely through his body and lodged in the fence behind him. His left arm was all shattered to pieces from the elbow down. The murderers stood so near him that his clothes were scorched by the powder.

I still have the cartridge they sent me in such unfeeling manner, and when some kind friend sends it through one of their black treacherous hearts then it will have fulfilled its mission.

Oh, does not his innocent blood call for revenge? Will not his friends avenge his brutal, cruel death?

MARY A. OWEN.

[Inclosure Numbers 2.]

[Editorial from the Quincy (Ill.) Herald, July 3, 1862.]

LETTER FROM MRS. OWEN.

A communication appears in this morning's Herald from Mrs. Mary A. Owen, widow of the late John L. Owen, who was shot two or three weeks ago by some of the Federal troops in Missouri, giving her version in detail of his arrest and the manner of his death. We know nothing of the circumstances connected with the arrest and death of Owen or the cause or causes that led to his arrest further than what has been published in the newspapers; but whether guilty or not of any or all the crimes that have been alleged against him he should have undergone at least the forms of a trial, either by a court-martial or a civil tribunal, unless found in actual hostility with arms in his hands. If he came to his death in the manner related by Mrs. Owen the act was nothing less than cold-blooded murder. If he had been shot in the actual perpetration of any of the crimes alleged against him he would have received but his just desert.

At any rate we think the affair should be inquired into either by the civil or military authorities of Missouri, that the facts of Owen's career since the commencement of the rebellion to the time of his death may be known and the justice of his death properly vindicated.