ing crimes and outrages which are
driving off the inhabitants and ruining the State. In this
condition the public safety and the success of our arms
require unity of purpose, without let or hindrance to the
prompt administration of affairs.

In order, therefore, to suppress disorders, to maintain, as
far as now practicable, the public peace, and to give
security and protection to the persons and property of loyal
citizens, I do hereby extend and declare established martial
law thru-out the State of Missouri. The lines of the army of
occupation in this State are, for the present, declared to
extend from Leavenworth, by way of the posts of Jefferson
City, Rolla and Ironton to Cape Girardeau, on the
Mississippi River. All persons who shall be taken with arms
in their hands within these lines shall be tried by court-
martial, and, if found guilty, will be shot. The property,
real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri
who shall take up arms against the United States, or shall
be directly proven to have taken active part with their
enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the
public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby
declared free men.

All persons who shall be proven to have destroyed, after the
publication of this order, railroad tracks, bridges or
telegraphs, shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law.

All persons engaged in treasonable correspondence, in giving
or procuring aid to the enemies of the United States, in
disturbing the public tranquility by creating and
circulating false reports or incendiary documents, are in
their own interest warned that they are exposing themselves.

198

All persons who have been led away from their allegiance are
required to return to their homes forthwith; any such
absence, without sufficient cause, will be held to be
presumptive evidence against them.

The object of this declaration is to place in the hands of
the military authorities the power to give Instantaneous
effect to existing laws, and to supply such deficiencies as
the conditions of war demand. But it is not intended to
suspend the ordinary tribunals of the country, where the law
will be administered by the civil officers in the usual
manner and with their customary au