massacre is only an example of what Grierson,
John Morgan, and many others might have repeatedly done on their
respective raids, had they chosen to incur the personal hazard and
possessed the fiendish hearts to do it.

"The charge is made that General Schofield, on purpose to protect
the Lawrence murderers, would not allow them to be pursued into
Missouri. While no punishment could be too sudden or too severe
for those murderers, I am well satisfied that the preventing of
the remedial raid into Missouri was the only safe way to avoid an
indiscriminate massacre there, including probably more innocent
than guilty. Instead of condemning, I therefore approve what I
understand General Schofield did in that respect.

"The charges that General Schofield has purposely withheld protection
from loyal people, and purposely facilitated the objects of the
disloyal, are altogether beyond my power of belief. I do not
arraign the veracity of gentlemen as to the facts complained of,
but I do more than question the judgment which would infer that
those facts occurred in accordance with the _purposes_ of General
Schofield.

"With my present views, I must decline to remove General Schofield.
In this I decide nothing against General Butler. I sincerely wish
it were convenient to assign him to a suitable command.

"In order to meet some existing evils, I have addressed a letter
of instructions to General Schofield, a copy of which I inclose to
you.

"As to the 'enrolled militia,' I shall endeavor to ascertain better
than I now know what is its exact value. Let me say now, however,
that your proposal to substitute national forces for the enrolled
militia implies that in your judgment the latter is doing something
which needs to be done, and if so, the proposition to throw that
force away, and supply its place by bringing other forces from the
field, where they are urgently needed, seems to me very extraordinary.
Whence shall they come? Shall they be withdrawn from Banks, or
Grant, or Steele, or Rosecrans?

"Few things have been so grateful to my anxious feelings as when,
in June last, the local force in Missouri aided General Schofield
to so promptly send a large general force to the relief of General
Grant, then investing Vicksburg and menaced from without by General
Johnston. Was this all wrong? Should the enrolled militia then
have been broken up, and General Herron kept from Grant to police
Missouri? So far from finding