"Allow me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion,
modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections
of the Act of Congress entitled, 'An Act to Confiscate Property used for
Insurrectionary purposes,' approved August 6, 1861, a copy of which Act
I herewith send you.
"This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of censure.
"I send it by a special messenger, in that it may certainly and speedily
reach you.
"Yours very truly,
"A. LINCOLN.
"Major-General FREMONT."
General Fremont replied to President Lincoln's suggestions, as follows:
"HEADQUARTERS WESTERN DEPARTMENT,
"St. Louis, September 8, 1861.
"MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of the second, by special
messenger, I know to have been written before you had received my
letter, and before my telegraphic dispatches and the rapid developments
of critical conditions here had informed you of affairs in this quarter.
I had not written to you fully and frequently, first, because in the
incessant change of affairs I would be exposed to give you contradictory
accounts; and.
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