During the time that trouble was threatened at Diahman, which for the time was happily suppressed by General Atchison, Governor Boggs, in addition to the militia ordered out under Atchison, Doniphan and Parks, had directed General S. D. Lucas, of the fourth division of the Missouri militia, to march with four hundred men to join General Atchison at Diahman. Orders similar in their nature were issued to Major-Generals Lewis Bolton, John B. Clark and Thomas D. Grant. But the success of General Atchison in scattering the mob forces about Diahman led to the disbanding of the militia under the generals just named. This apparently was not relished at all by S. D. Lucas, who, it will be remembered, took an active part in connection with Governor Boggs against the saints in the Jackson County troubles. Hearing of the difficulty arising at De Witt, he thought it another opportunity to strike a blow at the defenseless people he before had assisted in murdering and driving from their homes. He passed down the Missouri River, near where De Witt was located, about the time the actual hostilities began there, and reported the situation to Governor Boggs, and in concluding his letter he says: If a fight has actually taken place, of which I have no doubt, it will create excitement in the whole of upper Missouri, and those base and degraded beings (the "Mormons") will be exterminated from the face of the earth. * * * It is an unpleasant state of affairs. The remedy I do not pretend to suggest to your Excellency. My troops were only dismissed subject to further orders, and can be called into the field at an hour's warning. While Lucas pretended in the above not to suggest a remedy to the governor, he really does so, and plainly offers to carry out the plan. General Lucas says: "Those base and degraded beings (the saints) will be exterminated from the face of the earth," and then follows that statement up by saying that his troops, amounting to four hundred, had only been dismissed subject to further orders, and could be called out at an hour's warning! This act on the part of Lucas was in reality a suggestion to Governor Boggs to exterminate the saints, and an offer on his part to do the job, if he only had orders to call out the men he had but a few days before disbanded. The circumstance is the more significant since his covert suggestion was subsequently acted upon by Governor Boggs. The people of Chariton County were again asked to assist against the "Mormons," this time to drive them from De Witt; and again the people of that county held a public meeting on the question, and sent a committee of two to inquire into the situation and report. As their report is a complete vindication of the action of the saints in this instance, I make an extract from it: