Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invader and keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass and persecute the people. It is a difficult rôle, and so much greater will be the honor if you perform it well. If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the other. “Yours truly, “A. LINCOLN.” So the general was to begin his duties with a clean slate. But no sooner had he taken firmly hold of his work than the extreme Charcoals began to oppose him and Governor Gamble. Happily he and the Governor agreed in policy and were united in action. An act of the Governor first elicited the wrath of the extremists. The policy of assessing well-to-do disunionists, begun in St. Louis, had spread itself over the whole State. The dragons’ teeth sown by Halleck were producing an abundant harvest. Just at this time the Provost-marshal general was engaged in gathering assessments in different parts of our commonwealth. Opposed as the Governor was to this arbitrary method of dealing with supposed disloyalty, he commanded the enrolled militia, that was under his immediate control, not to aid the Marshal in collecting the assessments that he had made. For this, the Charcoals poured the vials of their wrath upon his head. But the Federal commander did not long escape their vituperation. That border ruffian, Quantrell, and his lawless gang, made a raid into Kansas, looted Lawrence and murdered many of its inhabitants. For this dastardly outrage the extreme radicals unreasonably blamed General Schofield. And when General Lane of Kansas and the men following his lead wished to invade Missouri in order to make reprisals, Schofield, in the interest of peace and good order, would not permit it. For this the extreme Charcoals bitterly denounced him, and even called in question his loyalty. They determined to down him. In their newspapers they sharply criticized him and his methods. In return he fulminated an order against the immoderate and lawless press, threatening to throttle it. This was an unwise act on his part. It encouraged them in their opposition. They had not toiled in vain. At least they had made the lion roar. They went to reprehensible extremes. The general believed that they tampered with some of the enrolled militia, that had been put by the Governor under his command. He sent a regiment of militia to New Madrid to relieve the 25th Missouri, and while on board the steamboat, going down the Mississippi, they mutinied, landed, and went to their homes. So if the general’s information was not at fault, faction began to blossom into treason.