To General S. R. Curtis.

Executive Mansion, Washington,

December 10, 1862.

MAJOR-GENERAL CURTIS, St. Louis, Missouri:

Please suspend, until further order, all proceeding on the order made by General Schofield, on the twenty-eighth day of August last, for assessing and collecting from secessionists and Southern sympathizers the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, etc., and in the meantime make out and send me a statement of facts pertinent to the question, together with your opinion upon it.

A. LINCOLN.