By the influence of some of the soldiers, the prisoner succeeded next day in effecting his escape.  Traveling by night and concealing himself by day, he finally reached the federal lines in safety.  His family were not permitted to follow him, and did not succeed in eluding the vigilance of their enemies and joining him until the middle of January.  When a Union man escapes them, the rebels are always opposed to the removal of his wife and children, as, by retaining them, they hope to get the husband and father again into their hands.  And, as all communication by letter is cut off, many a man, during the last six months, has stolen back to see his family at the risk of his life, and lost it.

Dr. R. was the first man arrested in Ripley County; but LOWE immediately began a lively persecution of suspected Unionists.  Some escaped with life, their enemies being satisfied with scourging and plundering them, but scores were hung.  LOWE’S soldiers furnished and equipped themselves by robbing Union houses and the country stores.

Many suspected Union men shielded themselves by denouncing others, giving information of the property of others, and being forward in insulting and quartering lawless soldiers upon defenceless families.  So that, Dr. R. states, there are created between neighbors, all through that section, feuds which will never cease to exist.  Many a man has suffered family wrongs from his neighbor which he thirsts to go back to revenge, which he swears yet to revenge, and which he feels nothing but the blood of the offender can revenge!  And should peace be declared to-morrow, a social war would still exist in Missouri!

People dwelling in the free States, where the schoolhouse is not abolished, where the laws still live and restrain, can have no conception of the state of society where the whole community has returned suddenly to savage life; a life wherein the reaction from a former restraint renders the viciously disposed far more intensely barbarous than his red brother of the plain.

LOWE’S men, and all similarly recruited by order of ex-Governor JACKSON, remained in service six months, and were to be paid in State scrip.  But as that was worthless, they never received anything in rations, clothing, or money, but what they plundered from their fellow-citizens.  Many of these state rights soldiers have since enlisted in the Confederate army; but Confederate paper being fifty per cent. below par, and not rising, the legitimate pay of the Southern soldier is likely to be small.

In Northern Arkansas, all males between fifteen and forty-five years of age have been ordered to be ready for the Confederate service when called upon.  This has caused a fear of failure in next year’s crops from scarcity of men in that section.  There is great suffering