Chicago Tribune US
General Curtis' Policy.
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE SOUTHWEST.}
CAMP AT HELENA, ARK., Aug.16, 1862}
Editors Chicago Tribune:

My attention has been called an article in your paper of the 1st Inst., headed "General Curtis' Policy," charging him with exhibiting more” care for the rebels than concern for his own troops. The army were on short rations for weeks, and the food taken has been paid for at about double the prices the planters could get for it if they hauled it to the river."

The entire article is false, unjust and pernicious; not intentionally so, I am sure, but so in fact. Not one tenth of the provisions taken by Gen. Curtis' army has been paid for. That which was paid for two loyal owners was at about half the current rates, and every owner would have gladly received it back at double the price received. Provisions on the river would be cheaper if trade were open, but provisions in Arkansas are hauled from the river to the country, not to the river. You say “Our past mode of dealing with the rebels was not calculated to subdue them very soon or hurt them much."

The army of the Southwest has stripped the country through which it passed, so bear that the poor and the rich and of the inhabitants alike fear actual starvation. Thousands are sufferings to-day, and around this camp are many who have followed the army in anxious apprehension of famine. The negroes especially must and do suffer. Thousands have nothing it but corn, and occasionally fresh beef without salt. Much sickness is the consequence. The negroes are generally in a state of mutiny in consequence of this impoverished condition of their masters, and their desire for freedom is greatly augmented by the presence of thousands who have obtained free papers by the general's exercise of military power-he having claimed and exercise the power of the sword to weaken the foe by severing the chain that unites a slave to a belligerent owner.

The army of the Southwest has for over six months been an advance picket. It is encumbered with non-combatants that come from both sides-from the enemy's camp to escape oppression, and from the States interior to carry on trade with newly-opened country. This latter class, impelled by prospects of California gains, intrude beyond the pickets, offer exorbitant prices for assistance, and hence many are sent away for transgressions of military laws, and others because their fidelity is suspected. We find those who at home and have been secession sympathizers the most officious speculators, evidently more successful beyond our pickets because they are sympathizers. Our enemies at home can easily get food for malice by listening to the lies invented by the gamblers excluded from the lines, but we do not expect our friends to repeat them, and we feel that it is a poor compensation for a weary campaign, in which we are almost daily under the fire of insidious foes that we have driven a thousand miles, to say our "fast mode of dealing with the rebels are not calculated to subdue them."

J.G. FORMAN
Chaplin 3d Missouri volunteers, in the army of the southwest.