HEADQUARTERS WESTERN DEPARTMENT,
Saint Louis, August 4, 1861.

Honorable THOMAS A. SCOTT,

Acting Secretary of War, Washington City:

Seeing that the Secretary of War is absent from Washington, I telegraphed to you to ask that the five Indiana regiments, now under orders for the East, may be sent at once to me for immediate duty in this State. Governor Morton joins me in this request. Nowhere can they be more urgently needed, and nowhere can the river boatmen, from whom they are largely recruited, be so useful to the cause.

J. C. FREMONT,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT NORTH MISSOURI,
Mexico, August 4, 1861.

Captain JOHN C. KELTON:

CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report, for the information of the general commanding the department, that by a simultaneous movement I shall to-night or to-morrow morning occupy in force the county seats of the nineteen counties lying east of the North Missouri Railroad and its proposed continuation north to the Iowa line. The three Iowa regiments have been instructed to move as follows: The

cavalry regiment to Memphis, the county seat of Scotland County, and thence to Edina, the county seat of Knox, near which it is reported that a camp of 2,500 secessionists has been established; one infantry regiment to march upon Edina direct from Keokuk; the other to come down to Canton, and thence to march upon Edina by way of Monticello. These three regiments will effect a junction to-night or to-morrow morning at that point. Brigadier-General Hurlbut is instructed to occupy Palmyra, Shelbyville, and Bloomington, the county seats of Marion, Shelby, and Macon. He has probably done so to-day. Colonel Marshall, with 500 infantry, 100 cavalry, and two pieces of horse artillery moved from this place day before yesterday with the design of occupying Paris, the county seat of Monroe, and thence upon New London and Hannibal; Captain McNulta, with 100 cavalry, upon Bowling Green, the county seat of Pike County, from Montgomery City, on the line of North Missouri road. Captain Peck, Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers, with 300 infantry, from Warrenton, on this road, marched yesterday, and occupies to-day Troy, the county seat of Lincoln. Five companies of infantry, under Major Goddard, occupy Fulton, the county seat of Callaway County. Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson, with 400 hundred men, occupies Huntsville, seat of Randolph County, to-day. Macon City, the junction of Hannibal and Saint Joe road, is held by five companies of Sixteenth Illinois Volunteers; and Sturgeon, on line of North Missouri road, by four companies of the Fourteenth.

If these movements have been made promptly and vigorously, by to-morrow morning the forces will occupy all those points, and as no place of retreat for armed parties of secessionists will be left in all that region without the certainty of encountering some portion of the United States forces, it is expected that they will either be taken or dispersed. The object of these movements was as much to put in operation the policy marked out in General Orders, Numbers 3,* from these headquarters, copies of

---------------

* See p. 417.

---------------