[Inclosures B.]

JEFFERSON CITY, MO., October 11, 1861.

GENERAL: In June, 1855, I left Saint Louis with seven steamboats, with stores and troops for the Upper Missouri River. I remained there on duty until 1857. I joined General Johnston and went to Utah. I returned from Utah last winter, on the first and only leave of absence I have had in twelve years. While on my way to Washington, in April, I stopped at Harrisburg; and, at the request of Governor Curtin, I remained there to assist in organizing the troops there assembling into camps and to put their commissariat into order. From there I was on duty constantly, day and night, at various posts-York, Cockeysville, Baltimore, Perryville, and Annapolis. Finally, about the 20th of July, I was ordered to report to General Fremont. I did so at New York. I was ordered on duty at Saint Louis, where I resumed similar labors to those I had been at in the East, and have been on my feet night and day since. A few days ago I received orders to report at this place for duty in the field.

I left all my public accounts open, in an incomplete and exposed condition, on my office table in Saint Louis, besides a vast deal of property not turned over. My health is so broken down that I am not able longer to stand up. I desire, as an act of simple justice to me, I be allowed to resume the leave of absence I surrendered in April (it would have expired 15th June), or else that I be ordered permanently to a post where I can get some rest, and be able to make up and forward to the Treasury Department my public accounts.

Your early reply to this is respectfully requested.

Respectfully,

P. T. TURNLEY,

Assistant Quartermaster.

General L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General United States.

NOTE.-My unsettled and unadjusted accounts will reach over one million and a half dollars.

JEFFERSON CITY, October 13, 1861.

GENERAL: On the 25th September ultimo I opened the bids, in my office at Saint Louis, made under General Meigs' advertisement for furnishing grain and hay. I made contracts in accordance therewith, and gave a notice to contractors of the amount I supposed would be required weekly. A day or two after, another party (a Mr. Baird or Baird & Palmer) in Saint Louis informed me they had received an order (per telegraph) from Colonel Woods or General McKinstry, then at Jefferson City with headquarters, to forward as fast as possible to Jefferson City 100,000 bushels of oats and a like or corresponding amount of hay. The contractors under advertisement objected to this order, because they said Baird got 33 cents for grain and $19 per ton for hay, while contractors got 28 cents for corn, 30 cents for oats, and $17.95 per ton for hay. I then told contractors they need not send any forage up the river; or, if they did, they would be paid the same as Baird was.

About 29th or 30th September, after the headquarters Western Department had left Saint Louis (I being left there highest in rank in my department, but no orders or instructions except the single remark of General Fremont, that he wished no delay or obstacle whatever in the forwarding of supplies, &c.), I was daily and almost hourly called upon by different persons and asked to have their mules inspected. All