ent. I am able to hold this camp and country with my force. I will inform you of all movements of rebels, so you may rest assured all is right. The officers and men deserve the greatest praise for their gallant conduct, especially Lieutenant Charles Koch, for his promptness and strictness to orders, and killing rebels.

Your most obedient servant,

L. E. WHYBARK,

Captain, Commanding Detachment.

P. S.-The bearer of dispatches yesterday was mistaken. Our force did not fall back, but drove the rebels away entirely. From best reliable information I can obtain, Freeman and Woods have some 600 or 700 men, but did not have near them 300; had the remainder on Sinking and Spring Rivers. Captain Lovell just arrived. All quiet. now. I apprehend no danger for the present.

SEPTEMBER 15, 1863.-Skirmish in Jackson County, Mo.

Report of Colonel William Weer, Tenth Kansas Infantry.

PLEASANT HILL, MO., September 15, 1863.

SIR: After a week spent in bushwhacking, in search of Quantrill's guerrillas, I became convinced that his band continued to secrete themselves upon the waters of the Snibar and Blue Creek, in Jackson County, Missouri. This morning I made another night march, with a view to surprise him,if possible. I crossed the intervening prairie, and entered the timber of the Snibar without being observed. At daylight, the command being divided into four detachments, we commenced a thorough scouring of the Snibar Hills. The country is very rugged, and filled with almost impenetrable thickets. half of the different detachments were dismounted,and penetrated the woods deployed as skirmishers, the horses being led in the rear. By three of the detachments nothing particular was discovered, except evidences that the guerrillas inhabited these woods.

Captain [C. F.] Coleman, of the Ninth Kansas, who commanded on the extreme left, in the course of the day fell upon a trail, by following which he soon came upon Quantrill's own camp. He promptly attacked it, killed 2 of the guerrillas, captured some 40 horses, destroyed all their subsistence stores, including some flour recently stolen from a citizen, all their bedding, clothing, ammunition, and some arms. The enemy fired but one volley, and at once disappeared in the thick underwood, where pursuit was impossible.

Too much credit cannot be given to Captain Coleman for the ingenuity, courage, and energy with which he conducted this as well as other attacks upon guerrillas, or to the zeal and bravery of the men of his command, in seconding the labors of their chief. The effect of this surprise and capture is most damaging to the designs of Quantrill in making another raid upon Kansas. The loss of horses and clothing is to him worse than the loss of men, as the country is denuded of both.

The expedition demonstrates the fact that Quantrill's band is still secreting itself in Jackson Country, though evidently preparing for another raid.

The bushwhackers have within a day or tow burned the splendid flouring mill at Lone Jack.