quartermaster of the Department of the Missouri, respecting the matter of authority of Major-General Blunt, commanding the District of the Frontier, to give him orders affecting the quartermaster's department, referred to this office with your views indorsed thereon, has been submitted to the General-in-Chief, who approves your views and directs that you instruct General Blunt that he has no authority in the case.*

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

LEXINGTON, MO., July 23, 1863.

Brigadier-General EWING:

The rebel are concentrating somewhere east of Chapel Hill, report says on Davis' Creek, near Warrensburg. If so, our forces of that place will attack them to-morrow morning. For fear my information is not correct, would it not be well for you to send down an expedition to Chapel Hill? There are here two large lots of Government mules, quartermasters' stores, &c., to guard. I have not a man to spare to send out.

B. F. LAZEAR,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding.

CAMP Numbers 4.

Baxter Springs, Kans., July 23, 1863.

Major H. Z. CURTIS,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Fort Scott, Kans.:

MAJOR: I have the honor to report that the escort and train reached this camp to-day.

I dispatched a reconnoitering party to Sherwood, 14 miles from here, last night. They bring in reliable information that the rebel Colonel Coffee, with a small force, camped 4 miles east of there, on Turkey Creek, night before last. He had with him from 150 to 200 men. Last evening all the roads in that direction showed marks of small parties marching southward, and several parties of from 5 to 20 were seen going that way. The citizens say that Coffee has come north since the defeat of the enemy by General Blunt, and is reorganizing Livingston's forces on Cowskin Prairie, for an attack on this train, somewhere on Grand River. You are as competent to judge of the reliability of this information as I am.

I am, major, respectfully, your obedient servant,

E. A. CALKINS,

Major, Commanding Escort to Fort Blunt.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE FRONTIER,
Fort Scott, Kans., July 25, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Marsh, assistant adjutant-general, for information of the commanding general. Particular attention called to the facts that here is a base, itself 125 miles from a

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

*See Blunt to Stanton, July 26, p. 398.

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