tained here; I suggest that he be sent here if the post is held. I am anxious to make that move against them; I have a bloody account not settle.

J. B. ROGERS,

Colonel, Commanding.

SAINT LOUIS, MO., August 3, 1863.

Lieutenant Colonel C. W. MARSH,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Missouri:

SIR: About one-half of the farms in the border tier of counties of Missouri in my district, at different times since the war began, entered the rebel service. One-half of them are dead or still in the service; the other half, quitting from time to time the rebel armies, have returned to those counties. Unable to live at their homes if they would, they have gone to bushwhacking, and have driven almost all avowed Unionists out of the country or to the military stations. And now, sometimes in squads of a dozen and sometimes in bands of several hundred, they scour the country, robbing and killing those they think unfriendly to them,and threatening the settlements of the Kansas border and the towns and stations in Missouri.

So large a portion of the troops under my command are held fast, guarding the Kansas border and the towns and stations in Missouri, which are filled with refugees, that I cannot nut in the field numbers equal to those of the guerrillas. From the character of the country and the people, and the great vigilance of the enemy, and the secrecy of their movements, it is rarely practicable to surprise them,and they will never fight unless all the odds are on their side, and they are too well mounted to be run down. The country is rich and supports them well, but it so rugged and heavily timbered, and full of places of concealment and ambuscade, that these band could not possibly be expelled from it with forces in the field less than three times their own.

About two-thirds of the families on the occupied farms of that region are of kin to the guerrillas, and are actively and heartily engaged in feeding, clothing, and sustaining them. The presence of these families is the cause of the presence there of the guerrillas. I can see no prospect of an early and complete end to the war on the border, without at great increase of troops, so long as those families remain there. While they stay there,these men will also stay, if possible. They know they cannot go home and live peaceably because of the fierce feeling against the among the loyal men of the border, who have suffered at their hands. Against these loyal men no amnesty now or hereafter can protect them. They will, therefore, continue guerrilla war as long as they remain,and will stay as long as possible if their families remain. I think that the families of several hundred of the worst of these men should be sent, with their clothes and bedding to some rebel district south, and would recommend the establishment of a colony of them on the Saint Francis or White Rivers, in Arkansas, to which a steamboat can carry them direct from Kansas City. About one-half of them could take with them no provisions or money of any consequence, and would have to be temporarily supplies by Government. I think it would do not send them north, because the men would not follow them, while if sent south the men will follow, I think,and there they can live at home if they wish, in safety, and can have amnesty, when the day of amnesty comes. They will probably be about as harmless in their new location, and about as