at these headquarters all communications relating to subjects that would properly come under the direction of the chief of a department will be addressed accordingly, to wit: Captain A. R. Conlkin, acting assistant adjutant-general and district judge-advocate; Lieutenant Edward F. Ward, aide-de-camp; Captain Theodore S. Case, chief quartermaster; Major J. R. Moore, chief commissary of subsistence; Captain Benjamin H. Wilson, chief of ordnance; Major Henry Neill, chief of cavalry; Captain Charles H. Thurber, district inspector; Captain R. L. Ferguson, district provost-marshal; Lieutenant E. P. Bigelow, assistant commissary of musters; Lieutenant Harlan P. Dow, acting depot ordnance officer; Major R. P. Richardson, medical director; Chaplain Robert A. Foster, superintendent of refugees.

By order of Colonel John F. Phillips, commanding:

A. R. CONKLIN,

Captain and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF CENTRAL MISSOURI,
Warrensburg, Mo., January 10, 1865.

Lieutenant Colonel T. A. SWITZLER,

Commanding First Sub-District, Jefferson City, Mo.:

SIR: The following instructions are submitted for your guidance and observance in the administration of affairs in your jurisdiction. It is of the utmost importance that during the winter and spring guerrillas, robbers, and murderers should be destroyed or driven off. You will be active in your operations against them, and keep the district commander fully advised. Local organizations can be rendered useful in this work. You will therefore encourage, to the utmost of you power and influence, the formation of local provisional companies composed of men of undoubted loyalty, who, if they will, can protect their counties and give the use of our regular troops to guard lines of communication and to be used against the enemy proper. A general and authorized plan for the organization of these local companies will be prepared and promulgated at an early day. When these companies are organized impress upon them the importance of erecting block-houses or stockades at their stations and rallying points. Whenever former known rebels and rebel sympathizers show an honest disposition to become loyal and law-abiding citizens, and are of such character and reputation that they can be relied upon, every encouragement should be given them. Accept not, however, mere lip service for loyalty; judge them by their acts. Willingness to organize themselves under officers of approved and undoubted loyalty for the defense of life, property, State and county, against the common enemy-bushwhackers, guerrillas, and thieves-is the best evidence of loyalty. Guard vigilantly against those who may offer to join these organizations for mer protection and show, and who will falter if not betray when the hour of danger and trial comes. To all such show no mercy. An enemy in disguise is more dangerous than one open and avowed. The great tendency of troops stationed near towns to loaf and lounge about the streets, hotels and saloons, depots and stores, must be stopped. Equally pernicious is the evil of permitting escorts, scouts, and foraging parties to go out without their rations and blankets and to enter private houses for subsistence or quarters. This will at once be corrected. Pillaging and unauthorized foraging will not be tolerated, and all stock, forage, and subsistence taken from