PILOT KNOB, MO., March 10, 1865.

Major H. HANNAHS,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General:

Numerous reports come in of guerrilla bands plundering through Ripley, Butler, and other counties below. It is impossible to give much protection to those counties with present force in this sub-district, unless it is fully mounted and armed, and all families of bushwhackers should be driven out of the country.

JOHN L. BEVERIDGE,

Colonel, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NORTH MISSOURI,
Macon, Mo., March 10, 1865.

Major J. W. BARNES,

Asst. Adjt. General, Dept. of the Missouri, Saint Louis, Mo.:

MAJOR: I have the honor to submit the following statements to the major-general commanding, and ask advice and instructions: In the month of June, 1864, an order of the War Department discontinued payment for the use of private horses. The Ninth Cavalry Missouri State Militia, at that date on duty in this district, were nearly all mounted on their own private horses. General Orders, Numbers 111, Department of the Missouri, series 1864, was promulgated at a time when the guerrillas were swarming in the river counties, and it became necessary to push every available man into the brush and on the best horses that could be procured. I urged upon the officers of the Ninth Cavalry Missouri State Militia the importance of inducing their men to retain their horses in the service until the chief quartermaster of the department should issue the necessary instructions to officers in his department for the purchase of the private horses, as in said General Orders, Numbers 111, provided. A large number of the non-commissioned officers and privates of the regiment did retain their private horses in the public service, but no purchasing agent of the quartermaster's department visited this district until the month of November, four months after the suspension of payment for use and risk of private horses. In the meantime many of the horses were worn out, killed, and captured by the enemy. Over fifty private horses were captured at the taking of Glasgow by Shelby's forces in October. In some instances I remounted men who had thus lost their horses upon captured horses and horses left by the enemy at Glasgow and elsewhere, and directed them to retain such horses until further orders. General Orders, Numbers 51, Department of the Missouri, current series, requires the turning over, branding, and issuing of such animals. I desire to be instructed whether or not I shall cause the horses I gave to the dismounted men of the Ninth Cavalry, who I knew had lost their own horses in the public service, to be brought in and turned over to the quartermaster. I also, in two or three instance, directed contraband horses to be held and used by Union men in Howard County, who had been plundered by Price of everything they possessed of a portable character. I had verbal authority to do this. Shall I cause all such horses to be gathered in and turned over to the quartermaster? I am particular in asking these instructions now, as the Ninth Cavalry are being mustered out and my own action in giving them the contraband stock may seem at variance with general orders and regulations. General Rosecrans did confirm by special orders such grants of horses in some