This commanding, is assigned to duty at Benton Barracks as a part of the permanent garrison.

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By order of Brigadier- General Ewing:

H. HANNAHS,

Major Fiftieth Missouri Volunteers and Actg. Asst. Adjt. General

HEADQUARTERS CENTRAL DISTRICT OF MISSOURI,
Warrensburg, March 15, 1865.

Major General G. M. DODGE,

Commanding Department of the Missouri, Saint Louis:

GENERAL: I returned to quarters last night from a tour of inspection through the counties of Cass, Jackson, and La Fayette, having inspected the posts at Pleasant Hill, Hickman Mills, Kansas City, Independence, and Lexington. I also paid proper attention to the protection of the railroad construction parties and the transportation of the mail. The cavalry at the posts of Pleasant Hill, Hickman Mills, and Lexington I found in anything but a state of efficiency. Most of the men waiting muster out, many without horses, and more without equipments; hence the difficulty of getting up scouts and pursuits of guerrillas. The infantry of Colonel Harding's regiment at Kansas City are good troops; those at Independence less instructed, but he will now transpose the commands and correct the want of discipline and drill with those now at Independence. This regiment suffers much from the best of its officers being on detached service out of the district. Like most short- term regiments, many of its line officers are scarcely fit for the rank of file- closers. At Lexington I found a total want of discipline or efficiency. With three squadrons First Regiment Missouri State Militia, numbering some 145 men, were fifteen horses and five sets of equipments. The formation oft he companies under Order Numbers 3 is progressing very slowly. The people want to have the men so raised credited to the draft, and many of the people of the country would enlist if the company they enlist in should be stationed on their particular farms or homes. I have told them that they could fill up these companies, or failing to do so that they would have their local militia called into active service. The counties are offering local bounties to fill up these companies, and I some cases may add a pair of revolvers for each man as an inducement. The worst feature in the country is the cowed and dispirited sate of the people. All manhood appears to have gone out of them. Alike in fear of the soldier and the bushwhacker, all thy ask is military protection of provost- marshals and the privilege of neutrality. I talked to the people at Kansas City and again at Lexington, counseling them to an active and sympathetic support of the Government, State and National; to a strict performance of all their duties under the law as jurymen and militiamen; to conciliation and union in support of law, and the defense of their homes against al lawless violence. I hope I made some converts, but if I had possessed a "forty- parson power"of persuasion I am afraid I should have come short of the mark. I shall hasten the work of consolidating the recruits of the three Missouri State Militia regiments. Enough men of the FIRST are now here, and I will order them under the best officer I can now find in commission of that corps. Will You carry the consolidation further than that of companies! There are men enough of the three regiments