to take the offensive. I have directed that all new organizations being raised in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin be ordered to report to you. This will give you some additional force, but I am unable to say how much. Among the new troops thus added to your command there will undoubtedly be many veteran soldiers. But it can hardly be expected that they will equal for the field those now in service. I would suggest, therefore, putting these new troops in garrison as far as possible, and relieving the older troops for the front. Your present Missouri force I presume you will want to keep where they are. If you can break up Price where he is you may find it practicable to make a campaign in Northeast Texas, subsisting entirely off the country. If you can do so it is highly desirable. It would let out thousands of negroes who would go into our Army, and many white people who are held in that country against their consent. I do not know the number of men Canby may have taken from Reynolds recently, and cannot therefore tell exactly what force you will find in Arkansas to operate with. But there has been left what was deemed sufficient to hold the line of the Arkansas against all the enemy are supposed to have to bring against it. For an advance, therefore, or to follow the enemy if he should advance, you must be able to raise quite an army from that quarter. Movements now in progress may end in such results within a few weeks so as to enable me to send you forces enough for any campaign you may want to make, even to the overrunning of the whole of Texas. If so, and you want them, they will be promptly sent. Write me as soon as you can the movable force, about, you can have, with your present resources, and what you propose; also what you would propose doing if, say, 25,000 additional troops could be added.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, Mo., March 21, 1865.

Lieutenant General U. S. GRANT,

General-in-Chief, City Point, Va.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to transmit inclosed Special Orders, No. 15,* which is designed to carry out the purposes set forth in my letter of March 3 to the governor of Missouri and his proclamation of the 7th instant. The only apprehension I have about the success of these measures is another invasion or raid by Price from the directions of Arkansas. All indications point to such an attempt, General Dodge having been informed by young Price, who took the oath of allegiance some eighteen months ago, that it was certain such an attempt would be made. Our scouts and spies from Arkansas concur in this belief. I do not doubt from all I can learn that there are troops enough in Arkansas to prevent such a raid if they were properly equipped and posted. General Reynolds writes me that most of his cavalry is dismounted and that he is on a defensive footing. The term of service of the Missouri State Militia is about expiring, and we will be left in Missouri with only four or five regiments, mostly infantry. I need not say that the proper defense of Missouri from invasion from the direction of Arkansas is no the Arkansas River. I would be glad to be informed whether I am responsible for protecting Missouri against such a raid or whether I am to trust it to General Reynolds. In the former case it

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* See p. 1202.

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