HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NORTH MISSOURI,
Macon, Mo., March 22, 1865.

Major J. W. BARNES,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Department of the Missouri:

MAJOR: I have the honor to report that with but slight exception all is quiet in this district. What troops I have are kept busily employed scouting through the river counties. Jim Jackson and company are roaming through Boone, Callaway, and Howard Counties. They are chiefly engaged in plundering and murdering negroes. They have hung two negroes in Boone and one in Callaway County within the last few days. I have 200 men on the move day and night after the fiends. We have killed two of the gang of late. It seems strange, I know, that this villain should go so long without being caught, but did the general commanding know the country and the people as well as Jim Jackson does, he would readily discover how it is that a small party can thus elude the strictest vigilance. I am now organizing a Jim Jackson exterminating corps, and hope to muster out a few of the rascals by that means. A few brave, determined soldiers, stimulated by private rewards offered by citizens, go into the Blackfoot country to-morrow, sworn not to return without the head of the monster in a charger. The volunteer militia companies being organized under the governor's General Orders, Numbers 3, are in some localities progressing very well, but in others only moderately. The volunteer force of the district is now very small and altogether too limited for the safety of the public property, thoroughfares and their appointments, and the duty of killing bushwhackers required at my hands. The people generally in that portion of the district south of the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad are apprehensive of more serious trouble than they have ever experienced before, and I can but advise the most thorough preparation for trouble there by insuring quiet. The civil authorities are generally endeavoring to discharge their duty. I have advised judges that I am simply their aide-de-camp; that we will catch and guard thieves if necessary, while they must try and punish. We don't mean to have bushwhackers brought in for trial at all.

I have the honor to be, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CLINTON B. FISK,

Brigadier-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI,
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SIGNAL OFFICER,

New Orleans, La., March 23, 1865.

Lieutenant Colonel C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

Asst. Adjt. General, Military Division of West Mississippi:

COLONEL: I have the honor to submit to your consideration the following report of information received at this office this 23rd day of March, 1865: Captain Thomas J. Abel reports from Helena, Ark., under date of the 15th instant, that the number of rebel troops within that district does not exceed 1,200. The rebel Colonel Dobbin is reported fifty miles west of Helena with 400 men, under orders from Kirby Smith to march south of the Arkansas River. The rebel Colonel Forrest is said to be 100 miles east of Helena, in Mississippi, with a force variously estimated at from 300 to 500. Reports from Vicksburg indicate no new movements on the part of Forrest. From all points on