horses, and mules along the border in the Indian Nation driven out. Lieutenant Graves, acting commissary of subsistence, is along to take charge of them for Captain See.

In addition to driving out these cattle you will operate as much as possible against guerrillas and rebel bands now moving north along the border. You will make timely requisitions for ammunition, forage, and subsistence, and report your position and progress from time to time through Neosho and Mount Vernon. You will move and manage in such manner as no to injure or break down the stock, if it is possible to prevent it.

Very respectfully, yours, &c.,

JOHN B. SANBORN,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NORTH MISSOURI, Macon, Mo., April 3, 1865.

Major-General DODGE,
Commanding Department of the Missouri, Saint Louis, Mo.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to report the district in comparatively good order. I hear of the return of several old chieftains of bandits, who for the last four summers have carried on their thieving operations in North Missouri. One most excellent feature in the conduct of the present stealing campaign in that the villains make no discrimination between loyalists and rebels. They discriminate only in favor of a poor man. I fear that many of our returning "three-years-olds" will make their old secesh neighbors very uncomfortable during the present year. One good result of this state of things will be a concentration of effort on the part of all good citizens to put down all manner of lawlessness, by whomsoever committed. I have made a personal inspection of all the prisons in the district, examined each case myself, and turned over to the civil authorities eery case no strictly military. At Saint Joseph I literally turned the prison into the grand jury room, with a portion of the bar of Saint Joseph with them. Over 300 indictments were found at Saint Joseph during the term just ended. Another communication accompanying this will fully explain certain abuses and corruptions in and about the provost-marshal's department, all of which I have corrected. * The volunteer militia companies organized by the governor are progressing will in most cases. Platte County has done but little for Captain Eads, and will not until they reach the conclusion that it is to be Eads or nobody. Howard, Chariton, and Randolph are doing splendidly; Boone and Callaway not so well. The Third and Ninth Cavalry Missouri State Militia detachments are so near the expiration of their terms of service that they are of but little value. If the War Department would authorize the conversion of the Fifty-first Regiment Infantry Missouri Volunteers, now organizing at Saint Joseph, into a cavalry Regiment, it would be very desirable. Their services, mounted, will be needed in Northwest Missouri when the leaves come out. Infantry is of but little account in a bushwhacking region.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CLINTON B. FISK,

Brigadier-General.

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*See Fisk to Dodge, April 5, p. 33.

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