WARRENSBURG, April 24, 1865.

Major-General DODGE:

Can you countermand the orders for Forty-fifth Missouri Volunteers at La Mine bridge, so that it may remain there until I make other arrangement?

CHESTER HARDING, Jr.,

Colonel, &c.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, April 24, 1865-3. 30 p. m.

Colonel C. HARDING,

Warrensburg:

I cannot send Ninth Missouri State Militia to you yet. The Seventeenth Illinois will soon be with you, and a battalion of Fourteenth Missouri that I am now mounting. Reports from Kirby Smith show that his army is breaking up, and we will have lots of them on us. Hold Forty-fifth at La Mine bridge until you can relieve them.

G. M. DODGE,

Major-General.

WARRENSBURG, April 24, 1865-4. 30 p. m.

Major J. W. BARNES,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

About seventy-five rebels are reported moving north in small squads, aiming to cross the Missouri River at Rocheport. Last night they were near Pratt's Mill, on the South Moreau, in Cole County.

CHESTER HARDING, Jr.,

Colonel, &c.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DIST. OF CENTRAL MISSOURI, Numbers 16.
Warrensburg, Mo., April 24, 1865.

I. The resignation of the undesigned having been tendered and accepted, he relinquishes the command of this district.

II. In leaving the command the undersigned thinks it may be well to officer a few words of advice to the citizens of the district. It is the earnest desire of the military authorities that peace and its blessings, the supremacy of law, and the full restoration of the civil courts to their old power and dignity may be established in this region at once. The citizens have only to use their power in the right direction and these ends can be accomplished. But they must remember that law cannot properly be administered by disloyal men. What chance would there be of convicting a person guilty of the crimes of treason, murder, arson, or robbery committed in the name of the Confederacy, if tried by a jury of men who believe that the rebellion was justifiable and hope for its final success? In some parts of this district no Union man can live away from the protection of troops, and their disloyal neighbors will not allow their farms to be cultivated even by rebel tenant. Men and women who have friends or relatives in the brush or in the rebel army shelter and supply bushwhackers. Men who have obtained, amnesty for past acts of treason and live under the protection of the Government are at this day aiding the public enemies. These classes of disloyalist must disappear from the country before a return to former