Numbers 1. Report of Major General William S. Rosecrans, U. S. Army, commanding Department of the Missouri.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, December 7, 1864.

COLONEL: The commanding general of the military division is already informed by my current official dispatches of the principal incidents of the late campaign against Price in this department, but it is proper that I should submit a more detailed and connected report of the operations for a correct understanding of their extent and the importance of the results.

From early in the spring it was known through the lodges of the O. A. K.'s and other rebel sources that Price intended a great invasion of this State, in which he expected the co-operation of that order and of rebels generally, and by which he hoped to obtain important military and political results. In pursuance of these plans the lodges with rebel recruiting officers and agents sent into Missouri clandestinely, or under cover of the amnesty oath for that purpose, began an insurrection in Platte County on the 7th of July last. From that time guerrilla warfare raged in the river counties west from Callaway on the north and from cooper on the south side of the Missouri. This department having been depleted of troops permission was obtained to raise volunteers to meet the exigencies of our situation, and under it about five complete and as many incomplete regiments of twelve-months volunteer infantry had been organized previously to the raid. On the 3rd of September General Washburn sounded the tocsin by information that the force under Shelby at batesville, Ark., was about to be joined by Price for the invasion of our State. The ripening of the corn lent to this additional color of probability, so that on the 6th, Major General A. J. Smith passing Cairo with a division of infantry on the way to General Sherman, I telegraphed General Halleck the state of affairs, requesting orders for this division to halt at that point and wait until we could ascertain the designs of the enemy. The division was halted, and on the 9th General Smith received orders from General Halleck to "operate Price & Co.," but deeming it impracticable to penetrate between 100 and 200 miles into Arkansas with a small column of infantry in pursuit of a large mounted force, the exact whereabouts as well as intentions of which were still unknown, he decided to move his command to a point near Saint Louis, whence he could readily move by rail or river and await Price's movements. From that time information accumulated showing the imminence of the raid. On the 23rd we received certain information that Price has crossed the Arkansas with two divisions of mounted men, three batteries of artillery, a large wagon train carrying several thousand stand of small-arms, and was at or near Batesville on White River. From this point midway between the Mississippi and the western boundary of the State there are three practicable routes of invasion. One by Pocahontas into southeast Missouri, another by West Plains and Rolla or vicinity north toward Jefferson City, a third by Cassville north either through Springfield and Sedalia or by the Kansas border to the Missouri River. Strong military reasons favored the movements of their main force by the central route; while a detached should go by Pocahontas and strip Southeastern Missouri. Under these circumstances my first object was to secure our great depots at Springfield and Rolla, the hay cut