My command has been largely reduced recently by enlistments in the U. S. service discharges for cause, sickness, and desertion, without including the captures made at Keytesville. Captain Stanley reports only eleven men remaining for duty; Captain Brawner's company has been reduced to eighty-one men, about sixty-five of whom are present for duty; Captain Rees' company, out of which the capture at Keytesville was made, numbers about fifty men, excluding captures, about twenty-five of whom are present for duty; Captain Bucksath's company numbers about eighty men, with about an average of between sixty and seventy for duty. In addition to these I have a citizens' company under Captain Cunningham, subject to be called for duty only in cases of emergency, which can muster for duty seventy-five men and upward. With this force I feel able to hold this post against any ordinary concentration of bushwhackers a very heavy concentration being the only thing I fear, which I thought was certainly coming upon me a few days ago. Some of these companies are charged with being unwilling to fight Confederate troops, but with how much truth I am not able to say, though I feel very willing to trust them against any enemy that may come here to attack them. They have never been engaged in battle, but have been drawn up in line several times with that expectation, and have never yet refused to fight. They have performed every duty demanded of them with fidelity, and have obeyed every order with as much promptness and alacrity as could be expected of militia forces. The surrender at Keytesville shows nothing no the disparagement of the men, as Lieutenant Pleyer says they would have fought if called upon by him to do so. Some of them have said they would not fight Confederate soldiers, and when called upon for an explanation, have said they did not mean they would not fight the forces now in North Missouri, but that they were not enlisted to go down and meet the Confederate army, and therefore did not feel inclined to go if called upon. I have, at various times, anticipated an attack from Poole, Thrailkill, and Thornton and have ordered the men to the trenches for that purpose, and I have never yet known them to shrink from their duty. They declare their determination to stand by me to the last extreme, and I shall not desert them when slanderously assailed, though I may not be able to redress the insults offered them in such a manner as they justly merit. Within the past few days they have been bitterly assailed as bushwhackers, shots have been fired at their camp from Federal muskets, their extermination threatened, their honor impeached, and their oaths assailed. Some of their officers have basely deserted them, and given statements to their discredit.

In the face of all these demoralizing circumstances, and the fact that the country, is passing through a period of gloom hardly known here before, these men are still at their posts declaring their willingness to obey any order I may give them, and to fire upon any enemy I may direct. In the organization of these forces and inaugurating the line of policy I have pursued with reference to them, I have been guided by the sentiments and opinions enunciated by you in your speech at Keytesville in the conversation I had with you there and at Saint Joseph, and in the communication I have had the honor to receive from you at various times. The sentiments and opinions have always accorded with my own and I shall carry them forward while I hold a commission or a command. The citizens of my country went into these organizations in good faith, believing that General Rosecrans meant exactly what he said, that you meant exactly what you said, and I have yet seen no evidence of bad faith on either side. My loyalty has been