Maupin to Franklin, to advise the general commanding of my condition and to endeavor to bring some mounted militia from Franklin County to my aid if nothing better could be done, my now total want of serviceable cavalry and cavalry and the exhausted condition of my infantry having made a farther retreat an extremely hazardous undertaking. The citizen got to Rolla, but Lieutenant-Colonel Maupin and Captain Schenck, and Lieutenant Fletcher, who accompanied him, could not accomplish their errand and barely escaped capture. Saturday morning the enemy appeared in increased force, thoroughly reconnoitered our position, and made every disposition for assault, but the forenoon passed in an incessant fire with their skirmishers and constant expectation of an attack in force. I think our thorough readiness and plain purpose to fight it out made him feel we would cost more than our worth. He drew off at 2 p. m. and at 4 Lieutenant-Colonel Beveridge, Seventeenth Illinois Cavalry, with 500 men of his command, came to our rescue from General McNeil at Rolla. Strong cavalry pickets were at once posted on four roads occupied by the enemy north of our encampment, and were pushed out more than a mile. At midnight, leaving a hundred men to occupy Harrison and re-enforce the pickets if necessary, and to destroy the few stores left in the train unissued, I withdrew my command and marched for Rolla. On arriving at Saint James, twelve miles from Rolla, at noon Sunday, the infantry and cavalry, worn out with toil and watching, to General McNeil, to garrison Rolla, whereupon he marched with his cavalry and that of General Sanborn and my battery to the defense of Jefferson City. Tuesday I got an escort of forty men and passing in the rear of the enemy reached Saint Louis with the members of my staff Wednesday night.

Our loss at Pilot Knob was about 200 killed, wounded, and missing, and in the several engagements on the retreat to Rolla about 150. Of the missing the most were cut off in detachments and escaped capture, so that our actual loss was about 150 killed and wounded, and 50 captured and paroled. Among our severely wounded were Lieutenant Smith Thompson, Fourteenth Iowa; Lieutenant John Fessler, First Infantry Missouri State Militia, and Lieutenant John Braden, Fourteenth Iowa Infantry, since dead; Major James Wilson, Third Cavalry, Missouri State Militia, after being wounded was captured on Pilot Knob, and subsequently with six of his gallant men was brutally murdered by order of a rebel field officer of the day. The rebel loss at Pilot Knob, killed and wounded, exceeded 1,500, as is shown by the inclosed letter of T. W. Johnson, surgeon in charge of our hospital there, and also by corroborative testimony gathered since our reoccupation of the post. In the rebel hospital at Ironton, on the 12th instant, we found Colonel Thomas, chief of General Fagan's staff, 3 majors, 7 captains, 12 lieutenants, and 204 enlisted men, representing seventeen regiments and four batteries, all dangerously and nearly all mortally wounded. The rest of the rebel wounded who were not able to follow the army were sent south by General Price, under escort of Colonel Rains' regiment. As to the loss of the enemy in the pursuit and at Harrison I have no knowledge.

to the officers commanding the several detachments, to wit, Colonel Thomas C. Fletcher, Forty-seventh Missouri Infantry; Captain William J. Campbell, Fourteenth Iowa Infantry; Captain William C. F. Montgomery, Second Missouri Artillery; Lieutenant John Fessler, First Infantry Missouri State Militia; Captain Robert L. Lindsay, Fiftieth Missouri Infantry; Captain A. P. Wright, Second Cavalry Missouri State Militia, and also