taken by the First Division of the Army of the Border in the recent campaign against the rebel army under command of General Sterling Price:

On my arrival at Fort Leavenworth from the District of Upper Arkansas, on the 9th of October, I was directed to proceed to Olathe and report from that place by telegraph for orders. Arriving there on the morning of the 10th, I was assigned, by orders from department headquarters, to the command of the District of South Kansas, to relieve Major-General Sykes, and immediately assumed command by telegraph, with headquarters at Paola and in the field, and proceeded at once to put the small force in my district in condition for active service. At 1 a. m. of the 13th I received a telegram from the commanding general to move with all my mounted force and artillery to Hickman Mills, Mo. At daylight I marched with all the force immediately at hand, consisting of the Eleventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, detachments of the Fifth and Sixteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, First Colorado Battery, and a portion of the Fifth and Tenth Regiments of Kansas State Militia (mounted), and arrived at Hickman Mills at 11 a. m of the 14th. On the following day (the 15th of October) the Fifteenth Kansas, battalion of Third Wisconsin Cavalry, detachment of Fourteenth Kansas, Sixth Regiment Kansas State Militia, and right section of Second Kansas Battery, under the command of Colonels Jennison and Blair, who had been directed to join me by forced marches, reported to me in camp at Hickman Mills. The force was then organized as follows: First Brigade, commanded by Colonel C. R. Jennison, Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, consisting of the Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, battalion third Wisconsin Cavalry, and four 12-pounder mountain howitzers; Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel Thomas Moonlight, Eleventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, to consist of the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry, detachments of the Fifth and Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry, and four 12-pounder mountain howitzers; the Third Brigade, commanded by Colonel C. W. Blair, Fourteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, comprising the Fifth, Sixth, and Tenth Regiments Kansas State Militia, First Colorado Battery, and right section of Second Kansas Battery, and detachment of Fourteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, Brigadier-General Fishback to have the immediate command of the State Militia, reporting to Colonel Blair. Early on the morning of the 16th General Fishback, of the militia, and Colonel J. D. Snoddy, of the Sixth Regiment State Militia, refused to recognize my authority to command the militia force and ordered them to return to Kansas. The matter was promptly disposed of by placing General Fishback and Colonel Snoddy in close arrest for disobedience of orders and mutinous conduct in the face of the enemy. The Sixth Regiment was directed to choose another colonel, which resulted in the selection of the veteran soldier, Colonel James Montgomery, under whose leadership the regiment did gallant service, and no further conflict of authority occurred between myself and the militia during the remainder of the campaign, and in this connection I desire to do justice to the militia here referred to, the Fifth, Sixth, and Tenth Regiments, by stating the fact that none others, except the two officers alluded to as placed in arrest, either officers or soldiers, evinced any other disposition than to do their whole duty and move against the enemy in Missouri or elsewhere that he could be found. Nor could I attach so much criminality to the acts of Brigadier-General Fishback and Colonel Snoddy, especially of the former, and inflict upon them the summary punishment prescribed by the rules of war, viz, death, as would have been the case had