OCTOBER 16-17, 1864.-Expedition from Devall's Bluff toward Clarendon, Ark.

Report of Captain Albert B. Kauffman, Eleventh Missouri Cavalry.

CAMP ELEVENTH CAVALRY, MISSOURI VOLUNTEERS,

Devall's Bluff, Ark., October 17, 1864.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of a scout east of Clarendon, Ark.:

In pursuance of instructions from headquarters Second Division, Seventh Army Corps, I left this post with fifty men of the Eleventh Cavalry Missouri Volunteers, and forty-eight men two officers of the Twelfth Michigan Infantry on steamer Celeste at 11 p.m., on the 16th instant, running down to the mouth of Cache River, thence up Cache one mile and a half, where we landed on the east side of the river and disembarked, leaving twelve men of the infantry as guard for the boat. A little way above our landing I found leading from the river the trail of the guerrillas who fired on the boat on White River, the same trail I mentioned as having followed to the Cache in my previous scout west of the Cache. Without unnecessary delay we took up our line of march. Following, the trail brought us to the military road above Clarendon near Squires' farm. Proceeding to Mr. Squires's I pressed him as guide and was by him informed that the guerrillas who fired on the boat belong to Captain Swan's company of Independent Rangers; that they hail principally from about Big Creek and Phillips County, and the eight of his men had been to his house on the 12th, and boasted they had fired on a boat. From Squires' we proceeded on the Helena road about six miles, thence south to Sutton's about four miles, thence toward Clarendon about five miles, thence north some three miles to Squires' farm, and from thence back to the boat two miles. I distributed the orders of the commanding general holding the citizens responsible for the firing on boats in their neighborhood along the route. The information I could gather through the country, Swan has belonging to his command about 100 men composed principally of deserters from the rebel and Federal armies; are well armed and mostly mounted on Government stock stolen from Helena. At a house where on of him men fled from on our approach, we found two carbines (one a Sharps, the other a Union, both in good order), also a Government horse and saddle. Swan lives on Big Creek about four miles from the bay, which is his favorite haunt. In his late scouts in the neighborhood of Clarendon he had between fifty and sixty men. An intelligent negro told me he counted forty-eight men that passed their place moving east on the Helena road. Big Creek is thirty miles from Clarendon. I returned back to the boat the same day (the 16th) and encamped. The next morning, the 17th, I put the infantry on the boat and ordered the boat around to the second right-hand bend on White River above Clarendon. With the cavalry I forded the Cache River just above our camp and proceeded across to White River, distance about one mile and a half and awaited the arrival of the boat. Embarked with the cavalry, and returned to this post. About twelve miles east of Clarendon picked up Private Joseph Brunell, Company G, Seventy-seventh Ohio Infantry, who reports himself as captured by Swan's men near the mouth of White River, also a citizen, J. H. Fleming, deck hand on steamer Tycoon, who reports himself with Brunell. From Mr. Squires I learn that there exists a road from Clarendon to Devalls' Bluff on the east