HOLDEN, August 17, 1864.

Captain J. H. STEGER,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

The mail coming east was robbed about dinner time to-day by fifteen bushwhackers about one mile this side of Big Creek.

ELLSWORTH,

Operator.

P. S.-CAPTAIN: The line is down west of Holden to-day. It was cut about where this robbery occurred day before yesterday, and sixty yards wire taken, and repaired yesterday; probably cut at the same place to-day. Cannot get Pleasant Hill or offices west.

WARRENSBURG, August 17, 1864.

Captain M. U. FOSTER,

Commanding, Holden:

Send scouts after the gang that robbed the stage, and establish a patrol on the road from Holden to Pleasant Hill, to be continued until further orders. Acknowledge receipt.

By order, &c.:

J. H. STEGER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HOLDEN, MO., August 17, 1864.

Captain J. H. STEGER,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

I have just started Lieutenant Pharis with scout of thirty men after guerrillas that robbed stage to-day.

W. P. BAKER,

Captain, Commanding.

MACON CITY, MO., August 17, 1864.

Major-General ROSECRANS:

I visited Allen, Sturgeon, Mexico, and Warrenton yesterday. Colonel Dyer's regiment has a fine beginning, and will reach an easy organization. I shall muster and mount them as rapidly as possible and put them after the whackers, who are daily increasing in numbers, boldness, and villainy in this section. All the troops we have are constantly on the move. Anderson is moving to the eastward from Chariton County. Perkins is concentrating his gangs in Boone and Monroe, and it looks very much like a concentration of an evil equal to that recently adopted in Platte and Clay. The young men of Monroe, Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Randolph, and Howard Counties are very generally taking the brush. Many who have just returned home under the amnesty oath, and several who have but a few days been released from Alton and Gratiot street on oath and bond, have again been allowed by the Southern cause, and made to believe now is the accepted time for deliverance from Yankee rule. I will do all I can with the means in my hands to resist them. Captain Forbes will recruit and