BENTON BARRACKS, Mo., October 1, 1864.

Lieutenant HANNAHS,

Acting Assistant Adjutant-General:

I have in Missouri State Militia and with colored troops 460 aggregate, besides 1,516 in the three Illinois 100-days' regiments now here, Colonel Morrison's depot not included.

B. L. E. BONNEVILLE,

Colonel, Commanding.

MERAMEC BRIDGE, October 1, 1864.

Major-General PLEASONTON:

All the Iron Mountain Railroad is in good condition to the bridge one mile and a half below Victoria. There are good block-houses of nearly all the bridges, some thirteen in number, and ten or fifteen men in each would save them from the small squads that are now about Victoria. As it now is, three or four men can destroy every block house and burn every bridge on the road. There are men enough here, if not needed elsewhere, to garrison all and give at least 100 or 150 for De Soto. If thought advisable to rebuild the Mooney bridge, above Victoria, the rad is then clear for nineteen miles farther. A train with a howitzer from here to Victoria would be valuable. If the road is again garrisoned in a few days the force will be increased by the militia and citizens nearly or quite one-held. The rebel citizens and sympathizers and the milk-and-water men, exempts, &c., now doing nothing, can be used to good advantage in building the additional barracks needed. There are stragglers from Victoria and elsewhere running all through the country that can be picked up.

S. H. MELCHER,

Lieutenant-Colonel Sixth Cavalry Missouri State Militia.

CARONDELET, Mo., October 1, 1864.

Major-General PLEASONTON:

General Miller reports Smith, Eighty-fifth Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia, at this place with 600 men and 100 arms needed. Colonel Stafford eight miles from here at Larney's Ferry, on Rock road, with about 400 men, and reported to need 150 more arms. Colonel Fenn is in. Reported to have 330 armed men at or near Meramec Station, on the Pacific Railroad, some forty miles by way of river from the Meramec bridge, on the Iron Mountain Railroad. There are reported sixty men armed at Meramec bridge, Iron Mountain Railroad, and 450 without arms. I go at once to Smith's camp and probably to Meramec bridge to-night.

S. H. MELCHER,

Lieutenant-Colonel Sixth Cavalry Missouri State Militia.

CARONDELET, Mo., October 1, 1864.

Major-General Pleasonton:

Colonel Smith has less then 500 men; 425 of them can be ready in an hour to go to the Meramec bridge that can return and take them at once. Issue orders for the train to go. I will go with them to the bridge to-night.

S. H. MELCHER,

Lieutenant-Colonel Sixth Cavalry Missouri State Militia.