SAINT LOUIS, MO., December 9, 1864.

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Chief of Staff:

To comply with your dispatch I shall have to send two regiments of cavalry and shall need 800 horses to remount them on their arrival here from the West. Please send order.

G. M. DODGE,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, December 9, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

Asst. Adjt. General, Mil. Div. of West Miss., New Orleans, La.:

COLONEL: I have the honor to inform you that in compliance with General Orders, Numbers 294, War Department, I assumed command of the Department of the Missouri this day.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. M. DODGE,

Major-General, Commanding.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI, Numbers 221.
Saint Louis, Mo., December 9, 1864.

I. In compliance with General Orders, Numbers 294, War Department, current series, I relinquish the command of this department.

II. In thus severing my connection with the troops of this command, I heartily thank the district commanders, and the officers and soldiers serving under them, for their energetic and cordial co-operation in all my efforts to increase and render effective our inadequate means for the protection of the lives and property of the people. In the duties of a campaign most harassing, and requiring the highest degree of self-sacrifice, vigilance, energy, and courage, they have nobly responded, and their efforts have at last been crowned with substantial and glorious results, both for the State and nation.

III. The civil duties of my administration have brought me into relations with the loyal people off the State, to whom, in taking leave, I express sympathy with their great suffering in the cause of the nation, and respect for the sacrifices they have made for the preservation of law and order at home, whole sending to the field sixty-odd regiments of as heroic troops as any who have stood or fallen for freedom and the Union.

If I have not been able to do for them all I desired, in securing them from invasion by a combined campaign against the enemy west of the Mississippi, nor, failing in this, to retain the necessary troops at home to put an end to three years of most barbarous guerrilla warfare, I trust that in what I have done to raise troops, organize citizen guards, establish system in the administration of martial law, defeat secret conspiracies against the State and nation, secure outside help, organize and direct our own forces, save our main depots and most of the State from the hands of a formidable politico, plundering, and recruiting invasion and bring that invasion to nought, while it have triumph to the loyal people in the late elections, I have done them and the nation some good. And in parting they have my best wishes, hopes, and congratulations