SAINT LOUIS, December 11, 1864.

Brigadier-General FISK:

You can retain the Seventeenth Illinois Cavalry for the present, and I will have Governor order out such companies as you select. Use all possible dispatch in moving the Thirty-ninth. Time is everything now.

G. M. DODGE,

Major-General.

COLUMBIA, Mo., December 11, 1864.

Brigadier General CLINTON B. FISK,

Commanding District of North Missouri:

SIR: Believing, as we do, that it is your desire to do all within your power to promote the peace and well-being of your district, and to maintain the authority of the Government and its administration within the same, we take the liberty of addressing you in regard to what we conceive to be the wants of our county. We have at present stationed here Captain Colbert's company, Forty-ninth Regiment Missouri Infantry Volunteers. We have no doubt they are a very good company of men, but they do not meet the wants of this county; in fact, can be of men, but they do not meet the wants of this county; in fact, can be of little or no service here. What we want is a good company of cavalry, composed of good men and good officers, who know the country and the people, and who know the haunts of the bushwhackers and the persons who sympathize with them. We have now in Boone County twenty or thirty thieves and marauders who must move around through the county, from three to six together, robbing every loyal man who has anything they want. To kill or drive these rebel scoundrels from the county we must have men who know the country, and we must have cavalry. In the first place one of us, J. T. Redmond, is deputy provost-marshal, appointed by Colonel Lovelace to arrest and send for failed to report. It will be impossible for him to discharge his duties unless he has some mounted men to accompany him as escort and guard. In the second place, the other one of your petitioners, John F. Baker, is sheriff of the county, and unless there can be a cavalry company stationed here it will be impossible for him to arrest criminals in the county or to bring wrong-doers to justice.

Having been unconditional Union men from the start, we know that neither of us could with safety go into any remote part of the county without a proper escort. There are two companies in your command that were raised in this county, Companies B and F, of the Ninth Cavalry Missouri State Militia. They are composed of men who know the people and the brush. We are informed by members of Company B that about half off that company are now paroled prisoners at Benton Barracks and that Captain Adams is on extra duty. If this is so, we, of course, would not ask for that company. We understand that Company F is altogether at Macon City; we therefore most respectfully ask that Company F, Ninth Cavalry Missouri State Militia, be sent to this place at once. We understand they have not all got horses. That need make no difference, as they have friends here who will supply them temporarily until the Government can furnish them. If you will send Company F here we promise you that it won't be twenty days until there won't be a rebel thief, or a rebel that harbors them, left on the soil of old Boone County. We know very well that there are some conservative chaps about here who don't want a cavalry company sent