the cartridge-box. During daytime the men must remain in camp. Your personal attention is demanded to this order, and you will cause your officers to be unusually vigilant in carrying out preparations for instant service. Everything must be in readiness. Instruct your camp sentinels to be watchful, and to reprot to you any unusual occurrence without delay. Should the report be important you will report to these headquarters without delay the subject-matter of the sentinel's observations. The colonel commanding has good reasons for requiring this extra vigilance and requires secrecy on the part of commanding officers in relation to it.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JNO. S. SEATON,

Lieutenant and Acting Aide-de-Camp.

(Copy sent to Lieutenant-Colonel Stephens, Eleventh Missouri Cavalry; Colonel Baxter, Fourth Arkansas Mounted Infantry; Lieutenant von Bodungen, Company D, Second Missouri Artillery; Captain Weatherwax, Company G, First Nebraska Cavalry.)

HDQRS. DISTRICT OF NORTHEASTERN ARKANSAS, Batesville, Ark., March 3, 1864.

Lieutenant Colonel JOHN W. STEPHENS,

Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Volunteers, Batesville, Ark.:

COLONEL: You will send 100 men of your command, properly officered, armed, equipped, and furnished with five days' rations, toward Pocahontas, on Black River. The force will be divided into two detachments of 50 men each, one to move east toward Elgin and thence up west side of Black River to Smithville, there to await the arrival of the other detachment, which will move via Hookram toward Smithville and join the first detachment. After making a junction the senior officer will assume command of the whole and move toward Pocahontas, returning by way of Wild Haws. You will instruct the officers in charge of the detachments to obtain all the information of the enemy's strength and position they can; to gather all the beef-cattle they can find without causing suffering to the inhabitants. They will bring in all the large, serviceable horses they can procure, always selecting those belonging to known disloyalists, and give receipts for everything they take, ordering the persons from whom the property is taken to report to the chief quartermaster or chief commissary of this district for settlement. Correct journals of the march and of all property taken will be kept by these officers, and returns made immediately after their arrival here. Every effort will be made by this force to destroy guerrillas and capture as many of the enemy as possible. You are strictly charged not to permit your men to bring in any horses but good, sound, serviceable horses, unless they are those captured from the enemy, which last will be turned over to the provost-marshal of this district immediately on the arrival of the detachment at this place. You will instruct your officers and men to be courteous and kind toward the defenseless inhabitants of the country, and to afford any help or assistance in their power to the loyal portion of the citizens among whom they pass. Caution your officers not to trust their memories, but to make prompt entries in their respective journals of all matters of interest,