HDQRS. DISTRICT OF SOUTHWEST MISSOURI,
OFFICIAL OF PROVOST-MARSHAL,

Springfield, May 14, 1864.

Colonel O. D. GREENE,

Asst. Adjt. General Hdqrs. Dept. of the Missouri, Saint Louis:

COLONEL: In compliance with the instructions of major-general commanding, of date April 21, 1864, I have the honor respectfully to report the general condition of this district, taking into consideration what it has been most of the time for the past three years is good. In no part of Missouri is life and property more secure nor the daily avocations of the people less interfered with, excepting Mcdonald and a small portion of some of those counties bordering upon Arkansas. There is throughout the district, excepting Jasper and Newton Counties, at least one-fourth more land under cultivation than at this time one yair ago.

Many citizens have returned to their homes from Kansas and deferent portions of Missouri, and are now engaged in cultivating their farms. Very many refugees from Arkansas have also taken up lands abandoned by rebels and are cultivating them. The seed time is nearly over and who have made the effort have succeeded in planting their crops. A very large number of citizens of Barry Stone, Taney, Christian, Lawrence, and Greene Counties have been supplied with seed corn from the quartermaster's department at this post, a necessity arising from the fact that the U. S. forces in many instances have not left the farmers with a supply of corn more than sufficient for food for their families.

There have been no armed bands of insurgents within the district for more than six month, except one, composed of some 30 men, under one West, who were (after killing 1 soldier and 3 citizens) scattered and driven entirely out of the State, many of them being killed. In nearly every county the citizens have been organized into companies of home guards, furnished with arms by the district commander, and are united in their determination to deal out summander, and are united in their determination to deal out summary punished to all guerrillas, bushrangers, murderers, and robbers, and have, by their prompt action in in killing out two or three small parties of guerrillas, intimidated the outlaws to such a degree that they do not now return. McDonald County, being bordered by Arkansas and the Indian country, is still infested by outlaws, and nearly all the loyal people long since abandoned their homes, and but few have returned; a small portion of the county only is under cultivation. The same is true of the immediately border of the whole southern and portions of the western side of the district.

Across the border of Arkansas the first and second tiers of counties are rapidly being depopulated, and bid fair to soon become a wilderness and uninhabited country. Not less than 3,500 refugees have left the counties of Marion and Searcy, in Arkansas,the past week, 3,000 crossing the White River at Forsyth in two days, bringing with them their few movable household goods and a small number of miserably poor cattle, horses, and sheep. In almost every part of the district the law in civil cases can be and is administered, but if is as yet impossible to enforce criminal law. Juries cannot be empaneled who will condemn a criminal, and citizens seem to be under the fear that, if they do, vengeance is sure to overtake them. at the same time they are prompt to hunt down and execute outlaws, guer-

38 R R-VOL XXXIV, PT III