HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE BORDER,
Kansas City, Mo., September 11, 1863.

Colonel WILLIAM WEER,

Tenth Kansas Volunteers, Pleasant Hill, Mo.:

COLONEL: Inclosed is a dispatch from General Brown. I have advices from Lexington that the bushwhackers are not on Sni, and also from Independence to the same effect. I think you are going in the wrong direction to find them, and had better have gone more southward and toward Grand River. The troops are all now huddled in the upper part of the district. I wish you to send the troops which were taken from Cold Water and Trading Post south toward Grand River, so as to cover that part of the line, which is now badly uncovered. I think your force will be more effective for being reduced somewhat, anyhow. I want to see you as soon as you can come in, to arrange disposition of troops along and near the border. I fear a strike in southern part of the district, say Ossawatomie. That stillness is like that which preceded the Lawrence raid.

The whisky will go out as soon as opportunity offers. I do not know when the escort is to be got exactly. About all the troops are in the neck of woods you have gone to.

Very truly, yours,

THOMAS EWING, JR.,

Brigadier-General.

P. S.-I have pretty authentic information the Quantrill is collecting his forces down on Big Creek, near its mouth, with the purpose of invading Kansas and then going south. You will, therefore, send at least one-half your force down toward Trading Post, and have a thorough patrol kept up south of the Osage to Little Osage. Some one should be on the border in command. The rations go out to-day. Major Plumb has gone to Chapel Hill with one company of the Eleventh Kansas. There have already been there two companies of the Eleventh Missouri.

[Inclosure.]

JEFFERSON CITY, MO.,

September 11, 1863.

Brigadier-General EWING:

Scouting parties report the eastern portion of your district as being still as death. No bushwhackers heard from for several days, nor any parties in any portion of my district. They have mysteriously disappeared.

E. B. BROWN,

Brigadier-General.

KANSAS CITY, MO., September 11, 1863.

Brigadier-General BROWN,

District of Central Missouri, Jefferson City:

Quantrill's forces are nearly all out of this district, and I suppose they are assembling in Saline or Pettis. Please keep me advised as to reports from your scouting parties there.

THOMAS EWING, JR.,

Brigadier-General.