increasing every hour. From reliable rebel sources we learn their plan was to destroy trains and bridges on the railroad thereby drawing our forces in that direction, then scatter, take Columbia, Fayette, Glasgow, and Rocheport, plunder and burn them, cross the river between Boonville and Rocheport. I am organizing citizens for defense as rapidly and thoroughly as possible.

CLINTON B. FISK.

Brigadier-General.

Major-General ROSECRANS.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF NORTH MISSOURI,
Macon, December 8, 1864.

COLONEL: I have the honor to report that on the 30th day of September last, being then at Glasgow, Howard County, I received a telegram from the major-general commanding, directing me to move to Jefferson City with all possible dispatch. The troops of my command were at that date scattered through the counties lying between the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad and the Missouri River, fighting the hordes of fiendish guerrillas who, under Anderson, Todd, Thrailkill, Perkins and Holtzclaw, were making a pathway of blood across the district plundering and burning the property of Union citizens, and destroying railway trains, depot buildings, and bridges. Seventy commissioned officers from Price's army had already been sent into North Missouri to gather up the recruits that had been enlisted in the rebel service during the summer. Colonel Peery, of Carroll County, chief of the rebel recruiting party, was killed by Colonel Shanklin, Thirtieth Enrolled Missouri Militia, on the 28th of September; three of his officers shared his fate. Official papers taken a from their dead bodies indicated their mission. Immediately upon receiving orders to move to Jefferson City I dispatched messengers to the several detachments of my available troops, ordering them to proceed direct to Jefferson City without delay. Detachments of the Third and Ninth Cavalry Missouri State Militia, Seventeenth Illinois Cavalry Volunteers, First Iowa Cavalry Volunteers, Thirty-ninth, Forty-third, and Forty-ninth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and one section of Company C (small howitzers), Second Missouri Artillery, were thus ordered. Telegraph lines being destroyed sand mail lines almost altogether interrupted, orders were dispatched by messengers who in many instances of October 3, with 200 men of my command. During the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th other detachments of my troops arrived, aggregating, 1,800, of whom 1,000 were composed of companies of unorganized infantry regiments who had never been drilled an hour. I found on my arrival at Jefferson City that Brigadier-General Brown occupied the city and held the country to the Osage River his force all told being 3,000 one-half of whom were unorganized infantry volunteers, Enrolled Missouri Militia, and citizen guards. I did not assume immediate command on arrival at Jefferson City, as telegrams from the major-general commanding indicated that himself or other officers ranking myself would speedily arrive. I therefore directed my troops to report to General Brown for orders and devoted my personal attention to the concentration of troops from my district of Jefferson City, and pushing them to the work in the trenches or to the front as rapidly as possible.