I now know that they were the instruments selected by the Executive of Kansas and others, their superiors in the militia organization, to carry out their mischievous and disgraceful designs.

At 4 p. m. of the 16th I was ordered to move with all my mounted men of the volunteer force to Pleasant Hill. I marched at 7 o'clock the same evening with the First and Second Brigades, comprising a total of about 2,000 men, and eight 12-pounder mountain howitzers, arriving at Pleasant Hill at 1 a. m. of the 17th, halted until daylight, and then moved east on the Warrensburg road. After marching about ten miles met a squad of Missouri militia and Union citizens, of Warrensburg, who reported to me that on the 15th the rebel General Shelby had captured the town and garrison at Sedalia, and that his advance was moving into Warrensburg when they evacuated the place. I directed the militia to turn back, and the command proceeded to Holden, arriving there at 11 a. m. Halting at this point I sent Major Foster, of the Seventh Enrolled Missouri Militia, with a party of scouts and telegraph operator, to Warrensburg to make a reconnaissance. At 5 o'clock that evening Major Foster reported to me by telegraph that no enemy had been in Warrensburg, but that after the capture of Sedalia General Shelby's force had rejoined Price's main command near the Missouri River below Waverly. Upon learning, from what I considered reliable authority, that Brigadier-General Sanborn, in command of the cavalry of General Rosecrans' department, was at or near Dunksburg, and that General A. J. Smith's divisions of infantry and artillery were within supporting distance, I sent couriers to General Sanborn with dispatches notifying him of my position and movements, and urging upon him the propriety of uniting our forces and promptly commencing an offensive movement against Price. With the view to carrying out this plan I telegraphed to the commanding general, requesting him to send forward to my support, on the Independence and Lexington road, the brigade of Colonel Blair and the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry and Second Colorado Cavalry, and at 7 p. m. marched for Lexington, at which place my advance, under Colonel Moonlight, arrived at 10 a. m. of the 18th. The place had been evacuated by the Federal forces for several days, and was occupied by no force of the enemy, except a small party of guerrillas, several of whom were killed and captured by my advance.

Upon occupying Lexington I obtained reliable information that the advance of Price's army, under Shelby, was at Waverly; that Price was calling in all detachments sent out for recruiting and other purposes and was concentrating his forces to meet an expected attack from the forces of General Rosecrans. On the 19th, at 11 a. m., while I was momentarily expecting the arrival of re-enforcements I had requested to be sent to join me at Lexington, and also to receive an answer to my dispatch to General Sanborn, a courier arrived with dispatches from the general commanding informing me that in consequence of the embarrassments thrown in his way by the Governor of Kansas and others relative to moving the militia out of the State, no re-enforcements could be sent to me. At the same time it was reported to me that my pickets were attacked and were being driven in by the enemy, who were advancing in force in three columns. The pickets were re-enforced and instructed to resist the enemy's advance, while the command was immediately put in position in line of battle southeast of the city, facing a section of open and undulating country, with cultivated fields extending from one to two miles in our front, with the Independence road in our rear, upon which I designed to fall back whenever it became necessary. As the enemy moved steadily up and