My thanks are earnestly due to all my officers and men for their courage and devotion and their eagerness at all times to meet the enemy.

Hoping this report will prove satisfactory, I am, colonel, very respectfully,

JO. O. SHELBY,

Brigadier-General, Commanding Expedition.

Major L. A. MACLEAN,

Assistant Adjutant-General, Army of Arkansas.

HEADQUARTERS SHELBY'S DIVISION,
December-, 1864.

COLONEL: I have the honor to make the following report, embracing a detailed account of my operations in Missouri during the recent expedition of General Price:

On the 12th of September I moved camp from Sulphur Rock, Ark., toward Pocahontas in anticipation of the arrival of the army, and on the 19th, after having received my instructions, started for Missouri, and encamped in Doniphan. Before arriving there, however, couriers from Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson, of Marmaduke's command, brought information that 100 Federals were in the town and pressing him back. I immediately started forward sufficient re-enforcements, but the enemy fled before reaching them, burning the helpless and ill-fated town. That night I dispatched 150th men under Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson to pursue the vandals. They came upon them early the next morning [20th], attacked, scattered, and killed many of them. I pushed on then rapidly for Patterson, destroying on the way the bloody rendezvous of the notorious Leeper, and on the morning of the 22nd I surrounded and charged in upon the town. Its garrison, hearing of my advance, retreated hastily, but not before many were captured and killed, and some supplies taken. All the Government portion of Patterson was destroyed, together with its strong and ugly fort.

By a long and forced march the next day Fredericktown was reached to prevent, if possible, the removal of the goods there; but the news had outstripped our fastest horses, and nothing was left but the shadow. A scouting party from my command, under Captains Johnson and Shaw, dashed into Farmington, surrounded a strong court-house held by thirty Federals, and captured them, with great quantities of goods.

Remaining three days at Fredericktown, I started early on the morning of the 26th for the Iron Mountain Railroad, the heavy clouds overheard dark and portentous with impending destruction, and encamped five miles from the doomed track, the whistle of the familiar locomotives sounding merrily and shrill on the air as if no enemy were watching and waiting for the coming daylight.

Early in the dim morning Colonel Benjamin Elliott was sent to Irondale to destroy the bridge there, and Colonel B. Frank Gordon to the three bridges over Big River, below, while with the rest of the command I struck the road equidistant between the two points. As my advance came in sight a locomotive thundered by with one car attacked loaded with soldiers fleeing from the wrath to come, which was immediately fired upon. Some slight obstructions had been placed upon the track by the advanced scouts, which delayed the train a few moments, but before any force could possibly have been brought up the locomotive went fleeing on, urged by hands that feared the avengers of blood.