Today in History:

234 Series I Volume XLI-II Serial 84 - Price's Missouri Expedition Part II

Page 234 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LIII.

&c. I will send some of his men as guides if required. Two citizens guides, M.

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and Perkins, are ordered to report to you, but do not wait for them. Please report this evening at what hour the expedition will probably leave and report to-morrow the time it actually starts. Let them march as early as practicable consistent with a full preparation.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

C. H. DYER,

Assistant Adjutant-General.


HDQRS. 2nd DIV., 7TH ARMY CORPS, AND U. S. FORCES,
Devall's Bluff, Ark., Monday, July 18, 1864.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

President United States:

DEAR SIR: I have been here ten days. My command here consists of about 6,000 men, infantry and cavalry. Shelby is north of here with 3,000 or 4,000 men. He has been conscripting all around, and scouts of his venture down to tear up the railroad track. A few days ago it was reported by a Confederate conscripting agent that Marmaduke was at Gaines' Landing; Price's headquarters at Camden; Fagan, including Cabell, on Arkansas River, about fifteen miles above Arkansas Post; Churchill (with infantry) at Lisbon, ninety miles southwest [of] Camden; Dockery at Hamburg, seventy miles south [of] Fagan, and that engineers were reconnoitering and repairing roads from Camden to Gaines' Landing, Monticello to Pine Bluff, and Monticello to Fagan's command. The railroad track between here and Little Rock is frequently interfered with. From all I learn the rebel and conscripts are in high spirits. There is an unusual enthusiasm among them. I learn on fair authority that the explanation of this unusual feeling is that the rebel leaders have represented that by prolonging the war and successfully resisting the Federal authority a little longer they will defeat your election, help elect McClellan or some such man, and gain better terms of peace.

Your friend,

C. C. ANDREWS,

Brigadier-General.

SAINT LOUIS, July 18, 1864.

Honorable E. M. STANTON:

I regret to say matters in North Missouri are very disturbed and threatening. Union men are fleeing from the river counties and central part of the State. The malcontent spirits, and uprising of bushwhackers, with threats from the conspirators, are ominous of evil. The robbery of four towns, and the hanging of nine Union men in one of them, compelled me to take the First Iowa Cavalry veterans, on their way down to Memphis, to give temporary relief over there. Informing you of these things, I suggest that we will be obliged to have some other troops here, and if nothing better can be done, the state of things would be best met from our own resources, by authority from me to accept the services of, say, 5,000 volunteers for the defense of the State, in companies, to be armed, equipped, and paid by the Government.

W. S. ROSECRANS,

Major-General.


Page 234 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LIII.