Today in History:

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

Page 429 Chapter LIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.

FORT LARAMIE, July 27, 1864.

Major-General CURTIS:

Just arrived here. Find Colonel Collins' troops almost all on the different lines of communication. His battalion extends on this line over 500 miles of country. He has also three companies on the Denver line from Julesburg to Fremont's Orchard. The only safety to emigrants, stages, or telegraph lines will be to patrol the whole country from Kearny to South Pass, and to do this I must have more soldiers. The Governor of Nebraska has kindly offered to call out two companies of militia. Depredations are committed daily on the lines of communication. From present appearances you may expect a general Indian outbreak in all this western country.

ROBT. B. MITCHELL,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

CAMP, NEAR SHANGHAI, CARROLL COUNTY,

July 27, 1864.

General C. B. FISK,

Saint Joseph:

About 130 of my men were left by Major Matlack at Turney's Grove; the remainder are here. Major Matlack leaves me here in the morning, when I will be adrift without orders or instructions. I propose to leave here to-morrow morning and move in the direction of the railroad. I will camp to-morrow night at or near Turney's Grove, where I propose to await orders and instructions. Men and horses considerably jaded. Keep us at work while you keep us in the field. My messenger will await your reply.

J. H. SHANKLIN,

Colonel, Commanding Enrolled Missouri Militia.

GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. MIL. DIV. OF WEST MISSISSIPPI, Numbers 29.
New Orleans, La., July 28, 1864.

Upon the representation of the major-general commanding the Department of the Gulf, General Orders, Numbers 17, of the 7th instant, is so far modified as to suspend, with the exceptions hereinafter indicated, the consolidation of the regiments of the Corps d'Afrique until the 31st of August proximo.

I. The Seventy-ninth, Eighty-third, Eighty-eighth, Eighty-ninth, and Ninetieth Regiments, Corps d'Afrique, will immediately be broken up and the enlisted men distributed among the remaining regiments of that organization. The medical officers will be assigned, so far as there may be vacancies of the respective grades, to the retained regiments, and the supernumeraries, if there should be any, will be retained in service until further orders. The other commissioned officers will at once be mustered out of service, but such of them as may desire it will be examined, and if approved will be appointed with their original date to any vacancies that exist or may occur in the retained regiments.

II. Measures will immediately be taken by the commander of the Department of the Gulf, under such regulations as he may establish, to fill up the retained regiments by colored laborers from the plantations in this department.


Page 429 Chapter LIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.