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

Page 624 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LIII.

regiment to be organized at Springfield will be for the six-months' service, and will be designated and numbered as the Forty-sixth Regiment Missouri Volunteer Infantry. All citizens and men in this district are authorized to recruit for this regiment, and all recruits for this regiment will be sent forward to Springfield at least once a week. An adjutant and quartermaster will be at once recommended and mustered, who will make the reports and supply all clothing and camp and garrison equipage to the recruits. Men who recruit a sufficient number of men to entitle them to a commission, and who possess the qualifications for officers specified in paragraph 6, General Orders, Numbers 134, department headquarters, current series, and only such, will be recommended for commissions. The Government again in its hour of trial calls upon a people most loyal and brave to come to its support and rescue. The ready response of the gallant men of Southwest Missouri to all calls of the Government for aid heretofore is an earnest pledge of a most prompt response to the call now made. With pride, and as the richest legacy for your descendants, let the future historian have it to record that as the great war of the rebellion drew near to a close, and the whole country was called upon again to furnish troops for the support of that Government that secures equal rights and universal protection to all, the people of Southwest Missouri, after having sustained untold losses and endured every privation incident to the presence of large contending armies, and furnished more men than were even required by the Government, came forward with all the troops asked for more promptly and with more alacrity than any other portion of the loyal patriotic States.

By order of Brigadier General John B. Sanborn:

W. D. HUBBARD,

First Lieutenant and Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

MACON CITY, August 9, 1864.

Brigadier General C. B. FISK,

Commanding District of North Missouri, Saint Joseph, Mo.:

GENERAL: I came to this place on train last night and will return to my post to-day. My object in coming here was to learn the whereabouts and condition of Colonel Caldwell's forces. I find part of his command here, and they are preparing to go to Mexico to-day. Several days since I wrote you a letter, in which I submitted a proposition making some changes in the destination of Colonel Caldwell's forces, but receiving no answer from you, and finding only a part of Colonel Caldwll's forces here (not enough to accomplish the object I had in view), I have concluded to let the matter rest as originally intended. Whether we will be able to drive the rebels out of the river counties with our present forces is a question yet to be decided. At this time they have complete possession of several of them. Since the change of my headquarters of Mexico I have had but twenty men at my headquarters, have been on duty as a common soldier every night, and dare not, even in open daylight, to go to the outer limits of the town. There were five companies of rebels near Middle Grove on last Sunday. Immediately on learning the facts I ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Caldwell to send all his available force from Macon down the railroad, disembarking them at Allen or Renick; but he could not get transportation, and I had to let them go. Last night the freight train was fired on near Renick, but fortunately none on board were hurt. Colonel


Page 624 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LIII.