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164 Series I Volume XLI-III Serial 85 - Price's Missouri Expedition Part III

Page 164 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LIII.

sent several scouts on all the roads leading in that direction. My force is too small to send out large scouting parties and do my foraging and picketing.

W. F. GEIGER,

Colonel, Commanding.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

September 12, 1864-11.20 a.m.

Lieutenant-General GRANT:

The following telegram* has been received from General Rosecrans. You will please answer it and give to General Rosecrans such instructions as you think the military exigency requires.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

CITY POINT, VA., September 12, 1864.

Major-General HALLECK,

Chief of Staff:

General Rosecrans' telegram of 11th to Secretary of War in relation to placing A. J. Smith at Cape Girardeau under his (Rosecrans') orders is just received. I think it probable Cape Girardeau is the place where Smith should be to watch the movements of Price and to prepare himself for land travel, but in moving into the interior he should go as light as possible, purchasing supplies from the loyal and taking from the disloyal. Going to that point, he will necessarily be under Rosecrans' orders. You may so instruct him. If Smith is acting now under information which I have not got he need not change his course. If matters have not changed, however, since his last dispatch, direct him to go to Cape Girardeau and report to General Rosecrans. Direct General Rosecrans at the same time that this force is put at his disposal to expel Price's forces from Missouri and Arkansas and to co-operate with other troops sent from Memphis for the same purpose.

U. S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

WASHINGTON, September 12, 1864-11 a.m.

Major-General ROSECRANS,

Saint Louis, Mo.:

General Grant's orders are that General A. J. Smith will operate against Price & Co. as he may deem best, and that you will give him all the assistance in your power. General Washburn must decide for himself in regard to the horses of the Seventh Kansas.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General and Chief of Staff.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, September 12, 1864.

Major General W. S. ROSECRANS,

Commanding Department of the Missouri, Saint Louis, Mo.:

The Secretary of War directs me to say that your dispatch of yesterday has been referred to Lieutenant-General Grant, who will give the

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*See Rosecrans to Stanton, September 11, p. 154.

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Page 164 LOUISIANA AND THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Chapter LIII.