Doc. 179.

OCCUPATION OF FORT SMITH, ARK.
FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS, September 10, 1863.

of the secession mania. The town of Fort Smith once flourished, and was growing rapidly in business and wealth. Its present stagnation in industry, and the dilapidations everywhere visible ONCE more, by the favor of heaven upon the along its streets-the stoppage of the Overland valor of our arms, the Federal authority holds Mail, the destruction of the telegraph, and the sway at Fort Smith, in Arkansas. The brigade utter and total emptiness of its warehouses and of the Army of the Frontier under Colonel Cloud storerooms, are the legitimate products of a senseis in complete possession of this ancient Federal less and fanatic rebellion that has held dominion post. General Blunt, with his body-guard and here ever since the madcaps in convention at several of his daring scouts, was the first to enter Little Rock wrested Arkansas from the benefithe town and barracks, on Tuesday, September cent fraternity of the Federal Union. No Fedfirst. At noon, of the same day, the First in-eral force had ever been here since the withdrawfantry regiment of Arkansian volunteers, under al of Captain Sturgis, until the entrance of the Colonel J. M. Johnson, filed into the streets and Army of the Frontier on the first of the present Government inclosure, to the lively music of the month. No part, therefore, of the destruction regimental band of drums and fifes. It was a of property and business, and destitution and glad hour for the Union citizens and our tired misery of the people, can be charged to the presand dusty braves who had been on the march ence of the Federal army. The rebs had it all their for twenty days, making an average during that own way; and a sorry way it was indeed-calitime of nearly twenty miles per day. We had co per yard, five dollars; a pair of coarse shoes, pursued the rebel hordes under Cooper and forty dollars; a pair of jean pants, thirty dolSteel for several days, and finally yielded the lars; a pair of boots, one hundred dollars; box palm of swift running to the fleeing rebels at of blacking, two dollars and fifty cents; and all Perryville, in the Choctaw nation. Returning other things at the same starvation rates. Such thence, we came upon the trail of the rebel chief- was the reign in Fort Smith of the so-called Contain Cabbal and his crew. Within fighting range federate States of America. of this gang, (said to number two thousand five hundred,) we encamped on the night of the thirty-first ult. The enemy's position was a natural fortress on the left bank of Poteau Creek. Here, only three miles from our camp, we expected an encounter the next morning. His camp being on our direct route to Fort Smith, now only ten miles distant, what else could we expect but fierce resistance? But on we went, General Blunt with a portion of his dauntless cavalry leading the way, and lo! no enemy was there. The report is that Cabbal is always braver when drunk than when sober: perhaps on this occasion he was too drunk even to be brave. He, however, left a few sneaking bushwhackers along the road, who fired on our advancing column, and wounded one of our men.

Within a few miles of our destination, Colonel Cloud, with a part of the cavalry and a few pieces of artillery, turned aside in search of the fleeing foe. An encounter ensued on the rugged hill called the Back Bone, in which Colonel Cloud's advanced guard was ambushed, four of his men killed, and seven or eight wounded, with the loss of half a dozen horses. But his men took quick revenge by slaying and wounding some thirty or more of the enemy, and putting the whole cavalcade to a hastier flight than had ever quickened their speed before.

For two years and a half Fort Smith has been a general headquarters of rebellion and treason. Its garrison under Captain Sturgis had been driven away in the spring of 1861. The citizens of the town and of all the surrounding country had been dragooned into subserviency to the hateful confederacy of traitors, headed in Arkansas by such dastards as Rector, Hindman and Company. Few places, perhaps, within the scope of rebellion exhibit more vividly the desolation VOL. VII.--Doc. 33.

On our arrival here, Colonel Cloud was placed in command of the post. The Colonel, however, is restive under confinement. He evidently prefers to be on an adventurous dash at the head of his brave Kansians, (Second Kansas cavalry.) He is now out on an important scout.

Colonel J. M. Johnson, of the First Arkansas infantry, is Commander of the post, and his Lieutenant-Colonel, E. J. Searl, is Provost-Marshal. Matters are progressing finely. Hundreds of people have already come in and sworn allegiance to the Government of the United States. Large numbers have volunteered to enter our army. Of these volunteers the First Arkansas infantry regiment is receiving large accessions, because, doubtless, Arkansians prefer to join with the citizens of their own State. THRIFTON.

Doc. 180.

PURSUIT OF THE GUERRILLAS.

GENERAL EWING'S REPORT.*

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE BORDER,
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, Aug. 31, 1863. (

Lieutenant-Colonel C. W. March, A. A. G., De-
partment of the Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri:

SIR: Some commanders of detachments engaged in the pursuit of Quantrell are still out after his scattered forces. In advance of their return, I submit a report of the raid, which in some respects may be deficient, for want of official information from them.

Three or four times this summer the guerrillas have assembled to the number of several hundred, within twenty or thirty miles of the Kansas border. They have threatened alternately *See Doc. 162, page 495, ante.

Lexington, Independence, Warrensburgh, and ed at the station, and merely sent information of Harrisonville; and frequent reports have reached Quantrell's movements to my headquarters and me from scouts and spies that they meant to Captain Coleman, commanding two companies at sack and destroy Shawnee, Olathe, Paola, Mound Little Santa Fé, twelve miles north of the line. City, and other towns in Kansas near the east- Captain Coleman, with near one hundred men, ern border. I placed garrisons in all these Kan- marched at once to Aubrey, and the available sas towns, and issued arms and rations to volun- force of the two stations, numbering about two teer militia companies there. From trustworthy hundred men, set out at midnight in pursuit. sources I learned, toward the last of July, that But Quantrell's path was over the open prairie, they were threatening a raid on Lawrence; and and difficult to follow at night, so that our forces soon after they commenced assembling on the gained but little on him. By Captain Pike's Sinabar, in the western part of Lafayette county. error of judgment in failing to follow promptly I at once ordered a company of infantry, which and closely, the surest means of arresting the was then coming down from Fort Ripley, to stop terrible blow was thrown away-for Quantrell at Lawrence, which they did for more than a never would have gone as far as Lawrence, or week, and until after the guerrilla force had been attacked it, with a hundred men close on his dispersed by a force I sent against them. rear. From this time, though constantly receiving information as to their movements and plans, I could learn nothing of a purpose to make a raid into Kansas. Their forces were again scattered in small predatory bands, and I had all available forces in like manner scattered throughout the Missouri portion of this district, and especially the border counties, besetting their haunts and paths.

Quantrell's whole force was about three hundred men, composed of selected bands from this part of Missouri. About two hundred and fifty were assembled on Blackwater, near the eastern border of this district, at least fifty miles from the Kansas line, on the seventeenth and eighteenth. I am informed by Major Ross, M. S. M., who has been scouting in the south-west part of Saline county, that the rendezvous was there. Lieutenant-Colonel Lazear, commanding two companies of the First Missouri, at Warrensburgh, heard on the morning of the twentieth that this force had passed the day before twelve miles north of him, going west, and moved promptly after them, sending orders to Major Mullins, commanding two companies of the same regiment at Pleasant Hill, to move on them from that point. On the night of the nineteenth, however, Quantrell passed through Chapel Hill to the head of the middle fork of Grand River, eight miles north-west of Harrisonville, and fifteen miles south-east of Aubrey, the nearest station in Kansas. There he was joined on the morning of the twentieth by about fifty men from Grand River and the Osage, and at noon set out for Kansas, passing five miles south of Aubrey at Six P.M., going west. Aubrey is thirty-five miles south of Kansas City, and about forty-five miles south-east of Lawrence. Kansas City is somewhat further from Lawrence.

The first despatch of Captain Pike reached here, thirty-five miles north of Aubrey, at halfpast eleven P.M., the second an hour later. Before one o'clock, Major Plumb, my Chief of Staff. at the head of about fifty men, (which was all that could be got here and at Westport,) started southward, and at daylight heard, at Olathe, twenty-five miles from here, that the enemy had passed at midnight through Gardner, eighteen miles from Lawrence, going toward that town. Pushing on, Major Plumb overtook Captains Coleman and Pike, six miles south-east of Lawrence, at half-past ten o'clock, Friday, the twenty-first instant, and by the light of the blazing farm-houses saw that the enemy had got six miles south of Lawrence, on their way out of the State. The enemy were overtaken near Palmyra by Major Plumb's command, to which were there added from fifty to one hundred citizens, who had been hastily assembled, and led in pursuit by General Lane.

By this time the horses of our detachments were almost exhausted. Nearly all were young horses, just issued to the companies, and had marched more than sixty-five miles without rest and without food from the morning of the twentieth. Quantrell had his men mounted on the best horses of the border, and had collected fresh ones going to and at Lawrence, almost enough to remount his command. He skilfully kept over a hundred of his best-mounted and best-trained men in the rear, and often formed line of battle to delay pursuit, and give time and rest to the most wearied of his forces. By the time our scattered soldiers and citizens could get up and form line, the guerrillas' rear-guard would, after a volley, break into column, and move off at a speed which defied pursuit. Thus the chase dragged through the afternoon, over the prairie, generally following no roads or paths, until eight, when Quantrell's rear-guard formed line of battle three miles north of Paola, and twenty miles from where they entered the State. A skirmish ensued, the guerrillas breaking and scattering, so that our forces in the darkness lost the trail, and went into Paola for food and rest, while search was being made for it.

Captain Pike, commanding two companies at Aubrey, received information of the presence of Quantrell on Grand River at half-past five o'clock P.M., of the twentieth. He promptly forwarded the information up and down the line, and to my headquarters; and called in his scouting parties to march upon them. One hour and a half later, he received information that Quantrell had just passed into Kansas. Unhappily, however, in- Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, Ninth Kansas volunstead of setting out at once in pursuit, he remain-teers, with headquarters at Coldwater Grove,

pushed south-east from Lanesfield, and struck Quantrell's trail about sunrise, five miles north of Paola, and but a little behind the commands of Coleman and Clark.

Major Thacher, commanding at Westport, when news arrived that Quantrell was returning by way of the Osage Valley, took the rest of the mounted troops on the upper border, (company A, Ninth, and E, Eleventh Kansas, numbering one hundred and twenty men,) and moved down the line. He struck Quantrell's trail below Aubrey, immediately in the rear of LieutenantColonel Clark's command.

was in command of the troops on the border ington, Kansas. The command of Major Philsouth of Little Santa Fé, including the stations lips, thus increased to one hundred and thirty, at Aubrey, Coldwater Grove, (thirteen miles south of Aubrey,) Rockville, (thirteen miles south of Coldwater Grove,) Choteau's Trading Post, (fifteen miles south of Rockville,) and Harrisonville. There were two companies at each station, but the force out patrolling rarely left fifty men in camp at each post. He received Captain Pike's message as to the gathering of Quantrell's forces on Grand River on the night of the twentieth, and at once sent for the spare troops at Rockville and Trading Post to march up to Coldwater Grove. At three o'clock on the morning of the twenty-first, he received a despatch from Captain Coleman, at Aubrey, saying that Quan- Quantrell, when after dark he had baffled his trell had crossed into Kansas; and he set out pursuers, stopped to rest five miles north-east of with thirty men, following Quantrell's trail nearly Paoli, and there, after midnight, a squad of Linn to Gardner, and thence going south to Paola, county militia, under Captain Pardee, alarmed reaching there at five P.M. With this command, the camp. He at once moved on, and between and a force of perhaps fifty citizens, and a part that point and the Kansas line his column came of Captain Beuter's company of the Thirteenth within gunshot of the advance of about one hunKansas infantry, which had been garrisoning dred and fifty of the Fourth M. S. M., under Paola, he prepared to attack Quantrell at the Lieutenant-Colonel King, which had been ordered ford of Bull Creek, three miles south of Paola, from the country of the Little Blue, in Jackson toward which he was then retreating. But county, down the line to interrupt him. The Quantrell, on coming within four or five miles advance apprised Lieutenant-Colonel King of the of that crossing, soon after dark, formed line of approach of another force. Skirmishers were battle, as I stated above, broke trail, turned sharp thrown out, but Quantrell, aided by the darkto the north, and dodged and bewildered the ness and the broken character of the prairie, force in waiting for him, as well as that in pur- eluded the force and passed on. Lieutenantsuit. These troops at the ford returned to Paola Colonel King was unable to find his trail that about the time the command which had followed night. Quantrell reached there. One of the parties in search of the trail found it five miles north of Paola, and reported the fact to Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, who was then ranking officer there, at between one and two o'clock. He was slow in ordering pursuit, which was not renewed until daybreak. He at that time sent Captain Coleman forward, with thirty men of the Ninth Kansas, which he himself had brought to Paola, and forty of the same regiment, which had got there from the Trading Post at about two o'clock that morning, and about seventy militia, chiefly of Linn county. He marched soon after himself with the troops which had followed Quantrell the day before.

The pursuing forces thus thrown behind, Quantrell passed out of Kansas and got to the timber of the middle fork of Grand River in Missouri, near his last rendezvous, before starting, about noon of the twenty-second, an hour in advance of the head of the pursuing column. There his force scattered. Many dismounted, or, worn out through. fatigue or wounds, sought concealment and safety in the fastnesses of that region. About one hundred moved down Grand River, while the chief part of the force passed north-east toward Chapel Hill. Our forces divided in like manner at that point, Major Plumb and Major Thacher following the main body.

On the twentieth of August I went to Leavenworth on official business. The despatches of Captain Pike were not sent to Leavenworth until eight A.M. on the morning of the twentyfirst, because the telegraph offices at Leavenworth City and Fort Leavenworth close at eleven P.M. for want of relief of operators. I received those despatches and the one announcing that Quantrell had passed through Gardner going toward Lawrence, not until quarter to eleven A.M. on the twenty-first. There was no cavalry stationed at Fort Leavenworth, though five companies of the Eleventh Ohio were outfitting for Fort Laramie, but without arms.

Half an hour before Major Plumb started from Kansas City on the night of the twentyfirst, Captain Palmer, eleventh Kansas, was sent by him from Westport, with fifty men of his company, down the line to near Aubrey, where he met a messenger from Captain Coleman, directing reënforcements to Spring Hill, at which point he struck Quantrell's trail and followed it to within seven miles of Lawrence. Thence learning that Quantrell had gone south, he turned south-east; and at Lanesfield (Uniontown) was joined by a force about eighty strong, under Major Phillips, composed of detachments of Captain Smith's Company, E. M. M., Captain There was one company at Leavenworth City Killen's Ninth Kansas, and a squad of the Fifth just receiving horse equipments. Arms and Kansas. This latter force had been collected by horse equipments were issued at once, and at one Major Thacher at Westport, and despatched from P.M. I started from Fort Leavenworth with near there at noon on Friday the twenty-first, via Lex-three hundred men of these companies. News

reached me at Leavenworth City of the burning of Lawrence, and of the avowed purpose of the rebels to go thence to Topeka. I thought it best to go to De Soto, and thence, after an unavoidable delay of five hours in crossing the Kansas River, to Lanesfield. Finding there, at daybreak, that Quantrell had passed east, I left the command to follow as rapidly as possible, and pushed on, reaching, soon after dark, the point on Grand River where Quantrell's force had scattered. Lieutenant-Colonel Lazear, with the detachments of the First Missouri, from Warrensburgh and Pleasant Hill, numbering about two hundred men, after failing to find Quantrell on Blackwater on the twenty-second, encountered him at noon on the twenty-third, on Big Creek, broke up his force, and has since had five very successful engagements with different parties of his band.

That officer, not knowing in what direction the guerrillas were moving, sent a messenger out on the Santa Fé road, who, when nearly at Gardner, hearing that Quantrell had just passed through there, returned to Olathe.

With one exception, citizens along the route who could well have given the alarm, did not even attempt it. One man excused himself for his neglect on the plea that his horses had been working hard the day before. A boy living ten or twelve miles from Lawrence begged his father to let him mount his pony, and going a by-road alarm the town. But he was not allowed to go. Mr. J. Reed, living in the "Hesper neighborhood," near Eudora, started ahead of Quantrell from that place to carry the warning to Lawrence, but while riding at full speed, his horse fell and was killed, and he himself so injured that he died next day.

The pursuit of Quantrell, after our forces had caught up with him at Brooklyn, was so close, that he was unable to commit any further dam-powerless. age to property on his route, but was compelled to abandon almost all his horses, and much of the plunder from the Lawrence stores; and since he reached Missouri a large part of his men have abandoned their horses, and taken to the brush afoot. The number of equipments so far captured exceeds one hundred, and the number of participants in the massacre already killed is fully as great. The most unremitting efforts are being made to hunt down the remainder of the band, before they recover from the pursuit.

Familiar as many of Quantrell's men were with our prairies-unobstructed as to course by any roads or fords-with a rolling country to traverse, as open as the sea-to head off his wellmounted, compact, and well-disciplined force, was extremely difficult. The troops which followed and overtook him south of Lawrence, without a coöperating force to stop him, were practically useless from exhaustion; and the forces which did not follow, but undertook to head him, failed, though they nearly all exerted themselves to the utmost to accomplish it. There were few of the troops which did not travel one hundred miles in the first twenty-four hours of the pursuit. Many horses were killed. Four men of the Eleventh Ohio were sun-stricken; among them Lieutenant Dick, who accompanied me, fell dead on dismounting to rest. The citizens engaged in pursuit, though they were able generally to keep close upon the enemy between Brooklyn and Paoli, killing and wounding many stragglers and men in the rear-guard, were without the requisite arms, organization, or numbers, to successfully encounter the enemy.

Thus surprised, the people of Lawrence were They had never, except on the occasion referred to above, thought an attack probable, and feeling strong in their own preparations, never, even then, asked for troops to garrison the town, They had an ambulance of arms in their city arsenal, and could have met Quantrell on half an hour's notice with five hundred men. The guerrillas, reaching the town at sunrise, caught most of the inhabitants asleep, and scattered to the various houses so promptly as to prevent the concentration of any considerable number of the men. They robbed the most of the stores and banks, and burned one hundred and eighty-five buildings, including one fourth of the private residences, and nearly all the business houses of the town, and, with circumstances of the most fiendish atrocity, murdered one hundred and forty unarmed men, among them fourteen recruits of the Fourteenth regiment, and twenty of the Second Kansas colored volunteers. About twenty-four persons were wounded.

Since the fall of Vicksburgh, and the breaking up of large parts of Price's and Marmaduke's armies, great numbers of rebel soldiers, whose families live in Western Missouri, have returned, and being unable or unwilling to live at home, have joined the bands of guerrillas infesting the border. Companies, which before this summer mustered but twenty or thirty, have now grown to fifty or one hundred. All the people of the country, through fear or favor, feed them, and rarely any give information as to their movements. Having all the inhabitants, by good will or compulsion, thus practically their friends, and being familiar with the fastnesses of a country wonderfully adapted by nature to guerrilla warfare, they have been generally able to elude the most ener

Although Quantrell was nearly eleven hours in Kansas before reaching Lawrence, no inform-getic pursuit. When assembled in a body of ation of his approach was conveyed to the people of that town. Captain Pike, at Aubrey, sent no messenger either to Paola, Olathe, or Lawrence, one or the other of which towns, it was plain, was to be attacked. Captain Coleman, on getting the news at Little Santa Fé, at once despatched a messenger to Olathe, asking the commanding officer there to speed it westward,

several hundred, they scatter before an inferior force, and when our troops scatter in pursuit, they reassemble to fall on an exposed squad, or a weakened post, or a defenceless strip of the border. I have had seven stations on the line from which patrols have each night and each day traversed every foot of the border for ninety miles. The troops you have been able to spare

me out of the small forces withheld by you from removal of the people, I have ordered the dethe armies of Generals Grant, Steel, and Blunt, struction of all grain and hay, in shed or in the numbering less than three thousand officers and field, not near enough to military stations for remen for duty, and having over twenty-five separ- moval there. I have also ordered from the towns ate stations or fields of operations throughout occupied as military stations, a large number of the district, have worked hard, and (until this persons either openly or secretly disloyal, to preraid) successfully in hunting down the guerrillas, vent the guerrillas getting information of the and protecting the stations and the border. They townspeople, which they will no longer be able have killed more than a hundred of them in petty to get of the farmers. The execution of these orskirmishes and engagements between the eight-ders will possibly lead to a still fiercer and more eenth of June and the twentieth instant.