1863 Oct 25

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI,

Pilot Knob, Mo., October 25, 1863.

Captain W. T. LEEPER, Patterson:

I am surprised to learn that your horses are not shod. You ought not to go one day unprepared for duty.

On Tuesday evening, the 27th instant, 150 well-appointed troops will arrive at Greenville from Cape Girardeau. They will march for Doniphan on Wednesday morning, at which point they will make their headquarters until after election. You will join them with all the men you can spare from post duty, and, during their stay in that region, give old Tim. and his rascally gang such a hunt and extermination as they never yet had.

You will summon the wives of all the bushwhackers you can reach to come to Doniphan, and give them plainly to understand that either their husbands must come in and surrender themselves voluntarily and stop their villainous conduct, or their houses, stock, &c., will be given to the flames, and the families all sent down the Mississippi River, to be imprisoned at Napoleon, Ark.; and I will carry out this order as certain as jayhawking murdering is not immediately ended. Be firm, but discreet. I shall have a force at Poplar Bluff at the same time, and Major Wilson will remain at Alton until after elections are held. I shall look for some good work in the lower counties during the next twenty days.

CLINTON B. FISK,

Brigadier-General.