New Undated Website
IRONTON, April 17, 1865.
Mr. MORGAN MACE,
Ironton, Mo.:
SIR: According to your request, I would submit the following statement in reference to the raid to be in contemplation by Shelby, Jeff. Thompson, Revers, and others into Southeast Missouri. Some time in January last I was ordered to report for duty near Augusta, Woodruff County, Ark. I then belonged, as they told me, to Captain Butler's company, of Lieutenant-Colonel James' Regiment, McCray's brigade. However, as I was decided not to go, I left there and came to Pilot Knob, Mo., where I surrendered to Captain Lonergan January 14, 1865. At the time I left it appeared to me that the rebels held undisputed possession of the territory north of Little Rock, in Arkansas, and small bands of them are roaming over the country even in Missouri to but a little distance from Patterson and Bloomfield. Since I came up here my family followed me, having left there about the 1st of April. I hear from my wife that about the 1st day of this month Jeff. Thompson and Tim Reves had their headquarters at Powhatan, having only a few men with them; that most of the men in our neighborhood had returned home, some of them belonging to the different brigades of Jackman, McCray, and Freeman; that all those men had been ordered again to report for duty on the 1st day of May, 1865, at Powhatan, Ark., and that it was for the purpose of meeting Shelby, who, as it was rumored, was on Crowley's Ridge, some seventy or eighty miles below Powhatan, and that thereupon the combined force was to go on another raid into Southeast Missouri. My wife obtained passes from Captain Henderson, of rebel army, near Old Jackson, Randolph County, Ark., and also from Lieutenant-Colonel James, at Smithville, Ark., and, provided therewith, was permitted to come up, not, however, without having been jayhawked several times on the road. James Parker, John Morris, and Matthew Aiken, below Current River, Ripley county, robbed my family in that neighborhood, and are living there at this time. From my own knowledge and the best information I can obtain I think there must be between 3,000 and 4,000 men belonging to the different brigades named above in that part of Arkansas north of Little Rock. These men say, as they said last year, that they will not go, but there can be no doubt but what they will again be forced in, as they were in 1864, and that they will again be forced in, as they were in 1864, and that the contemplated raid will be carried into effect in the month of May, 1865, unless timely checked by Federal troops. I also feel satisfied from what they say that one-half the people of Northeastern Arkansas would assist the Federal troops if sent there for their protection, as if things are allowed to go on as they now do the people must suffer. I would further say that in the estimate of forces as made above none of the troops now with Shelby are included.
I am, &c.,
A. McLAUGHLIN,