HEADQUARTERS
Yellville, Ark., March 28, 1864
Brigadier-General Sanborn,
Commanding District of Southwest Missouri
General: ...There are several families here who have been deprived of their entire living by the guerrillas. Unless the Government will do something for them they must suffer for want of necessities of life. Will you order the issue of small quantities of flour and bacon, & c., to them? The officer heretofore in command has been thus supplying them in extreme cases...
G.W. Murphy
Major Sixth Missouri State Militia Cavalry
OR vol. 34, pt. II, p. 762
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HEADQUARTERS
Batesville, Ark., May 3, 1864
Capt. H.C. Fillebrown
Assistant Adjustant-General Jacksonport, Ark:
Captain: ...Let me hear from you, and for God's sake send me a boat with some provisions. My troops are provisioned to the 10th. I have been forced to stop issuing to refugees from want of provisions. Some of them are actually starving and the soldiers share with them.
John W. Stephens
Lieut. Col. 11th Missouri Vols.
OR vol. 34, pt. III, p. 416
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HDQRS. DISTRICT OF SOUTHWEST MISSOURI
Office of Provost-Marshall
Springfield, May 14, 1864
Col. O.D. Greene
Asst. Adjut. Gen., Dept. of Missouri, Saint Louis:
Colonel: ...Across the border in Arkansas the first and second tiers of counties are rapidly being depopulated, and bid fair to soon become a wilderness and uninhabited country. Not less than 3,500 refugees have left the counties of Marion and Searcy, in Arkansas, the past week, 3,000 crossing the White River at Forsyth in two days, bringing with them their few movable household goods and a small number of miserably poor cattle, horses, and sheep...
C.W. Marsh
Acting Provost-Marshall, District of Southwest Missouri
OR vol. 34, pt. III, p. 593-594
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FORT SMITH, ARK., May 28, 1864
Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele,
Commanding Department of Arkansas
P.S.
There are here over 1,000 refugees, completely destitute, whom we have to feed. One object in my sending a train to Fort Scott is to send a lot with it to Kansas; and I shall have to send a lot down the river by boats in order to get them to some point where supplies are more plenty, for I cannot feed them here, and they must starve if I do not.
John M. Thayer
Brigadier-General