I had at that time but one staff officer, doing myself all the detail work usually performed by an adjutant-general.

In an hour after being relieved from the command I was on my way to St.Louis, leaving my single staff officer( *6) to follow the next day with our horses and baggage.
The "important special instructions" which I received the next day, assigned me to the command of the district of south-east Missouri, embracing all the territory south of St.Louis, in Missouri, as well as all southern Illinois.

At first I was to take personal command of a combined expedition that had been ordered for the capture of Colonel Jeff.

Thompson, a sort of independent or partisan commander who was disputing with us the possession of south-east Missouri.

Troops had been ordered to move from Ironton to Cape Girardeau, sixty or seventy miles to the south-east, on the Mississippi River; while the forces at Cape Girardeau had been ordered to move to Jacksonville, ten miles out towards Ironton; and troops at Cairo and Bird's Point, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, were to hold themselves in readiness to go down the Mississippi to Belmont, eighteen miles below, to be moved west from there when an officer should come to command them.