Excerpt of May 31-November 3 Reports of Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman, C. S. Army, of operations 1862.

With the view to revive the hopes of loyal men in Missouri and to get troops from that State I gave authority to various persons to raise companies and regiments there and to operate as guerrillas. They soon became exceedingly active and rendered important services, destroying wagon trains and transports, tearing up railways, breaking telegraph lines, capturing towns, and thus compelling the enemy to keep there a large force that might have been employed elsewhere.

The victory won at Lone Jack by Colonels Cockrell and Jackman, aided by Captain Quantrill, was one of the most brilliant affairs of the war, resulting in the complete rout of a superior force and the capture of their artillery--two splendid bronze rifles--with the horses and full equipments, which were safely brought to me, and afterward proved very valuable.

Besides the officers above mentioned, Colonel Porter and others highly distinguished themselves and greatly annoyed the enemy. I regret that the difficulty of communicating with me while they were so employed prevented any written reports, and leaves me unable to speak of their operations in the terms deserved.

RICHMOND, VA., June 29, 1863.

GENERAL: As a report supplementary to the one made by me on the 19th instant I beg to mention here the officers to whom I am most indebted for assistance in the labor performed while commanding the Trans-Mississippi District.

In the enrollment and organization of troops from Missouri, Brigadier-Generals Parsons and McBride; Colonels Clark, Payne, Jack-man, Thompson, Porter, MacDonald, and Shelby; Lieutenant-Colonels Caldwell, Lewis, and Johnson; Majors Murray, Musser, and Pindall, and Captains Standish, Buchanan, Cravens, Peery, Quantrill, and Harrison were especially zealous and useful. In estimating the value of their labors and of the many other devoted men who assisted them, it is to be considered that in order to bring out recruits from their State it was necessary to go within the enemy's lines, taking the risks of detection and punishment as spies, secretly collecting the men in squads and companies, arming, equipping, and subsisting them by stealth, and then moving them rapidly southward through a country swarming with Federal soldiers and an organized militia, and whose population could only give assistance at the hazard of confiscation of property and even death itself. That they succeeded at all under such circumstances is attributable to a courage and fidelity unsurpassed in the history of the war. That they did succeed beyond all expectation is shown by the twelve fine regiments and three batteries of Missouri troops now serving in the Trans-Mississippi Department.

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