March 26. — Gen. Curtis, in command of the Army of the South-west, this day issued the following emancipation order: Charles Morton, Hamilton Kennedy, and Alexander Lewis, colored men, formerly slaves, employed in the rebel service, and taken as contraband of war, are hereby confiscated, and, not being needed for the public service, are permitted to pass the pickets of this command northward, without let or hindrance, and are forever emancipated from the service of masters who allowed them to aid in their efforts to break up the Government and the laws of our country.— National Intelligencer, April 3.
—A spirited skirmish took place at the town of Warrensburgh, Mo., between Quantrell’s guerrilla followers and a detachment of Col. Phillips’s Missouri regiment, under the command of Major Emery Foster. Quantrell unexpectedly approached the town with two hundred men, and made a furious attack on the Union troops, who were only sixty in number. The latter made a gallant defence, and having the protection of a thick plank fence around their position, they succeeded, after an obstinate conflict, in repulsing the guerrillas’, and driving them beyond the limits of the town. In the action Major Emery Foster, in command, and Capt Foster, his brother, were wounded, one private was killed, one mortally wounded, since dead, and nine non-commissioned officers and privates were wounded. The rebels sustained a loss of nine men killed and seventeen wounded, and twenty of them lost their horses, which fell into the hands of Foster’s men.—Chicago Journal, March 29.
—This night a band of from five to eight hundred rebels attacked four companies of State militia, at Humonsville, Polk County, Mo. They were completely defeated, with a loss of fifteen killed and a large number wounded. The National loss was none killed, but a number wounded. Among the latter were Captains Stockton and Cosgrove, severely.
—A slight skirmish took place this evening, at McMinnville, Tenn., between a party of Ohio cavalry under the command of Capt. Hastings, and a body of rebels under Capts. McHenry and Bledsloe, in which the latter were compelled to retreat —(Doc. 109.)
