...st means of arresting the terrible blow was thrown away — for Quantrell never would have gone as far as Lawrence, or attacked it, with a hundred men close on his rear. The first despatch of Captain Pike reached here; thirty-five miles north of Aubrey, at half-past 11 P. M., the second an hour later. Before one o'clock, Major Plumb, my Chief of Staff. at the head of about fifty men, (which was a...