Gentlemen: Having received reliable information of depredations and outrages of every
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kind committed by a man named
Si Gordon, a leader of rebel marauding bands, I give you notice that unless you seize and deliver the said
Gordon to me at these Headquarters, within ten days from this date, or drive him out of the county, I shall send a force to your city with orders to reduce it to ashes, and to burn the house of every secessionist in your county, and to carry away every slave.
Col. Jennison's regiment will be entrusted with the execution of this order.
The following persons are particularly directed to this notice:--
David Hunt,
Clinton Cockerill,
James Merryman,
Robert Cain,
John Murray,
H. T. Freeland,
William Paxton,
W. C. Bemington,
Andrew Tribble,
R. P. S. Ely,
Jackson Miller,
Robert Clark,
W. Tutman,
H. M. Cochrane,
Samuel M. Hayes,
Joseph Todd, and
Jonas Burkhart.
The part of
Missouri in which
Platte County is situated borders on
Leavenworth County, Kansas, the
Missouri River only being the dividing line; and as long as the rebels are allowed to roam about in the former county, committing depredations without let or hindrance, so long will this part of
Kansas be hourly in danger of a raid from such lawless vagabonds.
The rebels there are not an army fighting for independence, but more like a body of reckless banditti, who would scarcely have any more respect for those who sympathize with the doctrine they pretend to uphold, than they would for those who are opposed to them, providing that by an attack they could obtain plunder of any value.
Such being the case,
General Hunter issued his proclamation.
