from the breastworks, I fear the result of an attempt to carry the place by storm with raw troops. I feel great confidence, however, of ultimately reducing the place.

As yet I have had no batteries thrown up, hoping with the aid of the gunboats to obviate the necessity. The present high water has prevented my extending the right to the river.

Colonel Webster is now making a reconnaissance with a view of sending a force above the town of Dover to occupy the river bank.

Please inform General Halleck of the substance of this.

U. S. GRANT.

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI,
Saint Louis, February 14, 1862

Brigadier-General CULLUM, Cairo:

Sherman is assigned to command of District of Cairo and Grant to command of District of West Tennessee.* Arm the Forty-eighth Indiana and let them take the field, reprimanding Lieutenant-Colonel Henry of the mortar boats. Stop all improper telegrams. Get rid of lame ducks the best way you can. A fine battery leaves here this afternoon. Six hundred sailors are on their way from New York by railroad. Keep Lieutenant Lyford.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, February 14, 1862

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Commanding Department of Missouri:

GENERAL; I have just received your gratifying dispatch that our forces occupy Springfield,and am in hourly expectation of having similar news in regard to Fort Donelson. Your proposition in regard to the formation of a Western Division has one fatal obstacle, viz, that the proposed commander of the new Department of Missouri ranks you. I would be glad to hear from you in detail as to the troops from your department now in the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.

Do you learn anything as to Beauregard's whereabouts and what troops (if any) he took with him?

What disposition do you intend to make of Hitchcock? If you do not go in person to the Tennessee and Cumberland, I shall probably write Buell to take the line of the Tennessee, so far as Nashville is concerned. If his advance on Bowling Green must be done, it may well be necessary, to throw a large portion of the troops up the Tennessee, in which case he is entitled to their command.

Burnside has been very successful. All seems to go well.

Very truly, yours,

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,

Major-General, Commanding U. S. Army.

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*By General Orders, Numbers 37, of same date. See Series I, Vol. VIII, p. 555.

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