the fleet should follow to Hickamn or Island Numbers 10. Send all transports you can spare up the Tennessee River.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General.

CAIRO, ILL., March 2, 1862.

General U. S. GRANT,

Through General Sherman, Paducah:

General Halleck, February 25, telegraphed me:

Grant will send no more forces to Clarksville. General Smith's division will come to Fort Henry or a point higher up the Tennessee River. Transports will also be collected at Paducah. Two gunboats in Tennessee River with General Grant. Grant will immediately have such garrisons detailed for Forts Donelson and henry and all other forces made ready for the field.

From your letter of the 28th I learn you are at Fort Donelson and General Smith at Nashville, from which I infer you would not have received orders.

Halleck's telegram of last night says:

Who sent Smith's division to Nashville? I ordered it across to the Tennessee, where they are wanted immediately. Order them back. Send all spare transports up Tennessee to General Grant.

Evidently the general supposes you on the Tennessee. I am sending you all the transports I can find for you, reporting to General Sherman for orders to go up Cumberland for you, or if you march across to Fort Henry, then to send them up the Tennessee.

G. W. CULLUM,

Brigadier-General.

HEADQUARTERS, Paducah, March 2, 1862-8 p. m.

General HALLECK:

I wrote you to-day, and since a gentleman name McCormick has come from Columbus. he says Columbus was evacuated yesterday. Some guns left, but the greater part carried off to Island Numbers 10, above New Madrid. I had a company yesterday at the Blandivlle bridge, and to-day have sent a cavalry force to enter Columbus, unless the troops from Cairo are already there. The Blandville bridge still stands, but all others are destroyed. The arms have not come for the Ohio regiment, but will be here to-morrow. I went to the town this afternoon and ordered the transfer of the sick and wounded prisoners of war from the Cahuteau, which is a very large boat, to the January, which is smaller. The Chateau will go up the Tennessee at ----, and General Grant will be in possession of twenty good steamboats, capable of carrying 15,000 men and 3,000 horses. A violent thunder-storm has been prevailing all day, interrupting the use of the telegraph, so that I have been unable to report to you.

At Columbus yesterday Mr. McCormick says that they had full accounts of Pope's intended advance from Commerce. It seems to me that the force on the island, if promptly followed, may be captured, or, what may be better, forced to abandon their guns, by General Grant's advance towards Memphis.

I inclose you the Memphis Appeal of February 26, containing General