to 30 bags; also small quantities in the seed and stored in pens near the road. This state of things I found on all the roads leading from Key Corner to the interior. After procuring all the information possible I sent a detachment of men-consisting of First Sergtl. J. T. Lawler, Privates L. Wilds, McCauley, Vanhorn, Lewellen, Robb, Marlow, Mills, and Marr-under the command of Lieutenant Kenneth Garrett, Company A (Shelby Light Dragoons), men used to the river and accustomed to boating. The river, with its present stage of water, is capable of floating small-class steamers. The bends being short and numerous, I think it would not be practicable to undertake its ascension, the drift-wood being closely wedged in the channel proper and the cut off, Bostick's Slough, being too narrow and crooked, only allowing about 6 inches of water between the banks and the guards of the smallest boats. About middle way of the slough there is a drift extending from bank to bank, yet, from all the information I could get, I think its removal could be readily accomplished. From the lower end of the slough Forked Deer is a broad, open stream, sufficient to accommodate the largest class of steamers. After emptying into the Obion, 4 miles from the Mississippi River, there is a gradual bend to where the Obion empties itself into the Mississippi. About a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the Obion, and floating in about 8 feet of water on the shore side, I found the boat ordered to be inspected. It proved to be the wharf boat, built last fall a year ago at Mound City, Ill., for the Memphis and Saint Louis Packet Company, being about 180 feet long by 36 beam, her outside newly painted, and her inner works of the most approved pattern, here estimated worth being about $8,000. From all appearances the boat was intended for hospital purposes, having a fine, large cooking-stove in her lower deck strewn with mattresses and cottage bedsteads. In different apartments were found soldiers' belts, epaulettes, cartridge boxes, and tent poles. The smoke of steamers above being seen, the male inmates of the boat were ordered to the skiffs, and in a few moments our party was in the woods.

In a short time the steamers passed down, one (the Ne. W. Graham) having in tow a boat, supposed to be the wharf boat lying at Mitchell's Landing, opposite Cottonwood Point. We returned to the boat, and after removing the family from her, together with all their valuables (with the exception of about $30 worth, being prevented from saving all by the appearance of boats above Hale's Point), the boat was fired about 5.20 p. m. and burned to the water's edge. Everything aboard was lost-chains, cable, and a very large, splendid anchor. I am prepared to show that this boat was towed to and put in possession of Isaac Bracken by a Federal gunboat manned by Federal soldiers.

On Monday, the 28th instant, at Key Corner, I burned (believing it the only means of keeping the Federals from taking possession of it) 91 bags of cotton, supposed to belong to-Echols, of Dyersburg, Dyer County, Tennessee. I weighed 10 bags, their average weights being 480 pounds; this average being taken from the weight of 10 bags. The number of bags burned 91, as mentioned before, marked as follows:

Six bags, belonging to Carnel, in the army at Corinth, I permitted his brother to remove into the interior.

In submitting the above I have given facts and circumstances as they presented themselves, and in closing do not hesitate to say that great praise in due to the officers and men under his command who