HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF WEST TENNESSEE,
Savannah, March 31, 1862.

General McCOOK,

Commanding Advance Forces:

The two cavalrymen sent by you have arrived. I have been looking for your column anxiously for several days, so as to report it to headquarters of the department, and thinking some move may depend on your arrival.

U. S. GRANT,

Major-General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, March 31, 1862.

General HALLECK, Saint Louis:

Have you control of any point or points on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and what are your designs with respect to that road?

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

SAINT LOUIS, MO., March 31, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

We have possession of no point on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. My present purpose is to attack it somewhere in the vicinity of Corinth.

H. W. HALLECK,

Major-General.

PITTSBURGH, March 31, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

I made but little progress Sunday, but am doing much better to-day. Mechanics are scarce. I have no reply from you to my letter of Saturday. Your last instructions to the special quartermaster limit me to one more boat here, and I do not wish to exhaust my authority until one of the best boats arrives. My plan is to run by the enemy's batteries and sink their transports and gunboats below wherever we can find them. With all my care the machinery will be much exposed to the enemy's shot. Some of the boats will probably be crippled. I ought to have enough for the work and for contingencies.

Respectfully,

CHAS. ELLET, JR.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, March 31, 1862.

CHARLES ELLET, Jr., Pittsburgh, Pa.:

Your letter just received. Your plan is approved. I do not mean to impose any improper limit, but wish the work not confined to one locality, but distributed, so as to get the utmost possible vigor, and therefore recommend immediate inspection at Cincinnati and New Albany, where an immense amount of mechanical industry may work at the same time with the force at Pittsburgh. You need not consider