your command until ordered to stop. The picket at Watauga will be instructed to remain at that point until the stores are removed from Bristol, at which time it will move back on a line with Walnut Grove Church and one-half of it report to their command at Saltville.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. L. SANDFORD,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

RICHMOND, May 8, 1864.

Lieutenant-General POLK:

Your dispatch of yesterday received. It was not intended by the assignment of General Lee to disturb the harmonious action of the Department of the Gulf, under General Maury, but to give to General Lee the charge of operations in your department outside of General Maury's command. To control them properly requires an officer to be in Central MISSISSIPPI to move north or south as circumstances may require. General Lee's presence there is considered necessary. You have no time to lose; re-enforce General Johnston with the troops you have in hand.

JEFFN. DAVIS.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS, Numbers 129.
Demopolis, Ala., May 8, 1864.

I. The boundaries of the District of the Gulf are thus defined: Beginning on the WEST at the mouth of Pearl River and running north with said river to the thirty-second parallel of latitude, thence along said parallel eastward to its intersection with a line drawn from the junction of the Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers to the intersection of the northern boundary of Florida with the Choctawhatchie River, thence along said line to the said intersection, thence along the Choctawhatchie River and Bay to the Gulf.

* * * * * *

By command of Lieutenant-General Polk:

P. ELLIS, JR.,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

CIRCULAR.] HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT, &C.,

Demopolis, Ala., May 8, 1864.

The boundaries of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana are thus defined: Beginning at the confluence of the Tennessee with the Ohio, thence along the Tennessee River to Gunter's Landing; from Gunter's Landing in a direct line to Gadsden, on the Coosa River, thence down that river to its junction with the Tallapoosa River, thence in a direct line to the intersection of the northern boundary of Florida with the Choctawhatchie River, and down that river and bay to the Gulf, south by the Gulf of Mexico and on the WEST by the MISSISSIPPI River to the mouth of the Ohio, thence up the Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee.

By command of Lieutenant-General Polk:

P. ELLIS, JR.,

Assistant Adjutant-General.