SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. SEVENTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
In the Field, near Villanow, Ga., Numbers 255.
October 17, 1864.

* * * *

VI. This command will prepare to move at once.

Brigadier General W. W. Belknap, commanding Fourth DIVISION, will have the advance; the First DIVISION will follow the Fourth, the THIRD DIVISION the First. The artillery will move with the DIVISIONS as previous to its being brigaded. All wagons except headquarters and ordnance trains will be left behind, to remain where at present parked.

VII. DIVISION commanders will see that all ammmunition in their ordnance wagons is transported, and that none is abandoned without proper authority.

* * * *

By command of Brigadier General T. E. G. Ransom:

A. J. ALEXANDER,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

SPECIAL FIELD ORDERS,
HDQRS. ARMY OF THE OHIO, Numbers 131.
Villanow, Ga., October 17, 1864.

* * * *

V. The Twenty-THIRD Army Corps will move promptly at 5. 30 o'clock to-morrow morning south on the Rome road. The Second DIVISION, Brigadier-General Cooper commanding, will have the advance. All trains will move in the rear of the corps, except the ambulances, which will move in the rear of their respective DIVISIONS. Brigadier-General Reilly will furnish a rear guard for the trains, of one regiment, to be subject to the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Boyd, chief qyartermaster.

* * * *

By command of Brigadier General J. D. Cox:

THEO. COX,

Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General.

NASHVILLE, TENN., October 17, 1864.

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Washington, D. C.:

The following dispatch has been received from Major-General Sherman: *

The necessary orders have been given for the repair of the railroad. Deserters from Hood's army report his force at about 30,000; the strength of his cavalry force not known. No additional new from the Tennessee River, except that Roddey's force moved from Tuscumbia to Courtland yesterday.

GEO. H. THOMAS,

Major-General, U. S. Volunteers, Commanding.

(Same to Lieutenant General U. S. Grant.)

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*See Sherman to Schofield, October 16, 5 p. m., p. 311.

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