Seventeen I think are used by headquarters proper, and yet we are being pressed to supply transportation for supplies, and should we fail to do it I fear I shall have a court of inquiry on my poor body. We can do nothing at all in dismounting officers riding public horses, the exigencies of the service demanding that certain officers be mounted, and if they have none of their own they are then furnished with public horses, and of course the finest are generally selected. General Hood has directed me to urge Major Paxton to accumulate supplies of horse and mule shoes, nails, wagon covers, grease, wagons, horses, and mules at Selma for him. He will be at Jacksonville, Ala., within a week or ten days.

Trusting, colonel, that you will soon favor me with a reply,

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. H. EWING,

Major and Inspector Field Transportation, Army of Tennessee.

[Inclosure.]

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,
September 24, 1864.

Major W. F. AYER,

Chief Quartermaster, Army of Tennessee:

MAJOR: General Hood desires me to say to you that if there are ambulances in excess at army headquarters you will cause one to be turned over to General Lee's corps by your own order, and he does not recognize the right of Major Ewing to give such an order as the one inclosed. * There can only be two modes in which you could receive an order from Major Ewing, either by his signing by order of the Secretary of War or Quartermaster-General, in which case it would come through army headquarters, or by order of General Hood himself. This order is one from a junior to a senior, not signed by the order of any officer of higher rank, and is therefore contrary to all military usage.

Yours, most respectfully,

A. P. MASON,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.

CARLEY'S HOUSE, October 6, 1864 -8. 30 a. m.

Lieutenant General A. P. STEWART:

General Hood is informed that the streams are very much swollen, and therefore he directs that you send energetic officers ahead to bridge such as cannot be crossed without this. The trains on the road in front of army headquarters have been stationary for a long time, owing to some stream in their front.

A. P. MASON,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

(Same to Lieutenant General S. D. Lee and Major-General Cheatham.)

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* Not found.

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