with instructions to submit to this Department as early as practicable full explanations in regard to the complaints alleged by Mr. Tassara against that officer's administration of the quarantine laws at the port of New Orleans.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

P. H. WATSON,

Assistant Secretary of War.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. OF THE ARMY, ADJT. GEN'S. OFFICE, No. 235.
Washington, September 11, 1862.

* * * * *

III. Major General Cassius M. Clay, U. S. Volunteers, is assigned to duty in the Department of the Gulf, and will report in person to Major-General Butler.*

* * * * * *

By command of Major-General Halleck:

E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, New Orleans, September 13, 1862.

Hon. GIDEON WELLES:

DEAR SIR: I send inclosed herewith the communication referred to me by Commodore Morris.

I need not tell you that I do all in my power to prevent either pillage or plunder. The boats were sent to obtain sugar for the use of the commissaries of this department, a matter not subject to criticism by Lieutenant Roe.

The tenor of the whole communication is so remarkable, that I forward it to the Navy Department with the indorsement made by me at the time of its receipt.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure.]

UNITED STATES GUNBOAT KATAHDIN,

Mississippi River, September 11, 1862.

Commodore HENRY W. MORRIS,

Commanding Naval Forces, New Orleans, La.:

SIR: I was overhauled yesterday by Lieutenant Commanding Lowry, of the Sciota, while at Bonnet Carre Point, and directed by him to follow on as convoy of three transports of the United States Army. Upon arriving at Donaldsonville this day the transports landed at the upper part of the town, landed a party of troops, and commenced receiving

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*This order was never obeyed. No record of its revocation is found in the Adjutant-General's Office, but in his personal history filled in that office General Clay states that this order "was revoked by President Lincoln in his own handwriting, he sending me on a secret political mission to the Kentucky Legislature to see if that State would submit to a proclamation of freedom to the slaves."

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