culation as currency, if desired, or by inflicting such summary punishment on counterfeiters as will make the issue of spurious checks impossible.

By command of Major-General Banks:

RICH'D B. IRWIN,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Assistant Adjutant-General.

DECEMBER 29, 1862-6 p.m.

Major General N. P. BANKS,

Comdg. Department of the Gulf, New Orleans, La.:

GENERAL: I have just received written information from one of my spies that the force at Port Hudson is 15,000 men. Twenty-nine heavy pieces of artillery are in position bearing on the river. The position is entrenched on the land side.

They have eleven pieces of field artillery but no siege pieces for defense on the land side.

The rebel troops subsist on fresh beef and corn bread and have plenty of it.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. WEITZEL,

Brigadier-General U. S. Volunteers.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, No. 599.
New Orleans, December 30, 1862

* * * * * *

III. The following-named regiments are organized into brigades as follows, and constitute a division, to be commanded by Brigadier General Cuvier Grover:

First Brigade, to be commanded by Brigadier General William Dwight.-Sixth New York, Colonel Wilson; Twelfth Maine, Colonel Kimball, Twenty-second Maine Col. S. G. Jerrard: One hundred and thirty-first New York, Colonel Turnbull.

Second Brigade, to be commanded by the senior colonel. - Ninth Connecticut, Colonel Cahill; Forty-first Massachusetts, Colonel Chickering; Fifty-second Massachusetts, Colonel Greenleaf; Twenty-fourth Connecticut, Colonel Mansfield.

Third Brigade to be commanded by the senior colonel.- Thirty-first Massachusetts, Colonel Gooding; Twenty-fifth Connecticut, Colonel Bissell; Twenty-sixth Maine, Colonel Hubbard; One hundred and fifty-ninth New York, Colonel Molineux.

The artillery and cavalry will be under the immediate orders of the division commanders.

The other regiments at Baton Rouge will be temporarily assigned by General Grover for purpose of administration, discipline, and instruction, to these brigades.

By command of Major-General Banks;

RICH'D B. IRWIN,
Lieutenant-Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.