Cumberland Gap are three long, steep, and fearfully rugged mountains, and wagons cannot cross them if heavily loaded. My last ration of bread is out to-day, and you know what a poor supply of ammunition I have. The supplies which I here ask for from the troops on the road, they can recover from the supply trains when they reach them. These troops are comparatively in a rich country until they reach the poverty-stricken spot.

JOHN F. DE COURCY,

Colonel, Commanding.

CUMBERLAND FORD, September 7, 1863.

General POTTER:

Even with my raw and green groups I should have approached and perhaps attacked the Cumberland Gap before this,but I have only thirty rounds per man, and the battery not the usual supply per gun. I telegraphed all this long ago to each department. My last ration of bread out to-day. If, after all my exertions and anxieties, some other officer comes up leisurely, fully supplied, and takes the gap with the help of my intimate local knowledge, then i shall be bound in justice to my troops and to myself to show why and who prevented my doing that which I could have done but for the culpable negligence of certain departments.

JOHN F. DE COURCY,

Colonel, Commanding.

CUMBERLAND FORD, September 7, 1863.

Brigadier-General POTTER:

Will you inform me whether I am to be under the direction and order of General Ferrero when he comes up? If I am, then I request you to allow me to resign my present command immediately [after] we shall have had our first encounter with the enemy.

JOHN F. DE COURCY,

Colonel, Commanding.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS, TWENTY-THIRD ARMY CORPS,

No. 62.
Knoxville, Tenn., September 7, 1863.

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VI. The One hundred and third Ohio, Colonel Casement, will proceed to Knoxville immediately, prepared to make an expedition on the cars to Jonesborough, or to some point on the railroad east of that place, for the purpose of repairing and guarding the railroad temporarily wherever it may need either. Colonel Casement will bring his regimental baggage and his share of the ration pertaining to the brigade, after exhausting which he will subsist off the country. At this place he will procure the necessary tools for repairs on the road. General Hascall will use every effort to hurry the regiment forward. It will return on the train which carries this order.

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By command of Major-General Hartsuff:

GEORGE B. DRAKE,

Assistant Adjutant-General