SPECIAL ORDERS, HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,

Numbers 224. Chattanooga, Tenn., August 21, 1863.

VI. Brigadier-General Walthall will move immediately with his brigade by rail and report to Brigadier-General Liddell at Chickamauga.

By command of General Bragg:

GEORGE WM. BRENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CIRCULAR.] HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,

Chattanooga, Tenn., August 21, 1863.

Until further orders all troops about Chattanooga will be under the command of Lieutenant-General Polk.

By command of General Bragg:

GEORGE WM. BRENT,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

HEADQUARTERS HINDMAN'S DIVISION,
Wauhatchie Depot, August 21, 1863.

Lieutenant Colonel T. M. JACK,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

COLONEL: I examined the country in my front as far as the river this morning going to Kelley's Ferry by a good wagon road direct from this place and returning by the road leading from the ferry to Chattanooga. Both roads unite going toward the river at the base of Raccoon Mountain and pass through a gorge about a mile in length, which is very narrow and might be held by small force against a very considerable one. There is one spring about the middle of the defile and three or four just this side, but no grounds suitable for camping more than a regiment. The ground my troops are now on is the best in this region.

I found at Kelley's Ferry one company of Texas cavalry under Captain Sandusky, reporting to Brigadier-General Anderson. He informed me that another company of the same command, likewise reporting to General Anderson, is at Rankin's Ferry, mouth of Running Water Creek, 4 miles from the railroad bridge over the same, with which the Chattanooga and Bridgeport dirt road connects by a very passable wagon route. Captain Sandusky had no information of the enemy.

Artillery posted at Kelley's Ferry could prevent the enemy crossing, unless it be practicable for him to get guns up the mountain on the other side, as to which citizens differed.

The gorge by which I went to Kelley's Ferry has no name that I could learn. There is another depression in the same mountain about 2 1/2 miles above, known as the Pan Gap, over which leads a bridle path from Kelley's Ferry to Lookout bridge.

I sent a staff officer to Brown's Ferry; he has just returned and reports that a small party of Federal cavalry appeared on the oppo-