Ohio Volunteers, Second Brigade, Colonel John C. McQuiston, One hundred and twenty-third Indiana, commanding - One hundred and twenty-third Indiana Volunteers, One hundred and twenty-ninth Indiana Volunteers, One hundred and thirtieth Indiana Volunteers, Twenty-eighth Michigan Volunteers. Third Brigade, Bvt. Brigadier General M. T. Thomas, colonel Eighth Minnesota, commanding - Eight Minnesota Volunteers, One hundred and seventy-fourth Ohio Volunteers, One hundred and seventy-eighth Ohio Volunteers.

Company F, First Michigan Light Artillery, and the Elgin Battery, Illinois Light Artillery, were attached to the division.

First Division, District of Beaufort, Brigadier General I. N. Palmer commanding: First Brigade, Brigadier General E. Harland, commanding - Ninth New Jersey Volunteers, Twenty-third Massachusetts Volunteers, Second Massachusetts Heavy Artillery (serving as infantry). Second Brigade, Colonel J. P. Cleassen, One hundred and thirty-second New York, commanding - One hundred and thirty-second New York Volunteers, battalion of provisional troops, convalescent, &c. Third Brigade, Colonel Horace Boughton, One hundred and forty-third New York, commanding - Eighteenth Wisconsin Volunteers, two battalions provisional troops. Artillery - Batteries C and D, Third New York Light Artillery.

Second Division, District of Beaufort, Brigadier General S. P. Carter commanding; First Brigade, Colonel A. G. Malloy, Seventeenth Wisconsin, commanding - Eighty-fifth New York Volunteers, two battalions provisional troops. Second Brigade, Colonel C. L. Uphan, Fifteenth Connecticut, commanding - Fifteenth Connecticut Volunteers, Twenty-seventh Massachusetts Volunteers. Third Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel H. Splaine, Seventeenth Massachusetts, commanding - Seventeenth Massachusetts Volunteers, Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteers. Artillery - Batteries A, I, and G, Third New York Light Artillery. Cavalry - Twelfth New York Cavalry, Colonel Savage, commanding; Captain Graham's Independent Troop North Carolina Cavalry.

The organization as above given is exclusive of the garrisons left at the posts before enumerated, which consisted of 2,000 effective men, and the total effective force of the corps so organized was 13,056.

The troops had been hastily collected, and the only transportation in the quartermaster's department was fifty wagons and teams for all purposes. This almost total lack of train for baggage and supplies made it necessary to keep the troops upon the line of the railroad, and rendered it impossible at any time before the 11th of March, when we were joined by the other division of the Twenty-third Army Corps, to advance more than six miles beyond the terminus of the railroad for the time being.

On the 1st of March the organization of the command was made; the detachments withdrawn from the various garrisons were ordered to put themselves en route to join their proper brigade at once; Claassen's brigade, of Palmer's division, was ordered to advance to Core Creek, seventeen miles above New Berne, following the line of the railroad in their march. The cavalry was ordered to move up the Trent River road until opposite to the Cross Creek Station - to communicate with that point by such paths as they might be able to find through Dover Swamp, and to push small parties of reconnaissance as far forward as practicable. The only force of the enemy at this time known to be in our front was Whitford's brigade of North Carolina troops, stationed at Southwest Creek and Kinston, and having outposts at Wise's Forks, Gum Swamp, and the crossing of Moseley Creek, on the Neuse road. Reliable information, which was proven accurate subsequently,