but he must be largely strengthened before advancing, and hence the call on you, which I am glad you have answered so promptly. Let me know to what point on the river you will send your forces, so as to provide immediately for transportation.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 30, 1862.

Major-General HALLECK,

Corinth, Miss.:

Would be very glad of 25,000 infantry; no artillery or cavalry; but please do not send a man if it endangers any place you deem important to hold, or if it forces you to give up or weaken or delay the expedition against Chattanooga. To take and hold the railroad at or east of Cleveland, in East Tennessee, I think fully as important as the taking and holding of Richmond.

A. LINCOLN.

TRENTON, TENN., June 30, 1862.

Major General H. W. HALLECK,

Commanding Department of the Mississippi:

GENERAL: About a week ago I was appointed provost-marshal of this town by Colonel G. W. Deitzler, commanding. Since that time my attention has been called to innumerable outrages committed by our troops, especially the First Brigade, under Brigadier General Robert B. Mitchell, in passing through this country.

An irregular and perfectly unwarrantable system of foraging is carried on by many of the regiments, which is greatly exasperating some of the inhabitants.

A party under the command of a sergeant or wagon-master goes into the country and takes corn and hay, giving the owner a receipt, of which the following is a specimen:

TRENTON, TENN., June 23, 1862.

Received of Robert Green 117 bushels of corn.

WILLIAM ROSS,

Wagon-master Second Battalion, Second Illinois Cavalry.

The original is written in pencil. The country is absolutely full of such papers, which are the only vouchers the owners have for their property. Hundreds of receipts have been presented here within the last week, and among them I have not seen one in proper form.

The brigade quartermaster of General Mitchell has along with him their horses into a grass lot in town and went off without giving any receipts.

While General Mitchell's brigade was near Union City, at the farm of the mother of the Honorable Emerson Etheridge, a party of men from the Seventh Kansas, Jennison's cavalry, under the charge of Captain M. J. Parrott, assistant adjutant-general, were out from camp for some purpose and met a funeral procession with the remains of a respectable widow lady of the neighborhood, and, unmindful of the remonstrances of Mr. Parrott, stopped the procession and demanded what they had in the wagon. Being told that it was a dead woman, they burst the coffin