Sherman's division. I will want Sherman's division and some of my command at Bolivar to move on Grenada, to attract attention in that direction, while Steele moves across below, from a point not yet determined upon, to do the work designed. Can you send the new troops?

U. S. GRANT,

Major-General.

CORINTH, September 28, 1862.

Major-General GRANT, Columbus:

Scouts from General McKean confirm my telegraph of Price's movement to Ripley. The seminary building was engaged for his headquarters.

I shall move all Stanely's division to Rienzi, and from thence I think to Kossuth, unless you have views differing from mine.

W. S. ROSECRANS,

Major-General.

STEAM-RAM SWITZERLAND,

Cairo, Ill., September 28, 1862.

Honorable E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

I have the honor to call your attention again to a matter that has before been presented to your notice, and that, in my opinion, is of very grave importance to the public interest, viz: The providing without delay an iron-clad fleet of rams to meet the enemy's new flood. You are aware of the frail nature of the fleet of wooden boats that I have the honor at present to command. It is no detraction from the eminent services that they have rendered the country to say that it was mainly attributable to the ignorance of the enemy as to their strength and to the bold audacity of their former commander. There seems no room to doubt that the enemy are now busily engaged in building a new fleet of formidable rams and gunboats up the Yazoo River and its tributaries, besides what they may be doing up the Arkansas and White Rivers, with the evident purpose of resuming possession of the Mississippi River with the rise of the water in the winter or spring. The reports to this effect are so constant and uniform that it does seem to me the part of prudence to take warning and make suitable provision while there is yet time to meet the probable emergency. It is a fact that few have the presumption now to dispute that our flat-bottomed slow gunboats are in no way equal to contend against the formidable rams and gunboats that the enemy have heretofore produced and are likely to again bring against us. I trust that it will be regarded as no disparagement to the brave officers and men of the gunboats, nor of the former valuable services of the boats themselves, to say that the latter are in no way suitable to meet the new order of thinks soon to be produced. It is in view of these, to me, plain facts that I take the liberty of urging upon your notice again the great importance of providing one or more boats of strength and speed equal at least to what we know the enemy have heretofore produced and are capable of reproducing. The disastrous and most mortifying raid of the Arkansas should not

16 R R-VOL XVII, PT II