[Inclosure No. 6.]

HEADQUARTERS OF THE POST AND DEFENSES,
Vicksburg, Miss., February 18, 1864.

Colonel COATES,

Commanding Yazoo Expedition:

COLONEL: Your report is received and your course approved.

On your return to Yazoo City you will remain there with your force until further orders, sending a boat down for your camp and garrison equipage and supplies, forwarding such property as you may have collected to this place.

As trade is not yet opened to Yazoo City, you will arrest all parties who have not special permission from the Treasury agent at this point, approved by me; also all steam-boats not cleared from here you will take possession of and return them to this post. You will arrest all detectives who are not regularly authorized from these headquarters or the headquarters Seventeenth Army Corps. A great deal of unauthorized seizure and plundering is committed by men under the pretense of being Government detectives, the blame of which will be attached to your command. The regularly authorized Treasury agents will receive such assistance as you can consistently give them in collecting abandoned property and forwarding the same from time to time, together with such corn and forage as you can collect in obedience to your instructions from Major General W. T. Sherman.

Yours, respectfully,

J. McARTHUR,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

[Inclosure No. 7.]

HEADQUARTERS POST,
Vicksburg, February 28, 1864.

Colonel COATES,

Commanding U. S. Forces, Yazoo City:

COLONEL: Your communication was received. I have ordered your camp and garrison equipage up. Since then I have seen General Sherman. It is not his intention to keep you where you are for any length of time. You will, therefore, send your steamers, with what cotton and other property you may have collected, to this place at once, when I will return the transports to bring your command down. Communicate with General Hurlbut, who is, I believe, at Woodruff's Mills, on the Big Black River.

In regard to cotton, let all parties (bona fide owners) who have remained at home on their plantations dispose of the same to any one authorized to purchase, permitting the Government steamers, on their return trip, to bring it down as freight. Let Colonel Osband send across to the army and he can get men enough to fill his regiment up. Let me hear from you by return of boat. General Sherman goes down the river to-night.

Yours, truly,

J. McARTHUR,

Brigadier-General.