SAVANNAH, TENN.,

January 8, 1864.

Colonel HICKS,

Commanding, Paducah:

DEAR COLONEL: Before proceeding to business let me extend a kindly greeting to you, in memory of the dangers and trials we have shared. You have my best wishes wherever you may be, and my most earnest desire for your success in whatever you may undertake, for I know it will be laudable.

I send you a lot of prisoners whom I can by no means recommend. Some of them are desperate characters, and all of them will bear the closest kind of watching. They are genuine guerrillas, most of them captured with arms in hands. Captain Biffles and one Hinson are especially guilty, and to be strictly guarded. I do not myself know just what the Government does with such prisoners. Please inquire and act accordingly.

WM. SOOY SMITH,

Brigadier-General, Chief of Cavalry.

HEADQUARTERS SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Memphis, Tenn., January 8, 1864.

Brigadier General J. D. STEVENSON,

Corinth, Miss.:

General W. S. Smith telegraphs that a part of his cavalry are crossing at Savannah. Send the following order by mounted force to Savannah:

OFFICER COMMANDING CAVALRY,

Savannah, Tenn.:

West Tennessee is clear. Move your force down to Corinth, and report from there.

S. A. HURLBUT,

Major-General.

SAVANNAH, TENN.,

January 8, 1864.

Captain SMITH,

Aide-de-Camp, Nashville:

Telegraph General Grant in my name as follows:

I am, crossing the Tennessee with six regiments. The last will be over to-day. We will reach Corinth to-morrow. I will communicate further movements from that point.

WM. SOOY SMITH,

Brigadier-General, Chief of Cavalry.

SAVANNAH, TENN., January 8, 1864.

(Received 10th.)

Brigadier General GEORGE CROOK,

Commanding Second Cavalry Division:

SIR: The information contained in a communication just received from General Hurlbut renders it necessary for me to take as large a

4 R R-VOL XXXII, PT II