up Yazoo an expedition of gun-boats and negro troops, by way of diversion, to threaten Grenada. The object is to break up the only remaining railroad connection between Mississippi and the east. i shall be tempted to swing around to Mobile, but this wound be imprudent unless we tempted to swing around to Mobile, but his wound be imprudent unless we are prepared to follow up by taking the Mobile harbor forts, and pushing rapidly up the Alabama River to Selma and Montgomery. I hardly think I would accomplish all this with my limited force. After I have broken up Demopolis (Tombigbee), I could aid Banks, Steele, and Admiral Roter in taking Shreveport, which would be the death blow to our enemies of the Southwest. Water is now too low, but in March and April it will favor. General Grant is fully advised and I have my orders, and merely note these facts by way of prelude to smoothing personal.

When you sent me to Memphis from Corinth, without neglecting my military interests I cultivated a good feeling among the people. This I was enabled to do from a large acquaintance with the ruling families, and there is no doubt, for good or evil, I have a large influence on this river. On arriving at Memphis some days ago the city authorities offered me an ovation. I accepted it with the condition that it should be purely social. It came off last Monday, and was genteel and handsome. I was compelled to speak, and endeavored to generalize as much as possible. I know not how reporters will translate my remarks, but I know they were designed and calculated to do good, for a great number of influential men of Southern birth came to me and said not a gentleman of Mississippi could deny an argument I made or conclusion I drew. Laying aside the constitutional and legal questions involved in this war, I took the ground that, according to the rules of honor as prescribed by the best clubs of Paris, London, New Orleans, and Charlestown, the South was wrong. The people had gone willingly into an election, and because that election did not result as they wanted they refused to abide by the result and appealed to war. I also recalled a few of the facts known to me personally touching the seizure of Baton Rouge Arsenal, its garrison, its arms, their dispersion, the seizure of unoccupied forts, mints, &c., all made by order of two Senators-one (Slidell) a New Yorker, and the other (Benjamin) a Jew, born in Havana. Most of the accords in Louisiana were foreigners. The man who sent me at Alexandria, 4,800 arms from the arsenal was a Pole. I forget the name . He was ordnance sergeant, and since ordnance officer to Bragg. Bragg was a North Carolinian; Governor Moore the same, and Beauregard was the only Creole in the whole batch, and these men involved the safety of Louisiana, insulted the United States, and made us choose between an active war or silent submission to an usurped power. On this simple statement, the truth of which no man can question, I asked the Southern gentlemen present how they could allow their minds at dwell on the little issues made of "homes and firesides," "vadal outrages," Norther pusillanimity, &c. do they not respect us the more for our determined and successful effects to resent these insults than if we had tamely submitted, as Davis, Yancey, and Moore permissed? I do not propose to turn speaker, and trust you will pardon this effort, which was rather addressed to those who knew me in Carolina and Louisiana than to those who heard me in Memphis, or to the Northern people, whose minds and feelings have drifted into newer channels.

After the banquet was well over, and the shank of the supper was being discoursed, and old Union club, which I used to nurse, gathered