the road to the Hiwassee also on the Hiwassee bridge so as to increase our supplies, which may be boated over the Tennessee at Loundon and afterward sent by rail to this place. I also require a pontoon train of 1,200 feet in length. Colonel Babcock will come down in the first boat to attend to this. The cavalry from Atlanta is reported to be moving into East Tennessee through North Carolina. Seven regiments started on the 13th instant . Please telegraph what is the extent of the assistance you can give me. I have on hand over 1,000,000 rations of meat, but no bread or breadstuffs. Please load the boats will all the bread you can spare from forward.

J. G. FOSTER,

Major-General, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, Knoxville, January 31, 1864.

Brigadier General T. T. GARRARD,
Commanding District of the Clinch:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch of the 27th instant. It will be necessary for you to send an officer to Camp Nelson to see that your requisitions for subsistence sores are filled and to attend personally to their transportation to the gap. You should endeavor to accumulate a considerable supply, in order to guard against all possible contingencies.

There are now at Camp Nelson large numbers of pack-mules, originally intended for transportating supplies to this place, but the difficulty of procuring forage along the road and here has induced the commanding general to countermand the order sending them down. A portion of these mules could be used in carrying sores to Cumberland Gap.

Orders were issued some time since to General Willcox, while commanding the District of the Clinch, to send home both the Eighty-sixth and One hundred and twenty-ninth Ohio. Colonel Pennenbaker, while in command, detained the One hundred and twenty-ninth, as it still had some time to serve. Under the original order you will send home at once the One hundred and twenty-ninth Ohio.

General Sturgis, on the 27th instant,gained a very handsome success of artillery and 200 prisoners. The enemy afterward crossed a large force of infantry over the French Broad, and General Sturgis had to give up the pursuit. Lonstreet is still at Russellville. His infantry are between that place and Morristown, with detachments as far down as New Market, on south side of Holston. They are repairing the railroad, and have the bridges completed over the Watauga and Holston. trains run down as far as Greeneville. They have a small force of cavalry at Strawberry Plains, but the main body of cavalry is on the south side of French Broad.

I am, general, very respectfully, &c.,

EDWARD E. POTTER,

Chief of Staff.

P. S.-Your dispatch of the 20th instant has been received. Your reasons for not undertaking the expedition are satisfactory. Other arrangements have been made to bring about the same result.

EDWARD E. POTTER,

Chief of Staff.