YORK STATION, February 22, 1864.

Lieutenant-General POLK:

Latest dispatches confirm the report that the enemy have left the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and gone to Union, and a portion went direct back from Meridian on the Hillsborough road, blocking up the road behind them.

R. O. PERRIN,

Colonel, Commanding.

HEADQUARTERS,
Columbus, Miss., February 22, 1864.

Lieutenant-General POLK,

Commanding Department:

GENERAL: I have the honor to state that I am virtually without a command at this place and in this department, and have been without one since the abrogation of districts by General J. E. Johnston, consequent upon the assignment of Major General S. D. Lee to the command of all the cavalry in Mississippi, and I have awaited, not without solicitude, your action in the matter of my assignment according to the views you may entertain, and in accordance with any just claims I may have been supposed to have to official consideration. Having visited Meridian recently with the view of presenting the subject personally to your attention, and having been prevented from doing so by the crisis which was then assuming a form and magnitude overruling almost all personal considerations, I deemed it both expedient and respectful to suspend for a brief period pressing upon your attention the object of my visit, and returned again to my post. The existing emergency has most satisfactorily demonstrated the correctness of my views and claims to a well-defined and specified command. I now, therefore, embrace the earliest moment to request that you assign me to such command as my rank and services may entitle me, or that you will, in case you have no command, apply to the War Department for my assignment to a command elsewhere, in accordance with my rank, and that self-respect which I cannot consent to compromise by being held in a false in a false or anomalous position as a military man.

Very respectfully,

DANIEL RUGGLES,

Brigadier-General, Provisional Army, C. S.

HEADQUARTERS,
Columbus, Miss., February 22, 1864.

Lieutenant-Colonel SYKES,

Forty-third Mississippi Volunteers:

COLONEL: I learn to-night with much surprise that you have probably left your post, guarding the east side of the Tombigbee from Cotton Gin Port down to the mouth of the Buttahatchee, and moved with your detachment toward Loohattan and left the river undefended. You will return without a moment's delay to Cotton Gin Port and resist any attempt of the enemy to cross the Tombigbee to the east side of the river. Should they cross you will check them all you can. Keep in their front, burn all bridges behind you, keep me advised of all their movements, and also communicate with Colonel Richard Harrison, who will be to-morrow at Aberdeen; also notify