Look well to getting your troops from Cairo and below for the movement from the Tennessee River as soon as possible. Tell Macfeely he should have 2,000 or 3,000 good beeves from Ciro up the Tennessee, and across to you from Clifton with the troops. I will start on time, if necessary, with only beef, bread, and salt. I will write you again. I have full and explicit letters from Grant.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Memphis, April 10, 1864.

Brigadier General N. B. BUFORD,
Commanding Northeast Arkansas:

GENERAL: Your communication of 8th April has been received. I regret that it is impossible now to furnish the cavalry you ask for. I have but 2,200 horses. The Third Michigan, 1,,280 strong, and the Seventh Kansas, 1,100 strong, are detained in Saint Louis for want of horses. The country around me is held by the rebels in force. I would recommend direct application to Major-General Sherman, at Nashville.

Your obedient servant,

S. A. HURLBUT,

Major-General.

HEADQUARTERS SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Memphis, Tenn., April 10, 1864.

Major General J. B. McPHERSON,
Commanding Department of the Tennessee:

GENERAL: Not having yet received your ordes assuming command and designating your staff, I address this communication to you.

I suggest that to consolidate Memphis and Vicksburg into th District of the Mississippi River will create confusion, as the Military Division of the Mississippi is so similar in title. I have therefore simply directed troops of the Seventeenth Army Corps on the Mississippi to report to me, and assume command until the Sevententh Corps shall be reorganized.

If it is intnded that I should remain in charge of the river and its garrisons merely, it would certainly conduce to the interest of its garrisons merely, it would certainly conduce to the interest of the service that the two divisions of the Sixtenth Corps, now in Middle Tennessee [Dodge's and Veatch's], and the two divisions of the Seventeenth Corps, now on their way, be combined and reorganized into the Seventeenth Corps, leaving such troops of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps on the river, and such others as may be attached, to constitute the Sixteenth Corps.

This will of course remove from my command officers and troops whom I value highly, but I am satisfied will simplify returns and put the active force in the field into more compact and manageable form. I have no feeling about the matter, further than to facilitate the progress of our arms.

At present the force about Memphis and at posts above is not more than adequate for defense, and will so continue until the return to