The season is now mild, and even surplus tents and all useless baggage should thus be placed, that the troops in camp could pack up and move at the shortest notice. Study all means to save wagons and transportation, at all events till our advance passes the Coosa.

Please continue as heretofore the scout reports. I have two smart girls who have just come in front Memphis via Okolona, Columbus, Selma, Montgomery, West Point, back to Selma, up the railroad to Talladega and Blue Mountain, whence they crossed on foot by way of Gadsden, Black River, Will's Creek, Town Creek, and Larkin's. They saw little or no infantry, and the only cavalry they say was at the Blue Mountain and close up to the Tennessee River.

I am, &c.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-General, Commanding.

HDQRS. 1ST CAV., DIV., DEPT. OF THE CUMBERLAND,
Cleveland, April 19, 1864

Brigadier-General WHIPPLE,

Chief of Staff, Department of the Cumberland:

GENERAL: I have the honor to report all quiet in our front. One party of scouts went down to Waterhouse's this morning. The rebel scouts had been there last night. The report in the neighborhood is that it is the intention of the rebels to encamp a regiment of cavalry at King's Bridge. Three of our scouts, who went out dismounted, brought in 2 prisoners, who gave their names as A. D. Gamble of the Twenty-second Georgia, and A. J. Reagan, of the Sixtieth Georgia Regiment. They were taken about 20 miles from here, in that State, near their homes, where they claim to have been sent too recover from wounds. I sent them to Major-General Howard.

Another party of scouts went about 5 miles below Red Clay. They saw nothing of the enemy, but stopped at the house of a woman who had been visited on Sunday by her husband and son, both of the rebel army. She says that they hold her that the rebels were evacuating Dalton; that there were only 5,000 or 6,000 troops there, and that their army was moving in the direction of Richmond.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

EDWARD M. McCOOK,

Colonel, Commanding.

KNOXVILLE, TENN., April 19, 1864.

(Received April 20.)

Major-General SHERMAN:

I have information this evening that Longstreet's three divisions of infantry have gone east as far as Lynchburg; the last left Bristol on Wednesday the 13th instant. My informant is a man who was employed on the railroad, and went from Bristol to Lynchburg on the 13th and returned on the 14th. He is believed to be loyal and truthful. Reports from other sources also corroborate this statement. Vaughan's cavalry brigade, from 800 to 1,500 strong, moved, at about the same time, from Kingsport toward North Carolina by