day's command, and yesterday, when we were practicing artillery, the forces 5 miles out were all drawn up in line of battle in plain view of our mounted men.

G. M. DODGE,

Brigadier-General.

ATHENS, April 22, 1864

Brigadier-General SWEENY:

Phillips had severe fight near Moulton yesterday. Forrest is between Tuscumbia and Eastport. Considerable force at Moulton and at Gadsden. Watch country to west. I suspect they will try to cross below Tuscumbia or else attack Decatur.

G. M. DODGE,

Brigadier-General.

HDQRS. LEFT WING, SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Athens, Ala., April 22, 1864.

Brigadier General T. W. SWEENY,

Commanding Second Div., Sixteenth Army Corps, Pulaski:

Two division of the Seventeenth Army Corps will land at Clifton, march to Pulaski, thence to the front. There will be 12,000 men and 4,000 animals. You will instruct your commissary of subsistence to prepare to supply them with five days' rations, and your acting assistant quartermaster the same amount of forage. They will arrive in about ten days.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. M. DODGE,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

HUNTSVILLE, April 22, 1864.

Major General W. T. SHERMAN, Nashville:

Major-General Hurlbut telegraph from Memphis, under date 19th April:

I have reliable information that Polk's force, 17,000 strong, including Lee's and Jackson's cavalry, passed through Starkville April 11 for Huntsville. Forrest is going south through Saulsbury and La Grange.

I have no confirmation of this movement here. If Polk's force has gone from Demopolis up through Starkville, it looks as though some point on the Mississippi River was aimed at and the retiring of Forrest a mere feint, or else they propose to concentrate a large force on our right flank. In the latter event Dodge will find it necessary to concentrate the whole of his available force at and near Decatur. Cannot Garrard's cavalry relieve Dodge's force on the railroad down to and including Pulaski? I have directed Brigadier-General Gresham with his command to come up the Tennessee River to Clifton and await orders.

I am afraid we will not get that force back from the Red River in a month, if at all.

Everything quiet opposite here. The force around Decatur, and around to the Tennessee see River, west of Tuscumbia, General Dodge estimates at between 5,000 and 7,000 strong.

29 R R-VOL XXXII, PT III