[Inclosure.]

TUSCALOOSA, April 14, 1864.

D. L. DALTON, Esq.:

MY DEAR SIR: I leave here to-day for Montgomery, and will be glad if you will write to me to that place, care of W. B. Bell, whether you have succeeded in securing boarding quarters for me. I hope very much that you will be able to locate me at Mr. Sands.'

Mrs. Walker and other persons just out form Florence bring most deplorable accounted of the condition of things in Lauderdale County. The town is constantly infested either by Yankees or tories. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that every good horse in the county has been taken off, and a very large proportion of the slaves. The communication between Nashville and Florence is uninterrupted, and a good many citizens of Florence have recently been to Nashville. They all concur in the statement that very heavy re-enforcements have been passing through Nashville daily for three weeks for the army at Chattanooga.

Seven thousand Yankee infantry, just from Vicksburg, landed at Waterloo last week, and passed through Lauderdale County on their Florence the day before Mrs. Walker left home; the reminder of the force took the upper road. Either the Yankees mean to make two simultaneous campaigns-one in Virginia and one in Georgia-or they are intending one grant campaign in the latter State. I believe that the latter is their intention, and that their real movement will be against Atlanta, not Richmond.

I have read with interest and instruction your Mesico articles in the Enquirer. I hardly think you have exhausted the subject.

In haste, your, truly,

R. W. WALKER.

DEMOPOLIS, April 26, 1864,

Colonel BAKER,

Tuscaloosa:

I send you a number of copies of my proclamation* to absentees and deserters, and desire you to take immediate steps to have them distributed throughout your provost districts. You will send them into all parts of the following counties, viz: Tuscaloosa, Pickens, Fayette, Walker, Jefferson, and Bibb. Send twenty copies to each senator and representative in the Legislature from those counties, and to every sheriff, and in the margin you will write at the bottom of the page of one of the copies of these packages of twenty as follows: "You are requested respectfully to take prompt and active measures to bring the knowledge of the proclamation home ot every one of your constituents who may be absent form his command."

L. POLK,

Lieutenant-General.

DEMOPOLIS, April 26, 1864.

Major-General FRENCH,

Tuscaloosa:

GENERAL: I find it indispensable to clear my department of deserters and absentees, &c., by detachments from my army in the

---------------

*See p. 785.

---------------