your department, you are authorized to do so, or to assign the command as you please, you being responsible for the exercise of proper discretion. You will immediately notify this Department of your determination.

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

NASHVILLE, TENN., December 5, 1864 - 11 p. m.

Colonel E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

I have received your dispatch of this date. While I fully approve the correctness of the rule stated by Lieutenant-General Grant, I am certain the best I can do for the present is to retain General Stoneman in his present command. He was assigned after consultation with General Sherman, and with his approval. I will therefore avail myself of the authority contained in your dispatch to do so. General Stoneman is now in East Tennessee, preparing to carry out General Grant's instructions. If the general can send there an officer in whom he has more confidence, I shall be much gratified to have him do so.

J. M. SCHOFIELD,

Major-General.

SPECIAL FIELD ORDERS,
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE OHIO,

Numbers 171.
Nashville, Tenn., December 5, 1864.

* * * * * * *

II. By direction of the Secretary of War, Major General George Stoneman is relieved from duty in the Department of the Ohio, and will repair to Cincinnati, Ohio, report his arrival there by letter to the Adjutant-General of the Army, and await further orders.

* * * * * * *

By command of Major-General Schofield:

J. A. CAMPBELL,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.

CLARKSVILLE, December 5, 1864.

Brigadier-General WHIPPLE,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

I have just arrived with my command all safe, with a loss of only two wagons. The feet of my men are very sore, many of them barefoot. I was within eight miles of nashville on the night of the 2nd instant, and found, by information received from prisoners, that the way was not open, so, without orders, I returned to this place, and now await further orders.

Respectfully,

J. A. COOPER,

Brigadier-General.