give up this place and take up the bridge, but it seems advisable to hold it, and not release the enemy's force to join the army in front of Thomas. Information from General Shackelford on our left seems to corroborate the report of considerable concentration by the enemy in the neighborhood of Abingdon.

A. E. BURNSIDE,

Major-General.

JONESBOROUGH, October 25, 1863.

Major-General BURNSIDE:

Your dispatch embracing telegrams from General Halleck [received]. Two Union men who left Abingdon last Tuesday, having come from New River to Abingdon, report a large force of the enemy at Glade Springs, and a larger force at Abingdon; that one brigade from Lee's army had reached Abingdon; that they saw and conversed with some of the soldiers. They also report the cars running to within 6 miles of Bristol, the point the farthest bridge east was burned, and that the enemy was rebuilding the bridge above Bristol. I would have attacked but little importance to their statements had not General Halleck given you the information contained in his telegram. I have two regiments at Duvall's Ford, on the Watauga, and guards for 8 miles down the river from that point, and since receiving your dispatch I have ordered scouts of 125 men up to Elizabethtown and Taylor's Ford. The detachment of my command is now encamped around this town. The utmost vigilance shall be exercised, and you shall be promptly informed of any and all information I can obtain. I would suggest that the enemy might move from Abingdon, via Estillville, to the Cumberland Gap.

J. M. SHACKELFORD,

Brigadier-General.

SPECIAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. AND ARMY OF THE Tennessee

Numbers 1. Iuka, Miss., October 25, 1863.

II. The entire Fourth Division, Fifteenth Army Corps, will be prepared to start tomorrow for Eastport, to cross the river and advance to Florence, with ten days' rations in their wagons.

III. Fuller's brigade, of the Sixteenth Corps, will relieve, with one regiment, the brigade now at Burnsville, and with the rest take post at Iuka till further orders.

By order of Major General W. T. Sherman:

R. M. SAWYER,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. AND ARMY OF THE Tennessee,

Numbers 2. Iuka, Miss., October 25, 1863.

I. The general commanding the Department and Army of the Tennessee hereby announces the following subdivisions of his command:

1. The Fifteenth Army Corps, Major General F. P. Blair, jr., headquarters in the field.